I'm excited to announce that applications are open for our winter/early spring Frost Place Studio Sessions!

This round, I'm offering another session of Learning from Nina Simone: An Introductory Chapbook Class, which has been amazingly popular. It's limited to 6 participants, so if you're interested, jump in fast.

I'll also be leading The Nation as Muse: Learning from the Postwar Polish Poets, a weekend generative writing class, with conversation and prompts arising from the work of poets such as Milosz, Herbert, and Szymborska.

And we have a new offering: our first Poets' Table class! The Poets' Table will be a series of informal, welcoming, online gatherings for poets and their friends. These short, inexpensive, peer-led sessions focus on community, accessibility, and fun. They are open to anyone, at any level of experience. Our inaugural Poets' Table is "So Happy Together": Reading and Writing about Friendship, facilitated by FP staffer and long-time participant Carlene Gadapee--just in time for Valentine's Day!

Do let me know if you have any questions about these offerings. More are on the way for spring and summer!

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So how's your weather? Here in Portland, we're at 0 degrees, with a windchill of 20 below. The furnace is working hard, and I just lit a fire in the wood stove. On this kind of day, I think I am justified in the indulgence.

Today I've got housework to do, and a book conversation scheduled with a friend, and a giant stack of chapbook mss to start reading. Meanwhile, Tom has to go lumber shopping for our new bed frame, and he is not delighted about the state of the outdoors.

Still, this is more like "real Maine" we knew in Harmony, where the snow was thick and the temp was constantly subzero and nobody thought twice about it, except in a depressed Ethan Frome sort of way. Portland's usually a weeny version of that Maine: a taste of winter, between a long fall and a long spring. Very nice, certainly. But not the "shape you up and make you a man" weather we're getting today.