Last week, I went to Portland. I experienced the majesty of Powell's Books and the serenity of the Japanese Gardens, saw Mount Hood and even Mount Saint Helens in the east. In all, it was beautiful--green, lush, everything my native California heart yearns for after a Tucson summer.

One of the greatest parts of my trip was getting a tour of the Writers' Dojo, an enterprise that Tucson writers might be interested to know about. The dojo is a physical space on the one hand, a two-story building nestled among cherry trees and black-eyed Suzies. I had to remove my shoes to enter. The bamboo floor was cool under under my feet. Potted plants and red-gold rugs decorated the ground floor, and on the wall hung a framed quote calligraphed on rice paper: "the tears i shed yesterday have become rain."

Members of the dojo are invited to lounge on canvas and leather couches or sit at sturdy desks to read and write. Upstairs, writers enjoy total concentration in the quiet area. As I toured the grounds, complete with a martial arts center next door, I realized that I could feel quite at home in this space so carefully designed to enrich creative life.