Marci, Carol and I met to meditate at 7 a.m.
again.
At
breakfast I got more compliments on my poem, including some very specific and
sincere words of praise from Ron Rash, probably the most famous and successful
author here, who has published books of short stories, a novel, and a book of
poetry.
Our
nonfiction class met at 9:30, and we critiques two other student pieces, and I
learned a lot form the comments, as usual. I could see one of the pieces needed
“more scene and less narrative,” which also applies to my book.
During
class, Jessica passed around a wonderful-looking book by Linda Barry titled What It Is. It appears to be a
collection of collages and words presented as art. I would love to spend some
time with it. She also spoke of a book about writing by Brenda Miller and
Suzanne Paola titled Tell it Slant.
After
lunch I had another talk with my new friend Victoria. We are an unlikely pair:
She is a 40-year-old conservative Christian from Alabama, and I am a
64-year-old liberal Buddhist from Massachusetts. We get along great. We went to
the library and had a long talk about our childhoods (both with deeply troubled
mothers), and about the Bible. It was very interesting.
At
4 p.m. (as I write this), Will, Claude and I are all sitting in the living room
writing. Will and I had been on the porch until a strong rainstorm swept in
form the west and inundated us.
After
dinner, there was another evening of student readings, and again, they were
wonderful. I worked on critiques of two
of my classmates’ pieces. I also worked on our writing prompt, which was to
write a biography of a place. I ended up making a word picture—that is, a
picture made up of words. I tried to make them look like the Potomac River, and
I included words, names, and places related to the Potomac River. It is
strange, but I like it.
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