I Will Take This Tuesday To Do a Little Reflection on Monday, Week 3 of CWP, Summer 2019

In a happy place. There's nothing like coming home from work (with smoked Marlin dip - yum), to sit out back on a low-humidity day just to enjoy the outdoors and, well, see Abu reading in his outdoor chair. It makes me happy that he has a book under his nose most the time (at least for show and tell on Mt. Pleasant).

Actually, Abu is co-teaching the Novel Writing Lab with Emily Sawyer, as a teacher had to back out last minute. Today, we have almost 60 kids embark onto campus to join the 28+ teachers already here and the rhythm and flow of a CWP-Fairfield kind-of-week.

I always am nervous on Mondays and as Abu says, "Relax. You get this way every year, but all we need is a couple of hours with the writers and everything quickly becomes beautiful."

He's right. Everything was beautiful. I've hired well with Michael DeStefano, Colin Hosten, Mindky Khamvongsa, Jessica Baldizon, Julie Roneson, Denise Howe, Abu Bility and Emily Sawyer. I've also added Stefania Vendrella, Justin Wooley and Kevin Fialos to the mix. They got this. And this allows me to direct and do workshops only when I'm invited.

And I was invited on Monday. I did a workshop with Matt de la Peña's Superman, Jacqueline Woodson's Harbor Me, Lamar Jile's Fresh Ink, and Jason Reynold's Ghost. It was a spur-of-the-moment workshop, but I heard from parents that the kids thought the day flew by! That's always good. It's nerve-wracking to host 60 writers, their families (at drop off) to a slate of teachers. I just home everything goes accordingly.

Meanwhile. the teacher institute will continue this morning with special guests Ronnie Sydney and Jack Powers. Great to have accomplished writers willing to share their expertise with our summering crew.

I'm keeping up with this blog, but I hoped to get a lot more of my personal writing done this weekend. Nope. Too many worthwhile distractions. I'm hoping to find a writing space today (in-between drop-off and pick-up).

Building readers and writers, one child at a time.