O W P  30TH  A N N I V E R S A R Y   &  W R I T I N G
 M A R A T H O N

SAVE THE DATE!

Richard Louth, director of the Southeastern Louisiana
Writing Project. will be our guest as Oklahoma Writing
Project celebrates its 30th anniversary  June 21.

For the last several years at NWP fall conventions,
Louth has led teacher consultants from across the
nation through the streets of convention cities on a
day of non-stop writing, eating, drinking, writing,
sharing, eating, writing, until everyone comes
together in a readaround at the end of the day.

For those OWP TCs who have never had this opportunity,
Louth has agreed to lead us on a journey, writing
through the streets, restaurants, buildings, and
canals of Oklahoma City and Bricktown, wherever our
fancy leads us.  We will spend the day writing and
sharing--a la Natalie Goldberg--with Oklahoma Writing
Project friends we cherish.  The day will end with a
banquet and celebration.

Louth writes about how he originated the First New
Orleans Marathon
Publication: The Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1 , Winter
2002

http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/315

"The first New Orleans Writing Marathon was not for an
institute but for a conference of about a hundred
teacher-consultants from across the state. Asked to
lead an afternoon of writing activities for the
statewide Louisiana Writing Project's Festival of
Writers, I wanted to do a marathon based on our site's
approach but knew that there were too many people to
make it work. I knew also that after a morning of
workshops, teachers would rather be on the streets of
the French Quarter than writing in a hotel conference
room, and that they would crave a chance to chat over
an oyster po'boy washed down by a Dixie beer at least
as much as the opportunity to write. The solution was
to form small writing groups and release them to the
streets where Faulkner wrote his first novel,
Tennessee Williams set A Streetcar Named Desire, and
Andrei Codrescu insists The Muse is Always
Half-Dressed."

Oklahoma City has its own history, its spirit, its
magic to offer us as we spend the day writing
together.  Save June 21 in your calendar now.  We had
almost 90 at our 25th Anniversary.  Let's make this
one even bigger.

Committee members for the Anniversary are
Kay Bishop  <[log in to unmask]>
Vivian Nida  <[log in to unmask]>
Sonia Gensler  <[log in to unmask]>
Sandra Effinger <[log in to unmask]>

They will be in touch with more details about time,
place, registration, as they finalize plans.









Janis Cramer
Co-Director of Inservice
Oklahoma Writing Project
"Teachers Teaching Teachers"
820 Van Vleet Oval
University of Oklahoma
Phone and Fax (405) 495-4903
[log in to unmask]