While in Little Rock for the Arkansas Literary Festival, I did the usual reading followed by questions and answers from the audience and book-signing. But that’s not all I did there.
I’d volunteered for the Writers in the Schools program, and on Friday, April, 8, I spent a few hours at Hall High School. I read from and talked about Fighters & Writers, from which I chose (mostly) different selections than I presented the following day at the Arkansas Studies Institute, including some I’d not previously performed in public. I also talked about writing generally: how one becomes a scribbler, dedication to craft and related matters. (I noticed that students were more familiar with the boxers I mentioned than the authors, which didn’t surprise me, but they asked more questions about writing than sports, which did.) I addressed a group of about 60 or 70 students in the media center/library and visited several classrooms to address smaller groups. Students and teachers took time away from determined preparation for upcoming batteries of standardized testing and attentively listened to what I had to say. I only hope they got as much out of my visit as I did.
