You guys probably think I don't love you anymore now that I'm in Italy. Not so, not so. But this is Italy. They have their priorities. Food, coffee, wine, enough chairs on the hotel balcony. The wifi working, not so much.

I get on, I get kicked off. I tried to post a couple of Mongolia blogs, including photos, the wifi laughed at me. So new plan. When in Italy, tell you about Italy, save Mongolia and photos for when I get home.

I'm in Assisi, as you no doubt know, to teach fiction writing at Art Workshop International. I'd send the link but the wifi will laugh at me. This is my fourth year here. It's super terrific. The weather's been beautiful, cool in the evenings and the mornings, hot during the day, clear so far though it's also gorgeous here when it rains so if it wanted to do that I wouldn't mind. There's one other writing workshop and two art classes, plus a filmmaker (Charles Hobson, I'm not trying the link but you can Google him) with a couple of students. Active, vibrant group, some really funny people so we laugh a lot. The hotel has a wunderkind chef who's on his game, the church bells go off four times a day all over town, and the gelato's not bad, either.

My students are working hard and making great strides -- love to see that. I'm getting a lot done myself on my new book, too.

I'm going to try to post this now. Assuming the wifi doesn't think it's a joke, good talking to you guys and I'll talk to you later.