Scenes from Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina: quiet glories

What a glorious part of the country Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina, proved to be. And what enormously generous hosts I had in my friends Susan Tekulve and Rick Mulkey. We walked, we talked, we taught, we ate, we found flowers, fresh and unsnowy. In the process, I met incredible students and community members, read from Going Over, Flow, and Nest. Flight. Sky., and shared some thoughts about the writing life.

And then there was this: I saw old friends. The glorious Carolyn Wilson Baughman, of whom you last heard when I was in Asheville, NC, for her sister, Katherine's, wedding. The incredible Lois Carlisle, of whom I spoke after returning from the National YoungArts program in Miami. And Lisa Hammond (and her friend Joyce)—Lisa being the mom of another terrific National YoungArts scholar, Laura Rashley, and a poet herself.

So much good feeling. So many indelible memories. An early spring.

Thank you, Susan, Rick, Converse College, friends and community.

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book blast from the past: a special reference-librarian-made display at Converse College

(Thank you, Reference Librarian. Thank you, Susan Tekulve.)

For those of you who didn't know me when I was actually younger than I am today—that is my second memoir, Into the Tangle of Friendship, as well as my fourth, Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World, nested in with Handling the Truth.

I eagerly anticipate my time with Converse students and the Converse community—not to mention friends, old and new.

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(wardrobe choices) Books for a Better Life, Converse College, Texas Library Association: here I come

I'm not a talented shopper. I'm best off in a don't-think-about-it pair of jeans (just ask my students, who have seen me in nothing but).

But three very exciting things are afoot—the Books for a Better Life Awards program, this coming Monday in New York City (Meredith Vieira! Arianna Huffington, Handling the Truth!); a series of talks as the Elizabeth Boatwright Coker Visiting Writer at Converse College, South Carolina, next Tuesday and Wednesday (Susan Tekulve! my SC friends!); and the Texas Library Association meeting on April 10 and 11 (San Antonio, TX! Chronicle friends!, fellow authors).

And so I had to go to the store.

This is painful for me, people. Painful. Mirrors are not my friend.

But here we go. Bright pink to ward off the winter blues. A little fluff in the skirt to approximate a spring breeze. And a pair of nude pumps because I've never owned a pair before and because everyone who helped me today (when I said I didn't own a pair of nude shoes) looked at me as if they wanted to ask, And are you a woman?

Yes, I am. Thank you very much. And now I own a pair of nude pumps.

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