Well, the school year is about to start, and I now have two unfinished writing projects instead of the usual one. Three, if you count my ambition to arrange my poetry into a collection. Now, as I turn my attention to preparing classes, and as I, like the rest of Charlottesville, reel from the recent invasion of the alt-right, I am more grateful than ever for the support and patience of my fellow BACCA members. I hope to publish, and to reach a wider audience, but meanwhile, as always, it is writing and friendship that keep me sane. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that BACCA is a place where we support each other in the struggle for meaning. I spoke with a friend today who teaches at Piedmont Community College, and, when asked to address one of the many meetings held to prepare for teaching in these troubled times, she surprised herself by bursting out crying. We talked about the scariness of this allegedly “post-truth” era. I think that each writer is like a miner, digging for the truth of his or her own experience. I told her that, in crying, she probably did her colleagues good, because she was expressing what many of them longed to but couldn’t. I hope that in BACCA we can continue to devote ourselves to such expression, whether in joy, sadness, or the more common in-between territory, and to support each other in this devotion. Thanks to you all. Onward.
BACCA Literary 