{"id":540,"date":"2017-10-02T01:00:46","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T05:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=540"},"modified":"2017-10-02T01:00:46","modified_gmt":"2017-10-02T05:00:46","slug":"pursuing-the-write-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=540","title":{"rendered":"PURSUING THE WRITE STUFF"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction,\u00a0 and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction.\u00a0 Available at: NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon<\/strong>.<\/h2>\n

If you\u2019ve never been to John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, you need to remedy this void in your life as soon as possible.\u00a0 Taking classes\u00a0 in basketweaving, blacksmithing, weaving, or any one of dozens of other old time crafts classes will make your life more creative and fun.\u00a0 But if you can possibly manage it, teach a writing class.\u00a0 This summer I taught my eighth class in writing for children, and I had more fun than is probably legal.\u00a0 After every JCC class, I say, \u201cIt was the best group I\u2019ve ever had\u201d and every time I mean it.\u00a0 Maybe especially this one in August, 2017 deserves this praise.\u00a0 We had seven people, including one man ( a \u201creal man\u201d we called him), and during five days of writing, reading, critiquing, and revising, we got to know each other well.\u00a0 The main thrust of the course was using real experience to make fiction more real.\u00a0 This group got that right away.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>

And they also got that the real events and the real people are only a beginning point for the stories we want to write.\u00a0 We laughed and cried, and just about everything in between over the course of the week.\u00a0 One woman had us all on the edge of our seats every time she read.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve met anyone who can create such tight suspense even in a scene when nothing is happening except waiting for a traffic light to turn green.\u00a0 One of our students (a retired science teacher) modestly mentioned the goal of writing about science in such an involving way that kids would have fun reading and learning.\u00a0 Easier said than done, of course, but this writer did exactly that.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>

Another writer had us laughing until we cried with different witty essays, and yet each piece had us thinking about serious matters such as faith and who should be trusted to rule the world.\u00a0 In this last piece she eventually concluded that kindergarten teachers should take over from the politicians, who could then take the vacant teaching jobs!\u00a0 Poor kids!<\/strong>

Another woman used a mouse as a main character who explores the Folk School.\u00a0 Like me, this mouse didn\u2019t look in on any class he didn\u2019t want to take.\u00a0 The enthusiasm of the mouse was contagious.\u00a0 All of us were soon thinking of possible ways to expand his adventure.<\/strong>

I could go on, but you get the picture.\u00a0 This was a talented group and I probably learned more from them than they did from me.\u00a0 So it was no great surprise when we had a full and enthusiastic audience for our reading on Thursday afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0 I thank each of you for a great week at John C. Campbell!\u00a0 I\u2019ll be looking for your books on the library shelves.<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction,\u00a0 and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction.\u00a0 Available at: NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon. If you\u2019ve … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}