I just returned from a week at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Reveling in the energy and inspiration of spending an entire week with people who think about writing, talk about writing, love writing, and actually write.

The workshop I attended was provocatively titled, “I met my old lover on the street last night.” This fiction workshop channeled the tensions of interpersonal relationships to create scenes that hold the reader’s interest. Using prompts provided by our workshop leader, we wrote every night and read our writing in the next day’s class.

Another treat of the week was hearing my writing buddy Mary Gottschalk read from her memoir Sailing Down the Moonbeam at Prairie Lightsbookstore.

The opportunity to focus on my writing for an entire week is an amazing gift. In addition to adding chapters to my novel, I came away with starts on several essays to work up. What a great week.