July 17, 2019

Big gathering at the Chancellor’s big house last night, billed as a “literary conversation.” It was much bigger than I expected it to be when I accepted the invitation. Cops helped us park, charming young women bussed us to the Chancellor’s door. Main literary lights of Appalachia, led by Wiley and not including me, were helping to advocate a series of literary programs at UNCA, all ambitious, all at one time advocated by somebody else (two of them by me), illustrating that the best ideas do not thrive on their own merits, but require the right advocate at the right time. Wiley’s energy and charisma make the ideas seem viable, and that is well. My guess is that one of the three will actually come to pass. Merritt and Amy both say The Falls of the Wyona is beautiful. My guess is that more people have already read that than have read my poems since I began writing them. The author of the StellaLuna series turns out to be a Grove Park neighbor. I had Thanksgiving dinner in his house when it belonged to Leni Sitnick.