Chris Lacass, Penelope Pelizzon, Marilyn Nelson, Chip Livingston and Susan Letcher.

Lots of comings and goings at Soul Mountain these last few days. On Saturday, the retreat hosted a day of silence and a nice sit-down dinner for several UCONN writers. A new resident from NY arrived yesterday. The energy in the house keeps changing which makes writing a little tougher, amplified by the power outages from storms. Four more days of writing and then to New Haven for a reading at the ALL Gallery. And then out to Seattle to see what the city has to offer.

This residency has been different from the others I've done (minus Taipei Artist Village) in that residents prepare their own meals, and we're literally housed together in one big house with a telephone and wi-fi. It's taught me something about integrating a daily practice with a home life and fitting in cooking and laundry and exercising and all the other distractions/priorities. Like this might not be so impossible to recreate....