Due to a family medical emergency, I was disappointed that I didn’t get to sit on the Slush Pile panel at the North Carolina Writers’ Network’s spring conference as I had announced. However, I was able to present to the Network’s Durham-Orange County group via Zoom on April 23 to talk about using memoir writing techniques that are applicable to other types of writing as well. Many thanks to my friend and county representative Linda Janssen for the opportunity.
The workshop was the first time I felt like a teacher since I retired. It brought back all of the things I have always loved about teaching: building relationships, encouraging people, offering opportunities to write, and illustrating my points with great writing.
I even used two poems from the 2024 Spring~Summer edition of Teach. Write. when I was talking about using memoir techniques in poetry: Frank L. Niccoletti’s “Open Season Down in the Pinelands” and Arvilla Fee’s “Ruby in a Diamond” world, both excellent examples of using episodic memory with vivid descriptive detail when writing poetry.
I hope you will check out the latest edition of Teach. Write. and read these two poems as well as all the other great work that you will find there.
If you would like to submit to Teach. Write., especially if you are or have ever been a teacher, please see my submission guidelines. FYI, I have been getting quite a bit of submissions lately that do not follow my guidelines, so please read them carefully and double check your work as well as your required bio before submitting. Doing so will definitely increase the chances of your work being accepted.
I look forward to presenting more and reading more submissions! Teaching is grand, especially when I get to pick and choose when to do it!