I read. I write, fiction, screenplays, poetry when I can. I teach writing as best I can. What I want my students to understand is that the belief in possibility, the capacity for wonder, and an avid addiction to truth are some of the most important traits a writer can have. But even more important than all of those, more necessary than even talent, is the willingness to work, to be accountable not only to their own art, but to all art. For what we love to continue, they must know no effort is too small. They must build.
I sit overlooking the Atlantic at Emerald Isle. It’s sunrise on the fourth day of a family vacation. Since I was a child, my parents and brothers, uncles and aunts, cousins and grandparents have gathered on this island for a summer week or two. The tradition, obviously, has continued though now we come in October. My grandparents and my father are dead as is an aunt and uncle. Cousins have scattered. Still, thirteen have joined this year for a week of talk and tension and fuzzy memory. And I suppose love. You came to mind, and I wondered who you are and what path led you to Bennington.