Professional Writing Retreat

Hi, All,

It sounds like the Writing Retreat in Columbia was awesome. Thanks for sharing your expeirences. I wanted to tell you abut the NWP Writing and Technology Professional Writing Retreat I attended at Lied Lodge in Nebraska City, NE. I felt like all we did was eat. Breakfast at 8:00, lunch at 12:00, dinner at 6:00. I don't usually eat that regularly, and I never had a chance to feel hungry. Lied Lodge was a beautiful place. We did a short writing marathon which was a great way to get to know my new small writing group. One person was a music teacher from Burke, South Dakota, another was a doctoral student from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and one was a speech therapist from Marshall University.

It was a joy to have big chunks of writing time, and the time spent made me excited for our own writing retreat in October (thank you Laura and Kelly). I did learn about some cool new tech things. Have you heard of Google Docs? I am addicted to it. I was thinking that we might be able to use Google Docs for an alternative type of small writing group. You could post whatever writing that you want us to read, and then whoever is involved in the group will have a week to respond. Please take a look at this site. I think it would be really cool to incorporate into the classroom. Let me know what you think about it.

I don't think they have funding for the technology retreat next summer, but make sure and apply for one of the other two professional writing retreats offered by the NWP.

I wanted to add a picture of the retreat, but the pics I have are terrible. When I get some more I will upload those. Instead, I have treated you to a picture of Murray, now Murr-Dog (don't ask me why). Julie S. was kind enough to share with me a circus outfit for him, so here goes Julie. What do you think?