The UCLA Extension Writers
Studio – four days, all day, of intensive workshops – ended yesterday.  Here’s what can happen in a writing
class – a bunch of strangers get together and four days later they’ve formed a
writing community. They know an astonishing amount about each other’s personal
life – sometimes stuff even their families don’t know – and they have support
and connection in their writing, they have people they trust now to read their
pages to give them feedback. Yesterday my students even created their own
FaceBook page to make staying in touch easier.

Their stories this Monday
morning are still in my head and my hope is that my students will stay connected to one another and to the essays they were working on. That
after all the adrenaline and energy of a writing workshop they can now close
the door to the room where they work and be alone in the silence.  And continue writing.