January 25, 2012

Invited to AWP in Chicago to read fiction, and to be a “presenter” at Rowe , in Massachusetts, for The Sun. Turned down AWP because of Malta (though it would have been otherwise had they contacted me five days earlier), and will probably turn down The Sun because of Spoleto– and because I was not good the last time I did it for them. Galling, as I love to do those things, and haven’t been invited in a long time. Teaching Greek tragedy I try to convince my students that Fate never forces an action or a kind of life, though it may insure that all easy roads lead in a single direction. Let's ask Fate someday why longed-for things always come at impossible times or not at all, why the desired person is not, at the point of meeting, desiring. I picture Fate right now as a fat old plutocrat who, asked the secret of his success, holds his belly and laughs, and gives away nothing.