My first year at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, I was asked if I'd be up for mentoring a high school playwright. Since I teach regularly, I agreed -- though I was secretly kind of afraid I would not know exactly what I was doing. I was paired up with David Garrison, a funny and talented young writer. (In fact, all of the young writers really surprised me with their plays -- some funny, some dramatic, and some absolutely heartrending.) I had a really terrific time working with him and -- as it turns out David has become one of those artists who returned to the conference time after time -- as a high school writer, then as an intern, then as assistant technical director -- and now David is a teacher himself. The idea that what we do has reverberations far beyond the workshopping of a 10-minute play is not lost on me. And that's just one of the reasons that the work means so much.  - Tira Palmquist, Ten Mile Lake (2012), The Way North (2018), ​and conference dramaturg/director/superfan