My people — Pacific Lutheran University

I'm not sure exactly when it happened.
Maybe it was after the fourth day of workshop/lecture/readings, when I realized that these people were never going to get tired of talking about words, so I'd never have to stop.
Maybe it was when an entire lecture hall full of people laughed at a joke about digression. 
But more than likely, it happened as I was scribbling down the lines of a 5-minute skit, about to rope 10 of my classmates into performing a word-nerd comedy starring a troupe of mouthy nuns, some illiterate children and myself as a priest. 
That's when I knew, these are my people. 

What it looks like when 10 people decide to trust the eccentric Alaskan.
Head scratching, downcast eyes, and A LOT OF FUN. 

I spent the last 10 days in Tacoma, Washington at Pacific Lutheran University. I was attending my first residency of the Rainier Writing Workshop, also known as the people-who-will-help-me-write-good Collegiate Brigade. I have the great privilege of spending my next three years in near and far communication with them, seeking my Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing. 

Harstad Hall, where we stayed during residency.
Dorm rooms here smell the same as they did 10 years ago in Montana. 

The official production of "Thou Shalt Nevery Ask Too Many Questions" was just the icing on the cake of a fantastic week. Not least of which was John here, our Texan poet who played a pretty spot-on Alistair Cooke in order to introduce the play, in the custom of the very best of Masterpiece Theater. 

I have two and a half months of travel left ahead of me. A winter of writing and working back home in Alaska. Years of school, and fishing and breathing in and out, that's all part of the plan too. And all of it — from the wedding I'm currently attending to the West Coast travels planned for August, the trip to Spain and beyond — all is colored by this last ten days. Ten days that basically gave me the green light I've always kind of needed to go ahead and be a full-time word person. Among all these other word people, trying to put the loves and laments of the world down in letters. And laughing. My God the laughing. 

It's fuzzy, but I'm the white-robed one on the right (courtesy of PLU linen supplies.)
This is the very performance that won us the title of Most Recent Suckers. 

Granted, it was a little startling to go from this microcosm of mouthy writers, to the back seat of my friend Kristina's car — where her five year old promptly rolled up the floor mat and began hitting me with the spiky side. But such is life. Without it I wouldn't have crap to write about. Or a reason to write it. And I am so very thankful for all that crap right at this moment. 

Location: Tacoma, Washington