What Students Teach

I am deeply thankful for the hospitality that was shown to me last week by the Department of Humanities and the highly engaging faculty at Grace College in Winona Lake, IN. While on campus I had the pleasure of spending time both in classes and one-on-one with writing students. I read their work and spent time in conversation with them. 

Here is what I saw:

• Writers working in community. Creative work requires much solitude, but it’s finished in community. 
• Story is implanted in us at birth and flourishes in childhood. If we can hang onto this sense of wonder into young adulthood and beyond, our craft only benefits.
• Writing is how we process ideas; it is a primary way in which we learn. Story and the making of it benefits the writer as much, if not more than, the reader.
• Young writers get their start as young readers. Our culture must procure readers. 
• Young writers learn quickly the ways of the craft. The young mind has the advantage of consuming and assimilating knowledge quickly. In creative work this is as great an advantage as anywhere.

I look forward to the next time I’m afforded the opportunity to spend a couple of days at Grace with these students. My understanding of craft was sharpened and tested. And I am grateful.