Announcing Bobbi Katz

BULLETIN: This morning I put into a bowl the names of those who signed my website guest book for the first time during January and drew out a winner. Congratulations to Ken Slesarik. Ken has chosen to send me some of his poetry to be critiqued. I look forward to reading more of Ken’s work.

Yesterday I received excellent news from an old friend. Bobbi Katz has accepted my invitation to make a guest appearance here on Friday, April 9.

Thursday I’ll leave Springfield to attend CCIRA in Denver. Friday I’ll make a presentation on poetry and also join my friend and co-author Kathy Holderith in a second presenation. CCIRA is a great reading conference and I’m always pleased to be part of it. One of the things I’ll talk about is Word of the Month Poetry Challenge. Maybe we’ll start getting more poems from Colorado. I would like that.

This month’s teaching tool on my website (go to Teachers) is about journaling and idea files. It should be up in the next day or so. Not everyone keeps a journal but quite a few writers do and I think it might be a good conversation point.

Please let us know your thoughts and your practices of keeping ideas in some form. If you keep a journal, when did you start? How often do you write in it? What kind of entries do you make? Do you also keep folders of ideas, scraps from articles, and other tidbits that might lead to something to write about? I hope someone will get us going rght away.

On a silly note, we have uninvited guests in our attic. Raccoons are up there and by the sounds I’d say they’re bowling, square dancing, or enjoying the mating season. Sandy read on the Internet that loud music might drive them off so last night I pulled down the stairs, climbed into the attic, turned on a radio full blast, and left it there until we went to bed. I haven’t heard from the raccoons today but it can’t be this easy. I have a feeling that before this is over we’ll be fighting over which station to listen to. Stay, uh, tuned.
David