Day two of the JHISS festival is coming to a close, and I really can’t be enthusiastic enough about it. In the past twelve hours, I’ve had:

• a lengthy chat and literary discussion with the incomparable Nessa O’Mahoney,
• a poetry reading by Penelope Shuttle that made me feel like I was peering into the inner corners of her heart, her pain, and her loss,
• a reading by Gavin Corbett of his new novel which won the Irish Novel of the Year (and, for bonus exciting points, he looks like a young Colin Firth, which added a bit of flair)
• a historical fiction writing workshop,
• a wildly successful full run-through rehearsal for our presentation tomorrow (Patrick and all the saints preserve me, tomorrow), and
• a very strange two-man play about old men talking about ducks.

So, all told, I’d count that as an enjoyable day. These are my people: poets wandering around talking about their latest books, women who want to write novels, and people who tell me they’re looking forward to our presentation on Wednesday and actually seem to mean it. I’m so happy I’m here. As I was telling Nessa this morning, I don’t know if they have conferences like these in the States, but if they do, I’m not invited to them.

The best part of the day for me, though, came not through an actual event, but through a strange realisation that I had sitting in rehearsal. It was in the middle of Kimberly’s play about the problems of marrying a mermaid, and as Chris lurked just out of shot in the hallway making extravagant seal calls, it occurred to me: I really, really like the people that I’m in the room with. And I don’t really want to come home just yet.

It stunned me, thinking about it, that less than a month ago I didn’t know these people existed. Now we have inside jokes, we’ve been sleeping in the same room, we ask one another for help, we’ve instated an unspoken rule that anyone who buys junk food will share it with the rest of the group. After the untimely death of my laptop, practically every single person I passed in the hostel offered to let me use theirs. (I’m on a loner, by the way, which is why some of my spelling is wonky; apparently AmmA Centre MacBooks use United Kingdom spellcheck.) We’re entrusting our writing to these once-strangers, trusting them to shape our words into something an audience can understand and enjoy. And from what I’ve seen in rehearsal, we’re doing a fabulous job.

While preparing for a public presentation like this could be nerve-wracking, and at times it is, working with my fellow Armagh Project-ers has made the process fun. I’ve remarked that probably about 10 percent of the words I’ve said to anyone in the past two weeks have been quotes from one of the plays we’ve been rehearsing. I feel comfortable around these people. We get excited about similar things. We’re having “all the theatre feels,” and we’re having them together.

It seemed like attending a writers’ conference in a foreign country would emphasise the extent to which I don’t actually live here, but instead it did the exact opposite. I was stunned at the number of people in the conference I recognised: people who attended the poetry reading and music performance on the Galley Barge in Belfast, folks who have dropped by the hostel, people in my historical fiction workshop, people who just came up and introduced themselves to me. Suddenly I feel like an insider in the literary community of Northern Ireland. As an outsider and a guest in their home, that gesture means a lot.

It’ll be nice to get back to the States after our month-long escapade together. I’m particularly looking forward to screens on windows, air conditioning, restaurants open past 8 pm, and being able to drive instead of taking public transportation. But there’s so much I’ll miss about my time in Armagh, and during today’s rehearsal, I realised the most central part of what I wish I could take with me is the people I’ve met here, and their warm welcome.

Despite the theme of the John Hewitt summer school, I’m not living among strangers anymore.

I’ve got to admit, it’s kind of nice.