readings, panel discussions, --versations, and it began the first years looking at the work of ernest deming way and it grew -- ernest hemingway and it grew. there was a seminar devoted to tennessee williams and a collection of writers. they look to people like james -- james merrill. since that time, over the 30 plus years, the seminar has stuck to that same four-day format. it is an investigation of a particular literary theme. anyway you can divide contemporary american literature, we have had seminars devoted by biography an autobiography, seminars devoted to poetry as well as in a particular sense the poetry of elizabeth bishop. we have looked at the popular crime fiction genre. we did a seminar called the dark side. a lot of really wonderful big-name crime writers. we delve into nonfiction through a variety of topics. one of the things we like to do is explore how nonfiction writing and fiction talk to one another and how a biographer or historian can learn something from an all of us -- from a novelist. >> the idea that writing can restore something to us, biography is an act of recov