My mind was sated, not the treasure exhausted (Reading, 151, WOOLF); recollections of Virginia Woolf and Heritage Conference

Special Edition of Virginia Woolf Miscellany Commemorating Woolf Conferences edited by AnneMarie Bantzinger On the evening of 15 June 2016, I looked out the fourth-floor hotel bedroom window in Leeds to get a sense of the local geography. A gigantic electronic billboard with a red and blue lightning bolt on a white background filled the view. Slowly the meaning of the message unfolded. David Bowie had died (10 January 2016) and this was one of the many public tributes to the artist that gave the world `Aladdin Sane. I thought about the connections between the public lives of Bowie and Woolf not so far apart as might be assumed. Both played with gender norms, sexualities and alter-egos eschewing one path only, constantly changing, vibrating energy, people who gave and gave and kept on giving. Both attracted a diversity of fans, followers, friends, disciples and scholars. Both are `stars with a legacy by which they are remembered. A constellation has been named in honour of Bowie, plaques, portraits and sculptures remind us of Woolfs star light. The augur of death followed us throughout the 2016 conference. The next day, we learned that Jo Cox, Labour MP was murdered on her way to meet constituents in Birstall, a few miles south west of Leeds (16 June 2016). Cox , a Labour Party feminist also served the public and common good through her anti-war work and appeals for compassion for the victims of war seeking refuge in Europe. By her actions and words (`We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than than things that divides us) she too was a star. Did Jo Cox read Three Guineas? This was my first Woolf conference and like all that is new to us in experience, I was looking forward to days of immersion in the Woolf community of scholars and readers with expectation and trepidation. The programme was astounding, a gorgeous tapestry of panels, plenaries, keynote addresses, excursions, a concert, a steel band, art works, a banquet, a performance and a silent auction interspersed by meals and tea coffee bun breaks. The International Virginia Woolf Society and the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain displayed their wares, side by side with Woolf publishers. Here I met Cecil Woolf and Jean Moorecroft Wilson, standing proudly over their display of golden-yellow, red and green illustrated covers of the Bloomsbury Heritage publications. A treat to behold. Rigorous stamina and firm discipline were evidently required to attend all events; I resolved to rise early and no late nights! Looking back, I am laughing at my naivety. The late-night conversations in the hotel bar quaffing ale with my co-conspirators were as much a part of the conference gathering as the formal programme and as equally enjoyable (apart from the ale). In reflecting on that experience, I reach for a bright orange notebook labelled `Woolf, Leeds 2016. The pages are interleaved with ephemera such as flyers for new publications on Virginia Woolf, a page torn from a notebook with the email address of a new Woolf friend, a copy of the conference feedback questionnaire, the bus timetable for transport from Leeds Trinity into the city, a bookmark from the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain graced with a quote from Woolfs 1919 essay Reading and the conference program, an essential guide for the days ahead. My programme is marked with larges `Xs indicating panels attended (e.g. Womens Futures, Heritage Ambiguity: Archives and Artifacts, Print Culture and Social Class, Literature and Visual Arts, Musical Woolf, Composers in Conversation on Woolfs Diaries and Letters, Curating Woolf, War and Tyranny, Changing Family Life, Rose Wattle Bird of Paradise, To the Lighthouse and there it is -Writing Life and Death). The black Xs mark a journey across `heritage sites in a multi-dimensional multiverse of time, space and territory, aspects of which are ineffable. I wonder now how other attendees navigated their journeys across these treasured filled spaces?