On April 29th, the American Studies Program at Boston University hosted me as the speaker to end the academic year. I took that opportunity to share brand new work. I read from my work-in-progress, Blissfully Childfree: A Memoir in Letters. The feedback I received was incredibly generative. An extraordinarily engaged audience told me what resonated, what didn’t, and what they hoped would be addressed in other parts of the manuscript. And that room was so full of good energy! People from every part of my life!
A few weeks later, I headed to Charleston, South Carolina, to participate in a scholarly retreat hosted by Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. The sociologists, legal scholars, and education scholars gathered made for excellent interlocutors, and they were generous enough to let me participate even though I had to leave a little early because I was traveling internationally before I received the invitation.
I spent May 23rd through May 30th in Greece!!! I was one of seven writers being mentored by Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. It was an extraordinary residency at Rosemary’s House. I hadn’t heard of Rosemary’s House, but I saw that Maggie Smith had been a mentor there before, so I knew it would be worthwhile. And, there was no way I was going to pass up an opportunity to meet Deesha Philyaw in person.
That week in Greece is already proving to be life-changing. It was a gift I could give myself. And it’s like so many others: it keeps giving.
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