The event was billed as top-secret. We were to tell no one about it. A capital R, capital S rock star was coming to talk to us about writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison English department.
Before we knew who it would be, there was speculation among my colleagues in the master’s of fine arts program in creative writing. We studied concert lists. We made up elaborate fantasies about who our guest speaker might be.
Finally, copies of Sting’s “Broken Music” were handed out, and we were sworn to triple secrecy. Our guest was the King of Pain himself.