Cara Mia

Can't stop, probably won't stop (teaching)

I’ve been coming to Spannocchia for 10 years now and I can still barely spell it. I also don’t think I could find it on a map. The geography of Tuscany, a region I first visited in 2012 and have returned to nine times, still baffles me. When in Spannocchia, I know we are near Siena and that the closest airport is in Florence, about a 90-minute trip, but that’s all I’ve got. I’ve stayed in rentals in Greve and Panzano, visited Montepulciano and Florence, flown in and out of Pisa and I have no idea how any of these places connect.

My usual lodgings in Spannocchia

I come to Spannocchia because my friend Ann Hood created a writers workshop here and eventually invited me to contribute in various ways — first, as a workshop leader, then as someone offering a la carte one-on-one manuscript evaluations. It’s a gig that comes with free room and board — a very charming room, very good board — but by the time I factor in travel, I basically break even. So why do I do it?

My room, my breakfast, my nightly cocktail with the most amazing potato chips, a slice

First of all, teaching has made me a better writer. While I had adjunct gigs at both Johns Hopkins and Goucher College, I prefer working in short, intense bursts as opposed to the slog of a semester.¹ I started teaching at the week-long Writers in Paradise in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2006, which is where I met (and fell in love with) Ann². I will return to WIP next month to teach a week-long course on the crime novel and Spannocchia is on the calendar for March 2027.

Just a few of the cats of Spannocchia

Ann’s not the only friend I’ve made through Writers in Paradise. Over the years, it’s been quite common for our “guest stars” to return as faculty in Florida, then show up in Italy. The overlap between WIP and Spannocchia includes: Luis Urrea, Andre Dubus III, and Stewart O’Nan (also their amazing spouses — Cindy, Fontaine, Trudy — all of whom are adored/vital members of the community). The story has been told many times, but when I was recruited by WIP co-founder Dennis Lehane for the conference’s second year, I demurred on the grounds that I don’t have an MFA or even an undergraduate degree in creative writing. Dennis said: “The only criteria is you can’t be an asshole.” This motto, now shortened to “No assholes,” is still invoked by our current director, the glorious Les Standiford; we should probably translate it into Latin and have it printed on T-shirts.

Of course, not every guest speaker can join the faculty; there’s simply not enough students for that. But almost all of our visitors have joined in the late night give-and-take-and-drink in the common space of whatever b-and-b, Airbnb, or hotel that has housed us. Daniel Woodrell was one of the many storied guest stars who passed through WIP. His death, at the age of 72, was announced Sunday.

Woodrell³ was one of the greats, a writer who rendered moot the endless literary-versus-genre discussion. Every genre writer hates the “transcending the genre” trope (or should), but the fact is, it’s just not a very helpful bit of figurative language. I think it makes more sense to consider literature a vast territory, with some locations clearly marked, others more nebulous. Woodrell’s “genre” was Woodrell. As I wrote to someone yesterday, trying to categorize Woodrell was like looking at a griffin and getting caught up in a debate over whether it’s a mammal or a bird. Who cares? It’s glorious and it can fricking fly. You can’t go wrong reading any of his books; I am partial to Winter’s Bone and Death of Sweet Mister.

Only one selfie in November, but it’s the plaid pants that once scared Stephen King

Read/reading: Havoc, Christopher Bollen; Sonnets, Bernadette Mayer. The Uncool: A Memoir, Cameron Crowe (audio); Nobody Walks, Mick Herron (audio).

Reread: Reading Myself and Others, Philip Roth; Nothing Personal, Nancy Jo Sales; The Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann⁴. A Bright Star Falls, Lenora Mattingly Weber.

Me, Me, Me: Murder Takes a Vacation showed up on best-of-2025 lists compiled by the Washington Post and the Chicago Public Library.

Always read to the end, as here’s the monthly reminder that you, too, can win the Mystery Box, a dozen books culled from my overcrowded shelves. Just send an email with the subject line “Mystery Box” to: Lauralippmanauthor@gmail.com and you will be entered into our random monthly drawing.⁵

The Mystery Box beneath a favorite photograph taken by my friend, the amazing Jim Burger

1. I also prefer teaching older students who aren’t juggling a full course load. They’re simply more focused, understandably.

2. EVERYONE falls in love with Ann. I wrote about her in an essay, “My Brilliant Friend,” which is really about the pitfalls of envy among writers. I was struck by a paragraph in which I castigate my younger self for the shallowness/callowness of my 20s and 30s. “Envying other writers, crying over a review — if this is what the bad fairy brings to your christening, consider yourself lucky. Don’t you understand that you are going to know real pain? Worse, you are going to cause it.” (Deliberate echo of Sharon Olds there.) I wrote those words four months before some very real pain came for me, but I think I have managed in the past two decades not to do any harm, so that’s an improvement.

3. The first time I met Woodrell was at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival; I screamed as if I had just met a Beatle and dove under the table where I had been signing books.

4. I had forgotten how terrific the first quarter of VotD is, the whole Helen Lawson/Allen Cooper thing.

5. And please don’t write anything that would get you sent to the weirdo file.