The new Hotel Vermont has been winning praise from all quarters for its architecture and décor, cuisine and use of local resources and products, from granite to soap to original art (including the found-wood "painting" by Duncan Johnson pictured at right).

Now, along with that warm blankie from Johnson Woolen Mills, all 125 guest rooms will offer a small book filled with Vermont words. Writing, that is, by members of the Burlington Writers Workshop.

In an announcement today, BWW organizer Peter Biello said, "Our writers get a wider audience, and Hotel Vermont's guests get a pleasurable reading experience. It's a win-win."

It would be especially winning, Biello added, if one of those guests had the power to advance any of the writers' careers.

Regardless of serendipitous "discovery" by a visiting publisher, the writers can at least hope hotel visitors will choose their poetry, stories or essays for bedtime reading.

These pieces — I'm calling them "locavore lit" — will be chosen by staff at Hotel Vermont and and compiled into a modest publication on a quarterly basis, said the announcement.

Hotel Vermont marketing coordinator Tori Carton added, "The arts are an integral part of the Hotel Vermont experience and we hope that our partnership with Burlington Writers Workshop will continue to advance the arts in our community, and give our guests a well-rounded and unique stay in Burlington.”

By the way, a member of the BWW, Michael Freed-Thall, has a fiction story in this week's Winter Reading Issue of Seven Days. You can read "Fort Stockton Blues" here. And here's a glimpse at a past BWW workshop.