Last week I was in Nashville at Jared Dillian's conference.

The speaker lineup was stacked: Tony Greer, Meb Faber, Eric Balchunas, Peter Boockvar, Barry Knapp, business ethics professor Chris Freiman - and a ton more (before one even starts to list the cast of characters in the insane audience). Suffice it to say, the range of topics was wild.

I was there to add to that range and sit down with Jared for a fireside chat about…

Literature.

Yes, it's an investment-themed conference. No, it wasn't like any other I've been to.

The topic idea was Jared’s. He pitched it to me a year ago as something like, “I want to talk about the books and the writing, and not just the financial stuff. I want somebody to actually ask me questions about the literature industry and why Barry Hannah’s the best author. I feel like we can just talk about that anyway, so.”

This is how you pitch me, by the way.

Our hour-long session went everywhere: MFA vs. CFA, how to get a book deal in the modern era, and a tangent on cat psychics that started when I praised the ‘90s group Us3. Is there a connection? Not a clear one, but sometimes these things just emerge.

What exactly does a mostly financially minded audience take from a session like this? I heard from a lot of them, in the lobby and in the hallways, as people wandered in and out of sessions, actually, with all sorts of personal anecdotes to share.

They learned, or heard it echoed if nothing else, that even if you're not publishing, not sharing, and not trying to be a writer, writing is essential for sharpening your thinking. It's not just about making art. Writing spills over into every part of your life.

Some people know this and do it all the time already. More people know it and wish they did more of it. Hearing us talk about it was an espresso shot of confirmation.

Because - say you're doing research. Writing it down helps, and not in a small way. Traders know this. Investment bankers know this. Diligence people and macro fund operators know this.

It’s how we think about writing, individually, that moves around in our heads.

And that's what I kept hearing variations on. Writing means you find things out. You find out when you're wrong. You find out where you're wrong. And if you're not writing it down, how else would you find out?

I won’t pretend to know what a presentation like this means for creative writing or fiction. But when a sample of voices from an audience of this many people generally agrees on the power of writing in their lives(?!), that's an extremely validating thing to witness.

AND and and,

If Jared hadn't started his newsletter all those years ago at Lehman?

We never would have had this conversation or this conference.

Which is exactly why I am writing this down now.

Write. Read. Do both more.

Jared's newsletters (and more) are all here: https://www.jareddillian.com