A 3-day workshop and reading of the first full draft of my latest opera, courtesy of the Duffy Institute for New Opera, who have commissioned its completion in conjunction with the Virginia Arts Festival. I am deeply grateful for their support. The opera is based on the true story of the life and writings of Isabelle Eberhart, a turn of the 20th century writer and traveler who spent 7 years traveling with the Bedouin in Algeria, disguised as a young male Arab scholar, and who died in a flash flood in the desert, aged 27.