the first sentence of middlemarch

a well-argued essay by a first-year student

the widener library reading room at dusk

tea, always assam, always with milk, never with sugar

seamus heaney reading his own poems aloud

my red pen collection, which my students find terrifying

the semicolon, correctly deployed

walking along the charles in november

the brattle theatre

joan didion's sentences, the way they turn

a student who comes to office hours not for the grade but for the conversation

my colleague margaret, who disagrees with me about everything and is usually right

used bookstores that smell like they should

the way a great paragraph builds and then lands

marilynne robinson's gilead

portuguese egg tarts from that place on cambridge street

the first day of the semester, all that possibility

virginia woolf

a library card, the physical object

the radical act of reading slowly

scrabble, played seriously

the conviction that the humanities matter

an em dash used instead of a comma, when the sentence needs air

the moment a student's writing voice emerges, usually around week seven