A Surprise Evening of Wondrous Words: Part 1

I have often written about the Northwest Inland Writing Project on this blog. Since last April a group of us have been planning a surprise celebration for our outgoing director Elinor Michel. Keeping a gathering like this a secret was a challenge. We pulled it off and an amazing evening in Moscow included great food, music, sharing, laughing, dancing, and wondrous words.
Tom Fox from the National Writing Project honored Elinor with a proclamation from the national office. She has directed the Northwest Inland Writing Project at the University of Idaho for over 25 years.

Elinor then spoke about the accomplishments of the numerous teachers involved in this project. April and Elinor share a quiet conversation during the evening.
I felt so blessed this evening to have such a circle of amazing friends. As we all honored our outgoing director we reflected and reminiscenced about the years of working at summer institutes, doing workshops, taking road trips to conferences, and participating in our writing retreat in McCall.
As the cake stated so well " Write On Elinor"!

Sunset and Harvest Time

The area south of Spokane, Washington is called The Palouse. Surrounding the central towns of Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington are miles and miles of farmland and small communities that rely on these crops as their livelihood. Any season of the year the drive takes on its own beauty, but last night I caught a harvest sunset and images created by combines in the wheat fields at dusk. The crop dust created an eerie, foggy look as I headed south on the highway. Another true sign we are heading into the new season. Darkness is falling so much earlier again!