PHOTOS COMING TOMORROW NIGHT!!
New advisors were assigned today! so the usual yelps and yips and squeals and shouts and whistles and hoorays drifted up to the Faculty Lounge from students surrounding the Noble bulletin board at about 10:00 pm. I have to say, it's great to hear so many people sound so happy with who they're going to be working with!
Kathi Appelt got back very late last night from her triumphant appearance with the other Newbery Honorees at the ALA conference in Chicago. Sounds like she was wined and dined to the max, and that she has a little crush on medal-winnner Neil Gaiman, who gave what she described as an excelllent speech to the gathered crowd. We're so proud of Kathi, though it's also nice right now that she was able to come back and not miss the rest of the residency. The faculty toasted her with champagne and got to hear all about ALA. This is the first time in ten years that the ALA summer conference has conflicted with our residency dates, and there are many of the faculty missing an opportunity to attend it.
We had a fascinating grad lecture by DP Pignataro today (there are enough grads so that grad lectures overlap - oh, I hate when that happens) about the effect of reading on the writing of her middle school students. Lots of photos of her students, and a kind 0f before/after sampling of writing focused on Beginnings, Tone, Voice - kind of amazing to see how talking about specific passages from specific books radically changed the kids' own writing. It's good to be reminded that there are real readers out there, not just some imaginary ideal reader - but real, honest-to-goodness kids.
We also had grad. readings by Varian Johnson, Jess Leader and Annemarie Turner today, as well as a wonderful lecture by Shelley Tanaka about the Voice of the Child and a discussion with Tim Wynne-Jones about his new book, THE UNINVITED. Rita has been knitting up a storm - the softest and most beautiful baby blanket for Larissa's new little boy, Eero (hope the spelling is right on that.) Strange not to see a whole row of knitters - only Rita. (What happened - did you all graduate? )
Scholarship announcements come tomorrow and I'll post them tomorrow night.
Forgive me, but I'm not going to be able to post notes from the faculty lectures until our Free Morning - the pace of things here is just too busy, busy, busy. But tomorrow I plan on taking lots and lots of photos and posting them - how does that sound? I think you will love that. And for heaven's sake, find some students who are posting notes on their blogs - they'll be able to give you such a different perspective, and they're so used to doing it quickly!
I can't even imagine life here at VCFA from the perspective of the Dewey dorms....Wild and crazy, you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment