Up the Out and Out the Up

A month after returning from Sewanee, I think I'm finally getting over conference-withdrawal. Here are a few highlights that made the two weeks on the mountain so memorable:

Participating in one of many campus traditions, going "up the out and out the up." Two turrets on a building straight out of Hogwarts contain spiral staircases in questionable states of repair. The words "OUT" and "UP" are carved into the stone at their entrances. The gal who gave the campus tour informed us it was bad luck to climb the Up route; since the days when students carried swords, the proper form was to go up the Out and out the Up. It sounds like it's not to be taken lightly; you may be corrected by a ghost if you get it wrong.


MOTH WALK! 50 drunk writers + 10 nets on sticks + a 60-foot cross + 1 former U.S. Poet Laureate + 5 million moths = epic fun.

Rocking the night away on the French House porch with friends old and new. It was especially great to meet Justin Quarry, a former Kerouac House resident. It was like discovering a long-lost sibling: we'd spent formative time in the same house, under the wings of the same caretakers, heard the same gossip. Despite having never met, we had a lot to catch up on.


I'm heading to the East Coast soon, for a quick visit to NYC, where I get to reunite with some of the Sozopol Seminar fellows; I'm also really psyched meet my agent in person for the first time. Then it's off to one of my favorite places, the MacDowell Colony, for a few weeks of writing, thinking, eating, and ping-pong bliss. Fingers crossed it's less icy than last time...