In June, I participated in the NEH summer seminar, “Writing and Democracy in Western New York: Situating Tocqueville, Stanton, Cooper, and Douglass,” organized by Shirley Samuels and Sandra Gustafson at Cornell University. Faculty from near and far convened to read familiar and new texts on democracy in US life, spend time in Cornell’s archives and museum, and visit regional equal rights destinations in Auburn and Seneca Falls. I began work on women’s discourses of imagination and creativity, marveled over the Seward house, met new friends and colleagues, and so much more. I’m grateful to the seminar’s erudite directors for two happy weeks in Ithaca.