Get it? typed Manfred. It spells e-books.

Yes, Janine typed back. The bold letters help.

I’m gonna ask a question now, Manfred wrote.

“Time for one or two more questions,” Catherine was saying. “About e-books and marketing. Only those subjects.”

Ms. Powell, can you tell us a little about the marketing of poetry? I believe a third of us here are poets.

She mouthed Manfred’s question, then said brightly, “Good question! Poetry is a little harder because it doesn’t tell the same story—that’s not how we think of poetry, anyway, but when you think about it, poetry can tell a story, and that story is the story of your life. For example, think of that little boy with cancer! His book was a best seller and it raised, um, a lot of money for other children with cancer! Think about him when you are down about your work and its marketability. Inspiring! Wonderful questions, everyone—it was so great to be with you today. Please don’t forget to complete the brief survey at the end.”

She had already signed off by the time Janine finished typing and proofing her only question:

What if you don’t have cancer? What if what you have to say is not about yourself, but about everyone? What if you are signaling through the flames?

Janine had almost finished the questionnaire—nearly as long and tiresome as the webinar itself—when Beth came into the sunroom with her laptop. Today had not been a workday, and all day she had worn a cropped pink camisole and a thin pair of sweatpants that rode her hipbones. When it was time for bed, she would change into something else, but that did not mean, in her mother’s eyes, that she had not spent the day in pajamas.

“Look,” she said, and opened the laptop so that Janine could see. “Isn’t that your school?”

Beth, in her peripatetic weather searching, had stumbled upon on a local Sarasota news channel’s site; the screen was frozen on an image of the Ranch. Janine could see the small wooden sign—Genesis Inspirational Writing Ranch—and the familiar white stucco buildings framed behind gnarled live oak limbs.

“What in the world?” Janine said, using an expression of her mother’s that sometimes surprised her more than the event she was exclaiming over.

“Watch,” Beth said, clicking the Play button.

The camera cut from the image of the Ranch to a shot of a group of people, mostly women, holding protest signs and chanting.

“We’re here at the Genesis Inspirational Writing Ranch, a low-residency writing retreat that opened in March. In a few days the Ranch will welcome back its first class of students for a second round of classes. But new questions have arisen over some of the school’s political affiliations,” said the reporter.