Sorry about no letter yesterday. Our Internet was dead, which no doubt pissed off all the Harmony school kids who had intended to spend their snow day watching YouTube videos. But surprisingly, given the amount of sleet we received and the glum condition of the trees in my yard, we never lost power, so I was forced to edit all day instead of mooning around the house with a book while trying to avoid playing Monopoly.

One interesting thing did happen during the sleet storm: I received a rejection letter that informed me I'd been a finalist for a semester-long teaching-poet-in-residence position at a small college in the south. Now, as you know, I don't have any graduate degrees and never will, which means that most colleges automatically disqualify me for such positions. Still, it's my habit to apply for fellowships, etc., that don't require me to pay an application fee, which was the case here. I figure that applying for stuff is good practice, and it makes me feel like I'm trying to be financially intelligent, and, plus, you never know who has a soft spot for poetry collections with demolition-derby cars on their covers. Nonetheless, I was bemused to learn that I'd been a finalist for this job. Either the search committee members didn't read my resume very carefully, or this school has decided that an MFA doesn't necessarily equal a writer who can teach. An intriguing development, don't you think?