Welcome Back!

Hope you had a great break!

This week, we'll be workshopping your honest essays. Please be sure to bring copies for class on Tuesday.

Your writing assignment for the week will be to do one peer critique of one of the essays from class. You should write a one-page, single-spaced response to the author of the piece you've chosen. Your response should offer specific feedback on what's working in the piece and what could be improved in revision. Make two copies of your critique and bring them to class on Thursday. I'll keep one copy and give the other copy to the author.

About next week:

Next week is our Writers Festival. It's always a wonderful time and I hope you're looking forward to it.

Here's the plan:

Please attend the Writers Festival events all week. To get a passing participation grade for the week, you must attend at least two events. More is much better. There will be sign-up sheets at all events. (Bonus: if you need Village credit, all the events offer that, too.)

To allow you to attend the festival, we won't be meeting in class next week. Your written assignment is to write about one of the festival events. You can write about the event in many different ways. If you'd like to take a personal essay approach, that would be fine. If the event sparks a memoir, terrific. If you'd like to try your hand at reportage, feel free to ask the visiting writers questions and record their answers. Or, if you'd like to invoke Amy Krouse Rosenthal, you could attend all events and write small entries about each one. It's really up to you. Just be sure you write about an event that inspired, moved, provoked or otherwise changed you. As you know, in Creative Nonfiction, passion means a lot.

Your assignments will be due on Thursday, April 1. Post your assignments to your blogs.

The Festival schedule again is:

* Monday, March 22 -- Faculty/alumni reading/festival kick-off, 7 p.m.
* Tuesday, March 23 -- Fiction writer/poet Kim Chinquee, craft talk at noon and reading at 7 p.m.
* Wednesday, March 24 -- Fiction writer Sherrie Flick, reading at 7 p.m.
* Thursday, March 25 -- Poets/memoirists Gerry Stern and Anne Marie Macari, reading at 7 p.m.
* Friday, March 26 -- Fiction writer/poet Joseph Bathanti, craft talk at noon and reading at 7 p.m.

All events will be in the Village Hall coffeehouse. Books will be available for purchase at the readings. Refreshments follow the readings. Village credit is available for all events.