Write On-Let’s Hope
On the Beat
BOOM & BUST: Barnaby Conrad arrived in Santa Barbara in the early 1970s having written a blockbuster (Matador, three million copies sold so far), and decided to start a writers conference.
Artist, raconteur, ex-bullfighter, and famous in San Francisco for presiding over a celeb hangout named for his best-seller, El Matador, Conrad was a master at running a salon-saloon but had no idea how to operate a writers conference.
But from the first year, 1973, at Cate School, “We never lost money,” Conrad told me. “We (his wife Mary was cofounder and took care of the business side while Conrad dealt with the writers) made enough each year to go around the world.”
