Workshopping

As some of you may know, I'm leading a creative writing workshop for teenage girls this summer. I've been nursing this idea for a few months now, and it's all finally going to start tomorrow evening. I'm getting very excited, and also a little nervous that things will go awry. But, all in all, I just feel so blessed that everything has worked out so smoothly. I've had a lot of support from the Springfield community, my family, friends, my church (which is letting me use their beautiful facilities for free!), and many prospective students and their parents. At every difficult juncture, someone or something has come along and made this all work out. 

Now, I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing, even though this wasn't my first plan for the summer. Originally, my family and I were going to travel to South Africa, to work in an orphanage my sister had volunteered at the previous summer. We felt like we knew those kids from all the stories we'd heard about them, and I was so bummed out when I heard we couldn't go. Then I was trying to find a job, and even thought I had secured a nanny position in the Chicago area, but everything kept falling through. I've always prayed for God to "wreck my life" so that he could have his way, but this was just getting crazy. Surely God considered helping African orphans "his way," but I guess not for me this summer. And now that I think about it, I think that may have been an easy out for me. This workshop has pushed me so much to take charge, and I wouldn't have done that in Africa. I'd have been following my sister's way, which is so beautiful for her, but it's just not what I do best. I'm learning a lot about my strengths lately, learning how much I care about the state of people's hearts; about communication and what happens when people stop being isolated in their heartbreak and start being honest with each other; about sadness and not being afraid to deal with complex emotions, especially not afraid to put them on paper. So, needless to say, I have high expectations for what could happen with this workshop. I feel like it's where God wanted me to be all along, and I'm so happy to be here finally doing it. 

As far as workshop logistics, there are about 10 girls scheduled to attend. We'll be meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays for most of July (8 sessions), focusing on a different topic each meeting. Tomorrow we'll be asking "what is poetry?" as well as looking at the rhythmic/musical aspects of poetry and language in general. We'll read a bunch of poems out loud, then turn it over for group discussion. Then the girls will be writing poems about themselves. And of course, this is a time for them to get to know me and each other. And we'll be eating tasty Amish friendship bread. :) 

That's all for now (though there always seem to be more stories to tell). I'll be updating as the workshop continues.

Thanks to you all, for supporting me one way or another. 

Liz