Maine to Virginia by Sandell Morse

I don’t know why I’m obsessed with this, why sitting here in my studio at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, looking out a rusted chain link fence, at trees leafed in the fullness of a Virginia spring, surrounded by the still quiet of this place where writers write, painters paint, composers compose, I see in my mind’s eye the face of a man I don’t know, didn’t meet, a man who approached my car in a parking lot outside of Panera Bread. I’d spent the night in a Comfort Inn at an exit off of I 81 in Harrisonville, and that morning I’d found the espresso that I loved. I was juggling a water bottle, travel mug, wallet and car key when I heard a voice. “Excuse me, Ma’am.”

BIO: Sandell Morse holds a Master’s Degree in Liberal Studies with a concentration in the Humanities from Dartmouth College and a Master’s Degree in English with a concentration in fiction writing from the University of New Hampshire. She has taught at the University of New Hampshire and at the University of Maine, Farmington. She facilitates both fiction and nonfiction workshops for the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and for the New Hampshire Writers’ Project.