Hi all,
Thought I'd pass this along to those of you not on the Highlights Foundation email list.
These are some great workshops folks (and I'm part of the faculty of the Writing Fiction course). It's well worth your time and money, believe me.
Just search the threads here, and you'll see the number of people on here who have attended a HF workshop. I don't think any of them thought it was a waste of time.
keep writing,
dave r
Kent Brown wrote:
Way back in the early '90s, a distinguished editor was talking to her boss, the man who hired her. He was leaving the publishing house he ran and looking for something else to do. He was thinking of distributing children's books, or publishing them, but wasn't sure. The editor suggested the boss come see me here in Honesdale.
Clay Winters and I hit it off, and we started Boyds Mills Press. The editor who sent him—Patti Gauch—had been a key part of our Highlights Foundation Writers Workshop at Chautauqua. Clay and I have now passed on the torch of Boyds Mills Press to others—not to say younger others. Patti Gauch is retired from Clay's old publishing house, though she is far from inactive in the world of children's writing and publishing.
You may have heard this story before. It's really about the caring of one friend for two others, which resulted in a publishing house. And three friends who continue their long involvement with the Highlights Foundation, helping writers find their voices, illustrators their stride, and otherwise encouraging excellence in the offerings for children, which is the core mission of the Highlights Foundation.
My energy wanes some, but Patti is still full of passion and energy for children's literature in all forms.
It will seem strange to me not to pack up and go to Chautauqua for a week this summer. Not to listen to Patti stir the group in the Hall of Christ. Not to see her sitting, working intently with a writer under the trees of Chautauqua.
But I do get to sit with her. To watch her work. And most of all, to eat ice cream with her.
Clay and Patti and I will be together on several occasions this summer.
Patti's first offering this year—held here at the home of our Founders—is Heart of the Fantasy Novel, May 10-13 and October 18-21. Patti designed a two-part workshop some years back, and by all reports it's been a welcome idea. This year her two-part program is on fantasy. That's a new subject for our workshops here, but surely not a new subject for Patti. Likely she was teaching fantasy long before Clay Winters recruited her from academia to lead Philomel.
There are a number of other programs, one of them particularly Chautauqua-like. Patti will do a keynote at the beginning and be part of the week-long fiction program, June 24-July 1. You will recognize some of the faculty as colleagues from earlier workshops. We will have a sort of Chautauqua in the Poconos, though the title of the workshop is Writing Fiction for Children and Young Adults.
I'm not going to go on any longer about Patti, or her workshops. I'm writing to you because you already believe in Patti Gauch.
Please consider which of our Pattiprograms might advance your writing career.
PS: I think the Chautauqua Refectory had more than two dozen flavors of ice cream. We have only 8 flavors in our dipping cabinet. But here it's free—and open early and late
