Oh all you hungry ghosts
November 1 - the Day of All Saints, Jim Gray, founder of the Bay Area Writing Project and (eventually) the National Writing Project, died.
Saint or bodhisattva, he certainly stumbled into wisdom (Is there any
other way into wisdom?) and was blessed enough to see where he’d
landed.
If you’re gonna’ teach
writing, it might be a good thing to write yourself.
I remember from one lunch or another, “It’s a simple idea, but it would be easy to fuck it up.”
Memory is always unreliable. I probably imagined the conversation, and the corn beef sandwich and beer that went with it.
What I did not imagine, but what I learned in my heart in 1983 during the open
BAWP program at UC Berkeley, was that teaching could be a passionate
and coherent commitment to equity, innovation, and happiness.
We now offer this food to you;
May all of you everywhere
Share it with us together.