This past weekend, I had the great honor and pleasure of giving the commencement address at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts / Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA in Creative Writing graduation.

Writing the talk gave me a chance to think about what sustains me as a writer. I opened with a brief quote from Mary Oliver’s poem “Stanley Kunitz.” Here’s the talk:

 

the hour of fulfillment
is buried in years of patience—

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