Despite having left England and the work of the Nottingham Poetry Series behind, I kept in close contact with my former students (who had by this point become friends). One afternoon when several of them were visiting me in Belgium, we began tossing around the idea of an advanced and rigorous course of further study. They missed studying with me; I missed teaching them. Agrestis was our answer: a plan for two years of workshops at an MFA level which would challenge all involved to read, write, talk, and think about literary production in new ways. We brainstormed together and between 2014 and 2016 I developed and delivered MFA-level courses on literary theory, contemporary world literature, poetics, and the essay, as well as leading generative and developmental workshops. Agrestis courses were available at a sliding scale to dedicated adult writers, and were delivered both in person and online.