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(This essay will appear in the University of Dayton Magazine in June 2012.)

For three days, we laughed.

OK, we howled. So much so that we dubbed the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop the "Woodstock of Humor."

But it's not just the sound of laughter I remember from this spring's gathering of 350 writers from around the nation.

My eyes closed, I listened to Suzette Martinez Standring's gentle, melodic voice guiding a group of writers through a creative-writing exercise. A trained hypnotherapist and author, she urged us to tap deep into our subconscious, to use our mind like a "3-D coloring book" to create our own Instagram out of a long-ago memory.

I flash back to Jan. 15, 1988, to a quick break during the University of Dayton board of trustees' meeting. It's early in my UD career, and I'm worrying about getting this video assignment right.

Erma Bombeck '49 sits in front of me and delivers an 84-second anecdote about how Marianist Brother Tom Price, her English professor, first told her she had a gift for writing. She speaks directly from the heart to the videographer as though he were a dear friend. No notes. No hesitation. No pretense.

Her words give me a chill.

"So I must tell you, you sort of slide things under the door and wait until the great critic comments on them," she recalls. "And he saw me one day outside the cafeteria and he said three words to me, that's all, just three words that were to sustain me for the rest of my life, I think. He looked at me and said, 'You can write.'"

I can't suppress a laugh when she quips, "I won't believe him. And then I thought, no, he's a man of the cloth. I mean he'd have to be on his knees for the rest of his life repenting for this if he didn't mean it."

Her words, filled with warmth and humility, spoke to this young writer. Years later, working with the Bombeck family and a group of alumni, I launched the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop, a labor of love that we run on a shoestring.

This year's workshop sold out in eight days, without any slick marketing. Jill Fales, a columnist for The Orange County Register, sat patiently by her computer and waited for online registration to open. "It was like getting concert tickets to the Rolling Stones," said the first-time workshop attendee.

Writers know this workshop is different than any other in the country. It's part love letter, part family reunion, part pep talk.

Authors, mommy bloggers and humorists all make the pilgrimage to Erma's alma mater to honor her legacy, laugh and soak in advice, tips and encouragement from other writers. They mingle with the Bombeck family and celebrity writers like this year's Alan Zweibel, one of the original "Saturday Night Live" writers, and the hysterically funny Adriana Trigiani, who's created lively novels like Big Stone Gap.

To those who grew up with Erma's columns hanging on their refrigerator doors, Erma always felt like she could be your next-door neighbor. Her writing captured the foibles of family life in a way that made us laugh at ourselves. "My idea of housework," she once wrote, "is to sweep the room with a glance."

We've tried to bottle Erma's spirit.

"I don't know of any other writers' conference where the famous and the unknown sit side by side in mutual respect. That's Erma," observed Tracy Beckerman, a nationally syndicated humor columnist and author from New Jersey who found the confidence to write after attending her first Bombeck workshop in 2006. Today, she's on the workshop's faculty.

"When I came to my first conference, I had one column in one small-town newspaper. The support of this writing community is incredible," she said.

Writers leave the workshop renewed and inspired, ready to find their own voice.

"People may tell you you're the next Erma Bombeck. No, you're not," author and stand-up comic Nancy Berk cautioned writers in her "The Power of Erma" session. "Do it your way. Listen to the voices that matter."

Just like Erma did.

- Teri Rizvi

Teri Rizvi, associate vice president for University communications at the University of Dayton, founded the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop in 2000.