Students Inspire

Every Thursday I know why I like my job despite all of the incongruities and uncertainties. I meet my two Final Portfolio groups and they actually inspire me. I hope I also inspire them.
All three students who were due to submit did and four out of six came to class. I guess the ones who are committed show in these snow-covered times. One student lives locally- the other three had a commute. The others who did not come in actually did have very good reason – one of them to do with a meter of snow. The local student allowed plenty of time in case the pavements were covered. She actually arrived early and came along to my office. It was good to see her.
The conversation throughout the session was focussed and useful. These students are really learning to critique well. Are they becoming better self-editors? We hope so: this is the point of the exercise.
One student stayed behind for a short chat. She has learnt the networking lesson. She presented herself as a writer to be involved with a history project in her home town. She felt a bit of a fraud: several other people there had many publications to their name. Yet she wasn’t alone. However, there were several other people there who had thinner portfolios.
She held her own, and this has led to other opportunities. She now runs and participates in open mic events. She has some involvement with schools. Her writing is improving apace, too, partly because she is becoming more confident and partly because she is getting even more feed-back now.
I pointed her towards NAWE. They will help her keep her CRB check up to date and then there’s the Public Liability Insurance - £10,00,000 of it. NAWE also naturally provides further networking opportunities.

NAWE Conference 2010

This conference, held in a very comfortable hotel in Cheltenham, excelled itself last weekend. Possibly this is a reflection of the fact that NAWE itself is going from strength to strength. As usual much of the joy and the usefulness came from the opportunity offered between sessions and over meals to network.
NAWE is doing well. That is very clear. The new web site is splendid. Literature training has been renamed Writer’s Compass. What is provided is just as good as ever. Professional and institutional members get £10,000,000 of public liability insurance and can download the certificate from the site. NAWE will do a CRB check for those writers who need to work in schools or with vulnerable adults. And you can join the Professional Register to advertise what you offer. The new HE committee was formed at the conference. One of the highlights was hearing reading from the Young Writers’ hub. Another good initiative.
All of the sessions I attended were good and my own workshop, about using foreign language work to enhance our creativity, was well received, it seems. There was a mixture of workshops, information about conducting school visits, and discussions about current concerns. Naturally, “cut-backs” featured highly in the latter. But when don’t we always have concerns about funding? There was a real choice of sessions, and often I found myself wanting to go to two or even three at once, including at the time when my own session ran. The most important one for me, I think, was a discussion of the failings of the traditional writers’ workshop and how we might improve it. Some good ideas were discussed but we must be careful about anything that will increase our marking load.
We were also provided with two excellent after-dinner speaker. And oh, I ended up buying yet more books. The speakers and the bookstall full of members’ books were just too irresistible this year.