How Many Years?

On the one hand, it seems like another life. On the other, it seems like just yesterday.

Chuggers isn't there anymore, Kim. It's been replaced by a Mediterrean restaurant. I do not know where all those students go to drink now, but I'm sure they are managing fine. In fact, VCU is crazy to all of you who haven't been here in awhile. The campus is spreading like a fungus and Trani is gradually taking over the city.

I am still here. And kind of surprised by it. Bought the cutest house on earth. It was built in 1910. About all I do is repair things that are very quickly falling apart. This weekend, I'll be repairing my gutters. I've become handy by necessity. That's not all I do though. Last year, I started a jewelry business and before that I went back to a sort of school and learned energy healing. I have a studio for the jewelry and I do energy work in my home. Oh, and I had a yoga studio in town for about 5 years. So, yeah, jewelry, energy work, yoga...I'm now a hippy.

For awhile I taught creative writing for adults at cultural arts centers around town, but I started feeling like a fraud since I wasn't writing much so I stopped. I do write though on my blog at http://mayerain.com. I started a book last year and then stopped. Who knows if I'll get back to it? I don't have time and I'm pretty happy writing whatever I want on my blog. I never thought I'd be the kind of person who would have a blog, let alone enjoy it.

I still keep in touch with a few folks from the program: Virginia, Sheri Reynolds, Amy Tudor. Oh, and Gary Sange is retiring from VCU this year. I have an invite to forward to you if you want to go?

Thanks, Anne, for doing this.

Holy Bejesus...has it really been so long?

Damn, has it really been almost thirteen years since I left Richmond for Sweden? It never feels like that much time has passed but I guess it has. I am 38 now. I did move here in 1995. And the last time I was in Richmond was way back in 1999 when I was en route to my grandmother's funeral in Smithfield, Virginia. I stayed with my old roomie, Mona, at the house on Clay Street, and the only person I bumped into from VCU was Kendra.

Since then, my visits to the US have mostly been solely to Philadelphia. In 1998, my dad had his third major stroke and lost his ability to walk. He also had difficulties speaking and, in 2002, was diagnosed with premature dementia. He's in a nursing facility now that specializes in Alzheimer's and dementia cases. It doesn't make coming home easy but you do what you have to do.

Anyway, I will probably be in Philadelphia at the end of July/beginning of August for at least three weeks. If I have enough time, I may pop down to Virginia. Otherwise, I am going to a women's fiction festival in Matera, Italy in September and another in Ireland in October.

Miss having beers with you all at Chuggers... will drink a Kloster öl and think of you!

Confessions of a Conference Whore

Anne Soffee, you rock as the bringer-together of middle-aged writers and poets!

And yes: you're all middle-aged. Um, we're.

So I'm at a conference in Rockville, MD a few weeks ago, and Marita Golden was the keynote speaker. She was just as accessible as she was all those years ago -- i.e. she booked immediately after the conference. Then, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a stylishly appointed Sydney. Squealing and hugging ensued, and then she pointed out to me that the guy I had been sitting next to at a previous session was none other than Wynn Yarborough from the MA program at VCU when we were all quarantined together. I thought he looked familiar.

Then I'm at the CCCC in New Orleans last week -- if you've never been, it is ground zero for college writing instructors: picture 4,000 middle-aged Eleanor Rigbys with an accumulated ownership of over 15,000 housecats and four hairstyles -- and I find myself face to face with Dave Zoby. Yes, I know what you're thinking: it was indeed frightening. But it was also a damn nice treat to catch up over one or eleven beers after 13 years.

It made me realize that falling out of touch is criminal neglect in this day and age. I have managed more or less irregular contact with Dave Hendrickson and Virginia Watkins and Our Lady of the Internet, Anne Thomas Soffee -- but I would love to hear what everyone is doing. (Outside this blog, I'm at john@angryshark.net. Write me or send me naked pictures of your loved ones.)

Am I writing? Occasionally, but not as much as I should be. Am I published? Under a blue mooon and only in the most obscure journals. Am I okay with that? Not really.

I am going to a conference this weekend in Philly. Which of you will be there?

John

If you build it, they will come.

I walked around the corner to my friend Melissa's today, where she was showing and selling her marvelous paintings, and there I ran into Allyson Rainer. Proving that if you create a blog in the hopes of scaring up MFA types, MFA types will magically appear practically in your very own yard.

I hope Allyson will post and tell us everything she's been up to. And you too, John and Kim!

(Also, I would welcome any email addresses you guys may have for other folks so I can send them invites.)

So what's all this then?

Hey guys.

What I have here -- or more specifically, what I hope I have here -- is a place for anyone who was in the VCU Creative Writing Program around the early to mid '90s or thereabouts to check in, say hey and let the rest of us know where you are and what you've been up to.

The idea congealed in my brain over a couple of weeks last fall. First, one of my online blogging buds went to the Callaloo 30th Anniversary Celebration in Baltimore and posted something about a a panel that Dave Wright was on. Then I picked the Times-Dispatch and saw Kendra Bailey's food column. Then at some point shortly thereafter, going back and forth with the always idea-inspiring John Chapin in late night emails, I got the idea that maybe we should have some sort of casual gathering place online -- sort of a virtual Marvin's -- where we can drop in, kick back and talk about stuff. And it doesn't matter if that stuff has anything to do with writing at all. Not trying to take the place of The Whale's Belly or step on its fins or anything, because, like, if I had serious writing or academic stuff going on in my life right now, that would be where I'd tell y'all about it. I just thought maybe a place for lowbrow updates and general bullshitting might coax some folks out of the woodwork.

Oh. I sat on this idea for like five months (still working on that procrastination thing). I mentioned it to Tom DeHaven, and Kim Golden and of course John Chapin but I didn't get off my butt and do anything about it.

Then today John texted me "Guess who I just ran into in New Orleans!" And this popped up on my phone's screen:


I'd like to note that I have never had a picture on my phone before. I didn't even know my phone was capable of such things. And I cannot think of a more auspicious one with which to start.

Email me at anne@annesoffee.com and I'll add you as an author on this blog so you can post. You'll need to create a free Blogger account. This seems like the most user-friendly way to do it.

So, what's everybody been up to for the last ten, twelve years?