Whatever My Version of an MFA Program Is

It involves springtime in the French Quarter, I think.

Hi friends.

Over the next few weeks there’s a lot of literary star power in New Orleans, which is always a treat. This week alone, the whip-smart Sloane Crosley (interviewed by me here) will be at Garden District Books tomorrow, and Thursday night our dear friend Mary H.K Choi will be at Octavia Books. And, of course, Kristen Arnett and Isaac Fitzgerald will be at BJs on Saturday. (A big congrats on Kristen’s pub day today for her new novel, and this stunning review by Rufi Thorpe of it in the NYTBR yesterday.)

And tonight Xochitl Gonzalez will be appearing at Tulane, but yesterday I got to sneak in some drinks with her and meet her for the first time at her hotel bar. We writers really love a hotel bar, don’t we? (Writers really love bars.) She had been working and had a print-out sitting in front of her at her table. Just yesterday, I had printed out the next 100 pages of my novel, and had part of it sitting in my bag with the intention to scribble on it at some point later in the night. Two writers, carrying our books with us from place to place.