When you run a small but fierce, literary nonprofit and provide a vessel of opportunity for so many, it's a remarkable thing when you are gifted a chance to walk through wide-open doors, a treasure of a place like Baldwin for the Arts. To know I claimed it for a week in pure solitude gave me ample time to reflect on a largely-neglected fictional work. I moved into its final chapters, discovering more about my characters and the trouble they found themselves in. Some days, as a creative, all you need is a place to be still, to seat yourself at a table to face the blank page, and what's possible. BFTA gave me that. Deepest gratitude, too, for the Black art on the walls, and books from artists that spoke volumes for why a place like this is vital to the creative ecosystem.