Have just packed my bags and am heading out the door, sayonara to the great cold state of North Dakota. At dinner last night I sat next to Mary Gaitskill, author of Veronica–in my mind one of the best five books of fiction the past couple of years. She’s a lovely person, warm and funny and as vividly smart in conversation as she is in her books. I also got to talk to the poet Leslie Adrienne Miller, with whom I comisserated on motherhood, and had the opportunity to hear her read from The Resurrection Trade, a startling and...


