Tayari's Blog: The Saddest Day of The Year

Posted by TayariJones on May 9, 2007 07:07 AM
Filed under D.C. Diaries

On Monday, the members of the 2007 Jenny McKean Moore Community The 2007 Jenny McKean Moore WorkshopWriters Workshop met for the last time and it just about broke my heart. As many of you know, my position here at George Washington requires me to teach one class to GW students and one class to regular folks in the DC area who want to take a writing class. I taught one group in the fall and one in the spring. They have been the highlight of my experience here.

This semester, we were a small group. We started out with twelve and life called and some of our members couldn't finesse time off from work, or they had family obligations, or maybe just changed thier minds. By the end, we were nine and we were serious about what we were doing.

You all know that diversity is important to me-- and by diversity I don't just mean racial diversity. I mean real mixing of folks. We were nine people with nine very different jobs, different ages, men, women, gay, straight, some had kids, married, unmarried. We were so different that you would have thought we did it on purpose. But we were so alike and so compatible that you would have thought this, too, planned.

I'm going to miss them. I hope they all keep writing and working on thier projects. I hope they keep the listserv going. I like to think that I gave them good instruction, but anyone who has ever been in a workshop knows that a writing group is only as good as the members. The teacher is just one person. These folks were good to each other and to themselves. You can see it in thier work.

Here are pictures from the party-- where I held my composure and didn't get all weepy and sentimenal. I saved that for this blog post.

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There are 1 comments on "The Saddest Day of The Year". If you'd like to leave a comment, click here to jump down to the comments entry form.

Comment #1, by FAntoinette [TypeKey Profile Page]

Sadness, yes. But, Oh! what pure joy! Seeing the pictures from our party brought a smile on my face and a chuckle in my heart. I truly enjoyed the gathering (It was a great party!) which was the icing on the cake of our time spent together during the workshop. Tayari, THANK YOU! for your leadership and your wisdom. I am committed to staying on this path. I do believe that my writing buddies and I will see you again in the bye and bye.

Love,

F. Antoinette Leggett a.k.a. Felicia A. Lightfoot

May 18, 2007 12:28 AM

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