The KV speech was great! He is getting pretty old (close to 80 I think) but he is still brilliant. I have noticed that a lot of what he says now is a repeat of something from one of his books. BUT, he freely admits that he is doing so.He spoke about the war for a little bit, then spent some time talking about writing. He gave two pieces of advice for writers: NEVER use semicolons, all they do is prove you've been to college, and no one cares. And, throw out the first three pages of your book, because all you've done is introduce yourself to the reader, and they don't care who you are. He also suggested an interesting writing exercise. He said, write the best 6 line poem you can. Work hard on it, and get it just right. Don't memorize it, and don't show it to anyone. Don't even tell anyone you've done it. Then, when you have it as good as you can, rip it into tiny pieces and throw them in far-spread garbage cans all around town. NEVER tell anyone what you wrote. He explained that writing something well is its own reward, you should write to create, not for what others may think. I don't know if I'd be able to do that!Anyway, seeing Vonnegut speak was a life-long dream, and I'm glad I was able to do it.