Truphae: Flexibility Is Key

This young pen shop is writing a new chapter in retail pen sales by finding unique ways to foster community.

- NICKY PESSAROFF

In my life, I have attended more creative writing workshops than I can count. I have read and commented on literary fiction where not much happens, vampire fiction where too much happens, and romance novels where confusing things happen. 1 have been critiqued by professors whose work appeared in the New Yorker, and I have led workshops with undergraduates trying their hand at fiction for the first time. But no creative writing gathering has been quite like the Pens & Pages workshop 1 attended at Truphae pen shop via Zoom on March 28.

This workshop was different for two reasons. For one, although it catered to amateur writers, the caliber of talent was exceptional. For another, I have never seen such furious scribbling with so many beautiful pens. The attendees at this writing workshop were not just aspiring writers, they were regular customers of Truphae in Greenville, South Carolina. It felt like a bunch of friends catching up at one of their favorite hangouts who just happened to be trying their hand at writing fiction because that is exactly what it was.

Those regulars included poets and Converse University Associate Professors of English Rick Mulkey, who led the workshop, and his wife Susan Tekulve, whose poem "In Praise of Fountain Pens" was published in this magazine (Vol. 36 No. 4). Mulkey is the Director of the MFA and BFA creative writing programs at the university in (relatively) nearby Spartanburg, South Carolina. He and Tekulve are also both avid fountain pen users. When they discovered that Truphae was an easy 20 mile drive from the university, they became regular customers.