. . . keeps going around. There’s probably no sense in even trying to find the first link in my personal chain of Shared Lit (not an academic course you can sign up for, but, rather, a course of action, a version of call-and-reponse, of good-reads-as-boomerangs). The latest chapter goes this way: Jackson–a senior–and I spent time together in English 1 three+ years back. Every now and then in the interim, we’d run into each other on campus and exchange gotta-read titles. I trusted his judgment and choices–“his” books never disappointed, always got me thinking in a direction I hadn’t considered before–narrative, voice, point-of-view, subject.

Last year, Jackson took on an Independent Afternoon Project in writing (creative non-fiction), to which I served as the advisor. At first, I set him loose in the library, where he’d slouch down in one of the leather wingback chairs with whatever I’d suggested he read to get the gears greased for his own work. After that, once he began writing, our weekly meetings focused on his creations: in my office in the house, he’d read his stories aloud, and we’d talk about challenges he was having, possible solutions. I’d give him more pieces to read. He’d come back with more of his own writing.

One day this fall, Jackson saw me on the Pergola and said he’d run into a wall with a piece he’d been working on, a story inspired by Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants. (Thacher students tend to aim high, and with good reason.) Could we talk?

Ummm. Yes.

And before the time was done, Jackson had dug into the binder of material he’d studied this summer and found one story–then another, then another, and a fourth–to loan to me.

So, on last week’s school holiday, I slept a little later than my usual 5:55 (no Zumba on a holiday, thank goodness), got up to fetch a cup of coffee, then crawled back into bed–unheard of school-year luxury!–to snuggle down with a dog-eared photocopy of Tobias Wolff’s Bullet in the Brain.

Ball’s in my court, I guess.