Wine and Words Writing Retreat 2019 is underway in Branson, Missouri! My friends/colleagues, Sara and Shannin, and I–English professors all–are snugly tucked away in a log cabin in the Ozarks for the next couple of days to write. What could be more delicious?
We arrived around 4:30 this afternoon. Each of us came from a different direction. After unloading food, luggage, books, and computers, we poured glasses of wine and spent a couple of hours catching up. Shannin and I are colleagues at the same university; Sara defected to another university a couple of years ago. Our loss, to be sure.
While Shannin and Sara swapped book ideas for their young adult literature courses, I caught up with a few of my Cup & Quill clients. Then, we talked shop for a little while–topics included the job market for Phds in English, which is as dismal as ever, the peculiarities of department chairs, the politics on university campuses, and the challenges of teaching these days. Eventually, we found ourselves a bit peckish. Sara quickly whipped up a salad and heated some frozen pizzas. We sat down to dinner and continued our conversation.
Other than quick dashes to the store, we won’t leave the cabin much. We are well stocked with wine–Malbec for Shannin and CabSavs for Sara and me–coffee, healthy snacks, the ingredients for some nice meals, and some not-so-healthy snacks as well. No writer that I know can write anything of value without a little chocolate for fuel.
After dinner, we had an accountability planning session. Armed with our notebooks, we sat at the table and declared what we intended to focus on this evening and tomorrow morning. We have a mid-day check-in planned to make sure we’re sticking to our plans and making progress.
As I write this, a conversation about Alice Walker’s antisemitism is in progress. Should we still teach her work? What about Sherman Alexie? These conversations remind me why we got into academia in the first place. We like asking hard questions to which there may not be answers. Such questions lead to more questions and more questions lead to more nuanced ways of seeing the world. That’s what academia is all about. That’s why the next couple of days are going to be awesome.
