Hello, I'm Heidi White.

And I'm Sean Johnson.

And you are listening to Close Reads, a podcast for The Incurable Reader on which we are

discussing the Diary of a Country Priest, the final two chapters, chapter seven and eights.

And as you can no doubt tell, I once again am not David Kern.

Nor am I. Right. It's Sean and I holding down the fort. Poor David is still feeling under the weather.

He has not disappeared, though. We're not hiding anything. He hasn't. Right. That's right.

Yeah. I just, I give you my word that there is nothing

sinister going on. It's just as simple as he's sick. So,

well, and by now, you know that he's also been working really hard on things like,

uh, the Close Reeds conference in Atlanta. Yes, indeed. He has. And you're the final details for

that hammered out from his deathbed.

Yes, that's right.

So we can't fault him.

He's been working so hard.

Man, if he dies, we're going to feel so bad.

He's actually fine.

He's on the bench.

Yes.

So, Sean, tell us about the closed

reads retreat coming up in this August. You mean the one in Atlanta? Yeah, that's the

one I mean. The first weekend of August, that's right. We're going to get together with

...