Master Class

The main meeting room of the Geneva Press Club, which is located in an old mansion, has 18 foot ceilings. Every time I am there, for at least two minutes, I imagine myself living there wearing floor length dresses and serving tea from a silver pot into delicate china cups. This Saturday I was wearing an ordinary skirt and the tea was in plastic cups, but just as good as my imagination against the cold.

Three floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on flacons of neige, snowflakes covering the garden, but hiding the Alps.

The fifty-odd fairy lights in the chandelier burned even brighter as they were reflected through eternity in the two mirrors over the fireplaces, each mirror picking up the reflections of the other mirror and shooting them back, an analogy that matched the work going on in the room.

The members of the Geneva Writers Group www.genevawritersgroup.org were there on this cold Saturday for a master playwriting class given by Lee Blessing, author of many plays, but the most notable A Walk in the Woods. For several hours we shared techniques, ideas, words, concepts, politics.

An apero is usual for the group after a master class, but when we opened the door to the adjoining room, the table had been set with three two feet red candles surrounded by masks: masks from the Venetian Carnival, from Uruguay, from the former eastern block countries, decorative masks, colored masks, masks that invite rather than repel, masks that represent drama and imagination.

I credit this group for much of the progress I made in my own writing career. The support and encouragement is there, from the person who pokes his head in to see if maybe he could write to those of us who have published several pieces. We share markets, information, encouragement, as well as a master class on a cold, snow Geneva Day where masks are objects of beauty and not there to hide behind but to celebrate.