Our time together had come to a close and I was alone in the dorm where we stayed at Macalester College for the annual Warren Wilson MFA Alumni Conference. It was strange, that quiet, after all that activity, after all that brilliant conversation, after the nightly readings and daily classes, the meals together three timesContinue reading “Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: All Good Things. . .”
Tag Archives: community
#346: I Drove Through the Desert and Back Over a Mountain to Get Home
I drove for three hours, through the desert and back over a mountain, to get home. Listening to XTC the whole way, I felt every twenty minutes or so tears of gratitude welling up, which I staved off, because I was driving at sixty-five miles per hour and singing along to every single song, neitherContinue reading “#346: I Drove Through the Desert and Back Over a Mountain to Get Home”
#344: I Drove Over the Mountain to Get Here
I drove over the mountain to get here. I drove over Mount Hood. I drove over the mountain into the desert. Eventually, I ended up close to three other mountains, the ones we call The Sisters. I drove over the mountain to get here. This is the place where I will try to help peopleContinue reading “#344: I Drove Over the Mountain to Get Here”
A Single Dispatch After the AWP Conference
Oh my god, after three days of the kind of intensity that only a conference of thousands of creative writers under one roof could generate, I am spent. And yet, at 4:30 on Saturday, as I walk away from the Oregon Convention Center at the end of my last session at the Association for WritersContinue reading “A Single Dispatch After the AWP Conference”
Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: Generative Muscles
I began this blog post on the first full day of Writer’s Camp surrounded by writers in a quick half an hour session of generative writing practice–the large group version of what fellow camper Lauren Yaffe calls a writing buddy system: two or three or more people sit down in a room or at aContinue reading “Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: Generative Muscles”
Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: We Cried And Then We Danced
Yesterday was a day unlike any day I’ve ever had at a Warren Wilson Alumni Conference, and that’s saying something, because there have been lots of them, lots and lots of days. I want to say that maybe this is the sixth year in a row and maybe my tenth attendance altogether for a whoppingContinue reading “Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: We Cried And Then We Danced”
Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: The Next Frontier
Remember that on July 3rd we campers were treated here at Mt. Holyoke College to a fireworks display of stupendous proportions. Yesterday, on the 4th of July, it was quiet. I’m not kidding. After the reading I sat on an Adirondack chair in the dark sipping whiskey in the middle of the lawn and IContinue reading “Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: The Next Frontier”
Mindfulness in 2016: A Reflection
Here’s the new year’s resolution I settled into last year: I resolve in 2016 to be more mindful, to find opportunities daily for meditation practice, and to seek out a community, some companionship on the journey. I wonder how I did. Let’s look, shall we? Two years ago I bought an application for my stupidContinue reading “Mindfulness in 2016: A Reflection”
A Single Dispatch from Writer’s Camp 2015
It’s quiet on campus. Everyone has gone home. It’s just me and Mark, the dorm all to ourselves. He’s here still because he can’t travel on the Sabbath. I’m here to simply take a few deep breaths, to take advantage of some solitude before heading home. I went down to the cafeteria tonight for dinner,Continue reading “A Single Dispatch from Writer’s Camp 2015”
Of Neighborhood Schools and the Threat of Losing One
No decision has been made yet, but a couple of weeks ago now a letter went out from the North Clackamas School District leadership that the closure and consolidation of my son’s elementary school, my elementary school 40 some years ago, is on the table for next fall. Half of the kids at his schoolContinue reading “Of Neighborhood Schools and the Threat of Losing One”
michael jarmer 