Vermont College Notes

There will be bits and pieces about my Vermont College Residency adventure for the next few weeks. And they will be in no order.

After our class (all four of us) gave our presentations about our critical essays, our advisor offered a few words and presented us with our Vermont College Writing for Children and Young Adults Picture Book Concentration Certificate.
When I was handed mine, I had the greatest urge my to grab the mike and begin to thank everyone.

"I want to thank my family for helping me through this.
Thank my advisor.
Thank Vermont College for accepting me to the program.
Thank my class for being so supportive and all around great people.
Thank the Class of 2010 for including us in all their events, even though two of us were leaving after getting this Certificate.
And I especially want to thank L.L. Bean for the jacket, boots, fleece sweaters and blankets that helped me survive the minus 27 degrees F. here in Vermont."

Here are some links to other students at Vermont College this January-- who managed to blog their adventures during the time they were there. One is a graduate who came back as a graduate assistant and the other is a school teacher. Watch her blog carefully -- she purposely made grammatical errors for her students to find.

I think others blogged (is that a word) about the adventure. I'll post their links whenever I find them.
-wendieO

Vermont College Residency is over

Vermont College was overwhelming. The picture book certificate group was separate from, and yet part of the whole experience. We went to the same lectures, but met as a separate group for our workshop session -- where it was picture books all the time. (The people in the four semester program had people doing all types of writing in their workshops.)

Now to digest what I've heard and try to apply it. I've already discovered that the other people in the regular program are learning more literary techniques than we picture book people are, but we'll have enough trouble just producing the number of picture books we are assigned -- 20 to 25. We send in five packets -- one each month. They include annotated list of 25 books we have read. 3-5 picture books we wrote. Parts of a research essay we are working on (and will give a lecture on in the Winter residency) and a cover letter talking about what we've done and some of what we are thinking. There may be more. I have to check my notes.

My family is hoping this series of over 95 degree days here in Maryland will break soon. (although it is making the swimming pool warm enough for me to consider swimming in it.)

During my 10 days in Vermont, the temps were in the 70s and low 80s, but it could also be sticky when the humidity rose, so it had some rotten days, too. (because very few places had air conditioning -- and those that did have it, turned off the air conditioning during the lectures because nobody could hear over the roar of the window airconditioner.) The best days were when we simply opened the windows and let the breeze blow through.

I hear that the winter session has minus 5 degrees. Yikes!

Now to finish doing the wash and then to try to organize a Vermont College corner in my office. hmm, that means I have to organize the piles that are already here -- right?
-wendieO