Here’s another video for you! In my dreams, families far and wide will start up virtual writer’s workshops during this difficult, cooped-up time. I’m going to show you how–and it’s simple! The video offers an overview; I lay out a plan below. https://www.instagram.com/p/B_DRQC9BEZ4/ If you still need convincing, in my last video I talked about how [...]
You know I’m worked up about this idea because I made a video for you–the first one ever in almost twelve years here on the Wonder Farm. Noted: I make a lot of ridiculous expressions when I talk. Also, the resolution of this video is too small. I’ll try to fix it before the next [...]
I’m thrilled to have an essay up at Salon today. For all the families who suddenly find themselves home with their kids. I keep seeing them on social media: The “school schedules” written on kitchen whiteboards, shared proudly by parents newly tasked with home-schooling in the face of a pandemic. Those whiteboards make my heart [...]
Hello! See that photo there? That was our first day homeschooling. More than 22 years ago.If you’ve come here via Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or who knows where, welcome. Especially if you’re a parent who suddenly finds yourself home with your kids and that’s not where you planned to be. Please let me introduce [...]
I’ve spent the last month or so helping T with his college application essays. It’s a little hard to believe. Ten years ago his brother was applying to film school, and I was writing about The College Application Monster. Six years ago I talked and talked with his sister about her essays, including the Common [...]
We came back together a year later, not far from where we’d gathered before. The six of us, in the second residency of our year-long program. We found ourselves in a grand family home this time, rather than on a farm, on the Boquet River in Elizabethtown, far upstate New York. Tall columns out front, [...]
I’ve been thinking about how we offer feedback to writers. Partly because I’ve been sharing my work with a group of fellow writers, for the first time in a long time. And also because I recently received an email from a lovely reader of this blog named Stephanie. It began like this: Hi Patricia… I [...]