Creative Writing class in Ireland

I’m back after spending most of the month of May teaching in Ireland. What an incredible experience! My students, who came from several Tennessee colleges, were some of the most creative students I’ve ever worked with. Ireland is a land of castles, sheep grazing in green pastures, Irish dancing, cliffs, the Aran Islands where people still speak the Irish language – I could go on.  The weather was not as perfect as everything else – too cold and rainy for my liking – but Ireland is truly a magical place and the Irish are warm and welcoming.  Yes, I’m glad to be home, but I’m so glad I had the experience!

In her examiner.com article, Paige Crutcher has compiled comments from several Nashville authors about Davis-Kidd’s closing. Clearly, there is a lot of emotion about this.  I was in Green Hills tonight, and it is sad to see the “Store Closing” sign above the Davis-Kidd sign.

Someone – one of those wonderful “former” members of the Nashville Writers Alliance who came back to attend our panel at the Southern Festival of Books – expressed the feeling about leaving everyone after the weekend.  He said he was homesick. I think it was Mike Coleman, but we all felt it, not just those of you who came to Nashville for our gathering and then went home.  The weekend was a time for reminiscing and sharing and connecting in a way that is hard to explain to anyone who has not been part of our writers group.  The e-mails that have been flying back and forth keep saying the same thing: This was a group that has been hard for any of us to replicate in any other part of our lives.

So even though I am still in Nashville and am still a part of the writers group, and I love all the members who still meet every Tuesday night, I am homesick for the “old” members, too.  (I’ll get in big trouble for that particular adjective.) The good news is that our present members have a special bond, too. I would not know what to do with myself on Tuesday nights if I couldn’t go to writers group.