Just returned from a three-week residency at Yaddo. Things I learned there: I need quiet. I need a cool space (as in not warm) so I can finish things. I am healthiest when I write for long hours and then run and then socialize with geniuses because feeling humbled by their company really gets me going. I need a space of my own, particularly when it is Sylvia Plath’s old studio, with a desk so old and worn and smooth under my wrists it feels like medicine. Residencies work for me. I hope I may go back one day.
Next up: a lovely long month in Los Angeles to read what I wrote and self-censure like crazy.
After that: the Breadloaf Conference in Vermont, where I will be a work-study fellow. This is officially the summer of writing in the East. So grateful for these opportunities.