Quick! Name the only protected park in the world managed by two countries

Two weeks from now I’ll be flying to New England to write in the surroundings of a national park in Maine. Or should I say, in Canada?

FDR slept here.

I am one of a handful of writers accepted to Iota: The Conference of Short Prose at Roosevelt Campobello International Park this year. The schedule they sent with my acceptance letter clued me in on just how international this conference location is. “All times on the schedule are in U.S. EST.,” the IOTA director wrote from the conference office in Lubec, Maine, pointing out that Campobello Island is a New Brunswick island in a Canadian time zone. “This is a source of constant confusion, and we’ll go over it all when we’re together.” As a P.S,. she reminded us to bring a passport. “You’ll need it!”

Roosevelt Campobello International Park was created in 1964 after an international treaty was signed by Canada’s Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. Both countries provide financial support to the park, and Parks Canada and the U.S. National Park Service share responsibility for its upkeep.

The conference promises three days of writing workshops, facilitated discussions and nightly readings led by published authors Abigail Thomas and Debra Marquart. Any of you Safe & Sound blog followers who liked the memoir A Three Dog Life as much as I did will understand how eager I am to meet Abigail Thomas – she’s the one who wrote it. Debra Marquart is no slouch, either – I just downloaded an audio version of her memoir The Horizontal World and plan to finish it before we fly to Bangor in July.

Abigail Thomas is from upstate New York and Debra Marquart is from Iowa. Both teach writing during the year, so in addition to working on my own writing at the conference, I’m also hoping to pick up some teaching tips I can use in the memoir-writing classes I lead in Chicago when I get home.

Of course I’ll be bringing copies of my book Writing Out Loud to share with my new best friends Abigail and Debra. And with other Iota participants, too, whether I meet them in Maine, or in Canada.