Chattanooga Festival of Writers

I attended my first writer's conference this past weekend. It was a great conference and I walked away having learned a lot more than I expected.

The main portion of the conference consisted on four session times with three discussions to choose from during each session. I attended "The Memoir:Telling Your Story" (John Sedgwick), "Writing the Short Story" (Ben Fountain), "Freelance Journalism: crafting a Career, Finding Your Niche" (Nancy Henderson, Sean Price, Nancy Hatch Woodward), and "Tips to Keep the Reader Reading" (Will Akers)

As you can see I chose to attend talks that covered just about everything you could write. And there were other sessions that I wish I could have fit in but with seven sessions choices and only four time blocks, I couldn't do it all.

The festival itself started Friday night with a reception dinner and keynote address by Ben Fountain. Saturday was the main day with breakfast, two sessions, lunch with keynote address by Allen Wier, the final two sessions and a book signing. I avoided the signing as my budget is limited at the moment and all the authors have so many good titles to choose from. I was sure I would be tempted to purchase one of everything, so I stayed away.

As far as gems of knowledge I pulled from the sessions I attended, I'll post those tomorrow.

Links to some of the authors:
www.willakers.com
www.nancyhendersonwrst.com
www.johnsedgwich.com
www.allenwier.com
www.lollywinston.com
www.nancyhatchwoodward.com
www.katorihall.com
http://english.unc.edu/faculty/kenan.html

Strides of March

Congratulations to Sarah the volunteer coordinator at Chattanooga Cares. She did a great job organizing this year's march. I know it must have been hard for her considering this was her first year organizing things.

Of course no one could foresee how cold it would be today. The ground was wet from the rain we had yesterday and the wind kept blowing making the day a little colder than necessary. But everything went well and I couldn't help but smile seeing all the walkers crossing the walking bridge shortly after the start of the 3.1 mile walk.

Consider donating to the organization. HIV/AIDS affects us all.

What I Have Been Up To

Lots going on. I've been doing a lot of knitting. You can see some updated pictures and project info in Ravelry and on my flickr page (link on the side). Sorry for not posting more details at this time.

I wanted to get a quick post in before heading off to bed. I am attending a writer's conference this weekend and it starts early in the morning and I don't want to miss anything tomorrow.

Sunday, I'll be volunteering for Chattanooga Cares down on the river front for their annual Strides of March event. It should be a great day for all and a great day to raise money for AIDS/HIV awareness. If you are in the area, come on down. I'll be working volunteer registration from 9:30-1:00 and then I'll spend a couple of hours hanging around after that. ANYBODY WANT TO KNIT OUT THAT AFTERNOON??? Let me know!

So, more about the conference and my projects soon.

Take care!