Saturday, June 18, 2011

WIFYR made me feel like a rock star

I'm back from a week teaching a writer's workshop at WIFYR, where I had the most stunning class of writers. Fourteen of them: one guy--Daniel-- amidst all that estrogen. They were loud, generous, snarky, abusive, supportive and always funny.

I had to send one to the bathroom to keep her from talking out of turn. One looked exactly like Juliette Lewis in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. There were two Emily /Emalees. I thought one of them was named Maggie Sneddon, but that was actually her character's name. A couple came from Colorado. One came from California and took over as teacher when I was out of the room. One grew up in Beaver, UT. One was from Layton. One was sixteen and one was seventy-one with a lot of thirty-somethings in between. One worked on the Rooseveltian with Tom in junior high school. There was Jenilyn and Jerilyn like two Old Testament queens.

They wrote about dragonkins, Rowaness, ancient Mayan maps, genies ("No, she's not a genie!")
They wrote about growing up in the fifties, dust storms and black blizzards, taro fields and waterfalls. They wrote high fantasy, low fantasy, dystopian, memoir, contemporary.

And they revised first pages into "hook the reader" perfection.

Things I did besides teaching writing: I told the pee-in-my-car story, laughed, shimmied, laughed, rolled my eyes, laughed, cursed, ate chocolate covered raisins, laughed; told them to shut up, laughed at them, abused them and they in turn made me feel like a rock star.

Can't wait to get the photos.


8 comments:

  1. Let the stalking commence!

    I loved you and our class and learned really, just a really lot. Awkwardly. Also, then I learned a lot of quite good words to use quickly.

    Perhaps we should do it again next year?

    That was weird.

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  2. You are a rock star. You put Lady Gaga's shimmies to shame.

    And yes, after last week, you're going to have a lot of stalkers. (But I promise I will only blog-stalk you, not regular-stalk you.)

    Thanks for a wonderful week!

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  3. Louise, you look like Lady Gaga in that picture!

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  4. Best class ever! You can tell me to shut up, laugh at me, and abuse me all you want and I will still think you are a rock star! Thanks for an amazing week and good luck with your surgery!

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  5. Oh, Louise, Louise, I will never forget you. You are one snarky, talented, and lovely lady. A true writing diva! This was my first writing conference, and I don't know how it will ever be topped! (I also don't think I've ever peed as much in one week before.) Oh, the fun! XOXOXO

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