2004 Dargon Writers' Summit

Visit our 2004 Summit Flickr page to see all the photos plus captions!

The 2004 Dargon Project Writers' Summit was held in the Cascades region surrounding Portland, Oregon. Foregoing the city where we arrived, we explored the magnificent Columbia River Gorge and stayed in a lovely cabin on the slopes of Mt. Hood.

Our local host was none other than Jim Owens, an early FSFnet contributor and one of the two remaining founders of the Dargon Project. Throughout our five-day adventure, Jim did everything possible to make our visit as relaxing and enjoyable as possible. He did an excellent job of hosting, despite his very stressful personal life. The only disappointment we had was that five days wasn't enough time for everything there is to see and do in the amazing Cascades region; we could easily have had a two-week Summit and still not gotten bored! It is a truly inspiring landscape.

This year's Summit took place in mid-July. Like the 2003 Summit, Jim elected to expand the Summit by offering an additional, optional two-day writing exercise. However, unlike 2003, Jim opted to schedule the exercise before the working sessions, rather than afterward. In addition to our host, three of our staff writers flew into PDX on Wednesday evening, with the remainder arriving on Friday, bringing or total attendance to seven for the weekend working sessions. While there weren't as many writers in attendance as last year's mass migration to Texas, the smaller group was both more manageable and more intimate.

As always, the Summit was a balanced mixture of work, sightseeing, and relationship-building. Our working sessions focused on writing practice and techniques, as well as issues that apply specifically to DargonZine, such as planned collaborations and communal events taking place in our shared milieu. Part of our time is spent exploring and learning about the unique attractions of the area where the Summit is being held, ably guided by our insightful local host. The social element of the Summit includes renewing old friendships, meeting and welcoming new writers, and generating commitment and lots of enthusiasm for working together for the betterment of the magazine and our writing. In all these respects, the 2004 Summit was a great success.

At right are thumbnail versions of some of the pictures we took at the 2004 Summit. Clicking on an image on this page will bring up the full-sized picture with a detailed caption. The photos generally are a reasonably-sized 30-75k each.

If you find these images interesting, check out the pictures and description of our other Summits on our Dargon Writers' Summit page.