The hammocks we pitched around the courtyard of the liberal arts building were plump like cocoons when you lay in them, and when you emerged, you were a little like a butterfly.

I brought my sleeping bag into the hammock with me, the same one whose lining my dad wrote my name on in black permanent marker twenty years ago. The night of the Write-A-Thon, I had his writing of my name against my chest under the full moon, in the wind of Lake Pontchartrain (when we chose our date, we didn't realize it'd be a supermoon—or the vernal equinox). I thought of Dad just vaguely as I drifted off into my two-hour snooze, till it was time to go let our miniature Viking ship go on the lake and bring our event to a close, memories mixing with tiredness mixing with images from the poetry of Toi Derricotte and Chioma Urama, who had read earlier in the evening.

Before my little nap (in, again, the same sleeping bag I took to Kathleen Ellis's sleepover in first grade, where I stayed up all night for the first time in my life with two other rebel girls whose names I'm no longer sure of), the WAT contingency built a real fire on the $9.95 mini hibachi grill. Abram cooked us brats while we listened to hit songs of the mid-00s with varying degrees of response and recognition. While we laughed, I imagined the whole courtyard full of people writing, eating, and sleeping. 

This WAT was our first at UNO, and undeniably more diminutative than we hope future ones will be (although we did have a couple of bonafide all-nighter writers in our ranks!). Even so, as the hours wore on, I became keenly aware of the very real power, connection, and creativity our collective was generating: between the workshops I attended over the course of the day, the poetry reading, and the general mania of keeping such a strenuous event running smoothly, I was full of inspiration and thought lying there in my hammock, even as I was bone-tired.

I can't wait to make the WAT bigger and better next year, and co-share that inspiration, gumption, tenderness, and innovation (and those brats) with an even bigger crowd. It's such a unique and, frankly, wholesome opportunity not only to raise money for worthy causes, but to come together as a community in celebration of our collective skills, projects, and insights.

I'm so thankful to everyone who participated—and to everyone who donated to my page! I'm blown away to have not only doubled but tripled my fundraising goal. So to everyone who made that happen, anonymous and otherwise, thank you from the bottom of my heart! As I finish up my degree, it means so much to know that I have folks out there who believe in my work and are willing to show their support of my efforts.

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