Writing classes, Writing Conferences, and Spring

Life is good in spite of all the BAD news we hear constantly on TV and the radio as well as on social media.

We are beginning the beautiful month of April. Spring is here. My azaleas are blooming and some of the blossoms on the trees survived the last freeze and snow. I have loved spring my whole life and I seem to love it more now. When things begin to pop up green and strong, when birds sing in my yard, the bluebirds come to scout out their house, I want to shop for flowers and shrubs. Geraniums thrive on my deck and I enjoy them all summer long.

I am an indoor gardener now, filling my deck with colorful flowers I can see from my chair in my living room. I also choose flowers that attract humming birds. With my feeders and my flowers they hover all day outside my windows.

Spring is a time for new beginnings and making plans for the future. Today I talked with someone at EAGLE one of the first places I taught writing. This is a church organization over in north Georgia. I have two good friends who attend classes and, one of them, Linda teaches dulcimer there. I began teaching writing to those folks back in 2006.

I agreed to teach a one day workshop this fall between September 21 and November 9. I won't be paid for these classes, but I will do this for my friends and for the good people who run this program.

I also accepted an invitation to teach this summer at ICL, the Institute for Continuing Learning, another program for adults, at Young Harris College. Those classes will be two hour sessions once a week for four weeks. I hope my former students will come and will tell their friends. 

In the fall, I am on the schedule at TCCC, our local community college to teach two hour sessions each Monday for four weeks. You can tell I enjoy teaching. I have met the finest and dearest people in the classes I've taught. I have heard the most touching, heart-felt stories about the lives of my students. The joy of it all for me is that the families of my students will have the interesting and well-written life stories to pass on to generations of the future. I know they will appreciate their ancestors telling about what life was like in the twentieth century, before cell phones, before computers and before the world became so very small.

I can hear some of my loved ones saying, "You take on too much. You don't have to do this."
But I enjoy every minute in class with my adult students. I feel euphoric when I hear former students telling new students some of the things they learned in my classes.

For now, I look forward to attending a writing conference in Blue Ridge Georgia April 8. I have not missed one of these since my friend, Carol Crawford, began the event almost twenty years ago. Gosh, how could it have been that long?

On May 6, I look forward to A Day for Writers, our conference in Sylva, NC at the beautiful Jackson County Public Library. The historic old courthouse of Jackson County, NC is now being used as part of the library. Most of our workshops and sessions will be held in the part that was once a courthouse.

Jackson County Public Library in Sylva, NC

This will be a busy spring for me, but I think it will also be interesting and fun. What will you be doing as spring comes to your area?