They had a little tour of the campus this morning which I forego in favor of getting some writing work done but I greatly enjoyed the readings this morning by staff and fellows – John Casey had an extremely interesting lecture on Aristotle and his beginnings, middles, and ends, etc. Not your garden variety, silly this is how you do it, kind of lecture. He talked about unity of form and completeness which sounds kind of estoteric here but is one of the topics that also came up in workshop today. Margot Livesey and Randall Keenan are my workshop leaders. The discussion of the first three selections was very interesting. Analyzing other people’s work is definitely very helpful when you are still learning how to edit your own work – maybe that never ends! A+ on the workshop today – really quite good. I didn’t have quite enough time to make it across campus and get to Alice McDermott’s reading but I did my best. The reading was from a new book that she thinks she’ll have done in about year. It is very good to see her again!

There was also a reception with food and drink given by the University- nicely done!  Dinner and of course another reading tonight – poetry reading by B.H. Fairchild – listening to good poetry is such a pleasure.  The quality of all the teachers, readings, workshops, etc. is really top-notch and well worth the trip even if your driving from Minneapolis! Fourteen hours a new friend said tonight – guess I’ll have to stop complaining about my drive down! M