Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Day 11 was the final day of fiction workshop. It was my turn to be workshopped, and going last was a new experience for me. The last two years I was the first to be critiqued. As “Akers” I am often expected to go first. In grade school, I would be the first to answer…

Bread Loaf, Day 10 began with a lecture by Mark Doty (and if you don’t already know how I feel about the man and his work, you haven’t been paying attention). I was definitely there, and was not disappointed. (Damn! Where are my notes?????) I’ll have to get back to you on recapping the lecture,…

Well, I’m actually back home, recovering, but I’m going to keep my promise and recap each and every day on the mountain. Day 9 at Bread Loaf was a staff day off. (Yay. This is the first year they’ve done this and it was very welcome.) Most of us did laundry, slept late, and engaged…

After Randall Keenan’s craft class (which was fun and useful) I had big dreams of a quick nap, but it was time to head to Treman to set up for our Harley-themed night. We put up posters of motorcycles, made a bar sign for the front door–“The Exhaust Pipe”–turned out the lights and used red,…

The day began with a lecture by Mac McIlvoy titled “Somatic Wisdom.” He’s one of my new writing heros now that I have heard him read and lecture. (Note to self: next step, buy his books.) Mac started his lecture by referencing Virginia W. (I’m abreviating because it’s nearing the end of the conference and…

Okay, so Tuesday turned out to be my BL day from hell. Not any fault of the conference, mind you, but a fault of personal scheduling, and the inescapable syndrome of FMS: Fear of Missing Something. I had workshop comments to finish after breakfast, then workshop, then lunch with my workshop, which I had to…

Day six is actually the day that the entire Bread Loaf campus takes off. Well, more or less. There’s still food to be prepared, rooms to be cleaned, people to be directed. “Off” applies mostly to the readings and workshops, but it really is a welcome chance to take a collective breath and catch up…

The morning lecture was by Josip Novakovich and was titled “Writing in English as a Second Language or The Mot Juste.” The most interesting part of the lecture to me was hearing how he had learned English. In school he had to choose between English and Russian, and the Russian class met in the early…

Day Four’s morning lecture was “Lyric Poetry and the Problem of Time” by David Baker which I had hoped to attend, but I still had workshop comments to complete before we met at 10AM so I skipped. When our workshop met, we continued the excellent work from the prior meeting. The level of work continued…

Day three officially began with Robert Boswell’s lecture “Process and Paradigm.” It was really moving. He framed it by using the story of a young, desperate woman he met while on the road, staying in a hotel. It started humorously and ended very thoughtfully and made me reflect on the morals of co-opting other people’s…