Summer Bucket List

With four weeks done of the sweet six weeks of my summer stint at Hollins, and two left to go, I'm all too aware of how fast the time is passing and how many joys I have yet to experience. It's time to make a list of everything that I want to make sure happens before I fly back to Colorado on August 1.

1. I absolutely MUST spend some time writing at my new favorite coffee shop, Cups, in the Grandin neighborhood of Roanoke.

2. I absolutely MUST have a grilled cheese sandwich at the little place around the corner: Pops. Not one but TWO of my students have told me this.

 

 3. I have my heart set on getting comments on the last half of my spelling bee book from my two brilliant Hollins friends and colleagues, Lisa Rowe Fraustino and Hilary Homzie.

4. I so want to attend the playwriting-for-children workshop led by Nicole Adkins, and hear the talk "Mirrors of Antiquity in Modern Fantasy" by Bryn Mawr classics professor Benjamin Stevens, and the keynote address of our Twentieth Annual Francelia Butler Student Conference on Children's Literature by legendary fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes.

5. I want to sit writing at least one more time in a rocking chair on the verandah in the quad, and in the reading loft which you reach by ascending a tiny spiral staircase in the library, and on the cozy couch in the third floor lounge in Swannanoa Hall.

I think I'm going to be able to do all of these things! I already have plans with two students for an outing to write at Cups on Saturday morning, followed by grilled cheese at Pops. Lisa, Hillary, and I are meeting for a critique group session tonight; I suspect that a margarita may be involved as well. I've blocked out time for all those delicious talks in my planner. As for writing, I do believe I can write on the verandah today, and in the reading loft on Sunday, and in the Swannonoa lounge several times next week.

And if there is anything else that clamors for inclusion on my summer bucket list, I may just have to see if I can return here to teach in some future Hollins term, and start my list all over again.