It’s been two weeks, I’m back at work, back in the real world, but mentally I’m still here:

Sewanee Writers’ Conference is tucked away on a forested mountain in the Smokies of Tennessee, hosted by University of The South, an episcopal university with old gothic stone buildings (and newer buildings made to look older).

For two weeks I was immersed in the world of writing. Every other day, I had poetry workshop with 11 other poets, led by Marianne Chan and Ananda Lima. I also took five special topics classes: a class on the “I, too” gesture in poetry, a class on visual poetry, a class on vulnerability in risk in poetry, a class on sequencing a poetry manuscript, and a class on making mini zines. I attended three poetry craft lectures, by Carl Phillips, Danielle Cadena Deulen, and Ananda Lima. I saw almost all of the fifteen (!) participant readings (each of 11 writers each), to support my fellow Sewanee students, all of the Poetry faculty readings, and a few of the faculty readings in other genres.

My days were full, busy, and often rushed, the complete opposite of a residency, where you have hours of unstructured time. But this was exactly what I had been seeking. There were some days where I raced from dorm to breakfast to workshop class to lunch to the first reading of the day to special topics class to craft lecture to second reading of the day to dinner to faculty reading to the social gathering after hours. Each evening there was an open bar and social activities like karaoke, square dancing, game night, a bonfire, and a dance party. Every other morning there was a guided hike along one of the trails near campus.

I met some wonderful, interesting people at the conference, and wished I could have gotten to know more of them, but in a crowd of 120+, there is only so much time to get acquainted with everyone. But I returned with a long list of new writers to keep in touch with on social media, an outrageous stack of new books and an even longer list of reading recommendations. Not to mention my pages and pages of notes from workshop and classes.

The task now is integrating all of the lessons into my normal writing life. If you’ve read this far, thank you for being patient in the disruption of the weekly newsletter schedule. We’re back!