UPDATE, July 28: Get a flavor of the festival! Check out our Saturday cocktail hour “party pics,” now up at Rural Intelligence.

Berkshire WordFest came to a dreamy close on Sunday. Susan Orlean spoke in the Glen, framed by masses of rue and cleome and nicotiana and the small, darting figure of her son. She described how and why her famously offbeat subjects come to her.

“My subjects are stories and conduits,” she said (or words to that effect). She’s interested in the peculiar, the surprising, the absurd—not as ends to themselves, but as routes into larger truths about the human condition. What is the nature of passion and obsession? Why are human beings compelled to collect things? How do we make connections and forge community?

She was thoughtful, vivid, articulate and extremely funny: all the pleasures of a Susan Orlean story, plus the warmth and charm of the writer herself.

Our popular Poetry on the Terrace series provided the close-out: Hannah Fries, poetry editor of Orion, and Tess Taylor, the current Amy Clampitt Resident in Lenox, read from their work. Fries drew from the material of myth, Taylor from the earth and the person of her grandmother. Rain fell softly on the Terrace awning and mist drifted through the garden.

–

A few dispatches from WordFest:

• Declaring the festival a “huge success,” Berkshire Living’s Lesley Ann Beck offers her lovely “top ten list of moments” from the weekend.
• WGBH’s Daily Dish writer Cathy Huyghe dishes on Ruth Reichl’s talk of craft and “food-first” experience of the world.
• Susan Orlean tweets on The Mount: Wow — Edith Wharton’s house, The Mount, is extraordinary. Worth a trip to Lenox MA just to see it…
• Martha McPhee in a similar vein: I loved being at Wharton’s house and look forward to more. Rainy though gorgeous.
• And Ruth Reichl: The Mount this morning; so beautiful, even in steamy weather. Thoughtful audience. Amanda Hesser wandering gardens with her adorable twins.

The Mount is deeply grateful to all twenty-nine of this year’s smart, generous and thought-provoking speakers, plus our interviewers and intoducers extraordinaire! And thank you, so much, to all who came and took part. Photos and videos from the weekend to come.

–

Check back soon for information on next year’s festival! Dates to be announced shortly.