Next month, the sixth year of the Write Out project kicks off, with two weeks of place-based writing starting on October 8th. Write Out is a partnership between the National Writing Project and the National Park Service.
Learn more about specific activities and events from the most recent newsletter and then head to the Write Out site for even more information, and sign up for the free newsletters.
Peace (and Place),
Kevin
I am helping to co-facilitate a workshop session next month on the teaching of writing in the time of Generative AI, and we hope to gather together K-12 educators and university professors to discuss the changing landscape, and collaborate on paths forward.
If you teach in Western Massachusetts, we invite you to attend. We scheduled it the day before the National Day On Writing, purposefully, so that we would remind ourselves of the human aspects of writing, even with the influx of algorithms and chat generators.
Peace (with technology),
Kevin
I finally got to see the prompts from the last summer stop for the National Writing Project’s Write Across America, and the Central Arizona Writing Project focused on the Grand Canyon as its source for writing. Some other day, I am going to gather the digital poems I did this summer into one post.
Peace (and poems),
Kevin
Another year of Write Out is on the horizon in October (8-22) and you can learn more about the two weeks of place-based writing and inquiry — and sign up for a free newsletter — at the Write Out website.
This year’s theme is: Poetry, Prose and Parks!
Write Out is a partnership between the National Park Service and the National Writing Project.
Peace (and Parks),
Kevin
Among the books I read this summer were three interesting Young Adult novels. Here are some very quick reviews of each. The connecting thread is that all three feature female protagonists.
I just finished Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson. It’s a murder mystery with two different levels. One from the past. One from the present. The main character — Stevie — is obsessed with the murder from the past, but then gets drawn into the mystery of the present, and her sharp mind and keen observational skills help her unlock part of the mystery. This had a “to be continued” at the end, a cliffhanger for some of the threads, but I found Stevie to be a highly engaging character and the two mysteries here get entangled at times in interesting ways.
In Truly Devious, the setting is an old school with lots of tunnels and hidden doors and such. An interesting building as setting is also a main concept in Winterhouse by Ben Gutterson. Here, the building is a hotel, with mysteries of its own, centered around the family that owns the hotel. Elizabeth is the main character, an orphan with a quirky personality and a curiosity that leads to odd situations, and entanglements with magic and ghosts of the past. It’s fast-paced story, with some echoes of Harry Potter and other YA novels, but Guterson does a nice job of using the house to make his tale its own story.
Finally, early in the summer, I read The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin. There’s a palpable sadness to this story and yet, it is beautifully written, and we are in the head and heart of Suzy Swanson, whose grappling with the sudden death of a former friend. The novel explores the world of jellyfish through Suzy’s hyperfocus on the creatures, and her theory of the role they may have played in the death of her friend. Not everything is tidy in this story, and that’s OK. Suzy is worth caring about, as she navigates a confusing world.
Peace (and story),
Kevin
