Go Blue! (warning: gushy post ahead)

I have a couple of blog entries in draft form but I'll skip over those just so that I can say it's been a lovely week for Wolverines. Well, the literary ones anyway. I finally got round to buying Travis' novel, part which I got to workshop during my first semester at Michigan. At PageOne, it's placed at the front of the store, next to Haruki Murakami's After Dark. Few things beat the thrill of seeing a friend's book in the most prominent place of a bookshop.

Also, Peter's novel The Welsh Girl has made the Booker longlist! He was my thesis advisor during grad school, a wonderful combination of a fine writer and and one of the kindest and humblest persons I've ever known. And he cooks a terrific chili crab.

This didn't happen this week but I'm on a roll here - my thesis advisor from my undergraduate days, Eileen Pollack, has a short story in this fall's Best American Short Stories 2007. Eileen has been a mentor not just in writing, but in hmm....life itself. She's the reason I returned to Michigan for an MFA.

So I have Peter's and Travis' books waiting to be read, but what am I doing? Editing, and preparing for the new term. In addition to teaching writing to Chinese students, I'll be teaching one class in the business school. I'll have to read on the bus, I guess.