Earlier this week, I stopped by the Blackbird Wineshop to listen to four writers read from their work. They talked about everything from the “intimate isolation” of family reunions to the “decorative gelatins” found at dinner parties. One writer read a first-person poem in which a character says “I held myself in my own arms.” Another writer described himself as a “patient person.” His book, he told us while holding it up, took him 26 years to write.