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The Hubbard Hall Writers did a public reading tonight from their amazing work on their blogs and in their writing, photos, animations and art work. We had a full house in stifling heat and the writers and audience bravely sweltered through the night. I had a wonderful feeling to it, these gifted people who have been so creative and so supportive of one another, people came from as far away as Buffalo and the Midwest. John Greenwood, Diane Fiore, Dr. Jen. Baker-Porazinski, Rebecca Fedler, Kim Gifford and Rachel Barlow were funny, touching, uplifting and honest. What a privilege it is for me to work with these brave and gifted people. They were all nervous about appearing in public before the readings, but they didn’t seem nervous tonight.

The workshop was supposed to last four weeks, but is heading for two years and will probably go another ten more. In the Fall, I’m teaching a four part course on separate Saturday mornings at Hubbard Hall called “The Art Of The Blog.” There was a great feeling in the room tonight, how wonderful to hear their great work and see it celebrated. Red was stellar as usual, except for his fascination with the Irish step-dancing class. He is from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

Okay, I’m just kidding about Florence. Just getting your attention.  But if you come to the Hubbard Hall Writer’s Workshop Readings this coming Friday at Hubbard Hall, you will encounter something precious and worthwhile: six writers (and me, too) who are enthusiastically and creatively exploring the new life of the writer as the very foundations of publishing, writing, reading and books explodes and evolves all around us.

This workshop began in 2011 and was supposed to last six weeks. We are heading for our second year, and I don’t think we will ever disband. I asked each of the writers to create their own blog, and they have, and this has unleashed a wonderful river of the imagination – writing, animation, stories, poetry, essays, a flowering of imagination. Friday the Hubbard Hall Writer’s are coming out, sharing their work, meeting with you, talking to you, answering questions about this wonderful experiment, one of the most meaningful of my writing life.

At 6 p.m., there will be a reception where you can meet Diane Fiore, John Greenwood, Kim Gifford, Dr. Jen Baker-Porazinksi, Rebecca Fedler, Rachel Barlow. And me and Red, the workshop dog. This is an amazing group of creative and mutually supportive people, fusing technology and ideas to build new kinds of writing opportunities and careers. You can learn a lot from them, I have.  You can learn about pugs, the agony of caring physicians in the health care morass, family farms, family care and Alzheimer’s, bugs and spiders,  poetry, drawings and technology. A feast. I will be reading from my new book “Second Chance Dogs,” out in the Fall, and each of the Hubbard Hall writers will share something from their work. We will all be available to answer questions and have a discussion after the readings, which begin at 7 p.m. Contributions to the Hubbard Hall Summer Scholarship Fund are welcome, admission is free. Advance tickets can be purchased at the Hubbard Hall website for $10.

As I teach it, writing is a process of coming out, being authentic, finding your voice and your zeal, following it. These very wonderful people have all done that, and it is really working for them. I am so proud of them, I am eager for you to meet them and hear about their work.

The readings will be held in the Hubbard Hall Freight Depot and I know tickets are selling quickly. Hope to see you on Friday. If you care about the future of writings, stories, publishing on the Internet and blogs, you will find it worthwhile. In the fall, I will be teaching a course on “The Art Of The Blog” on four Saturday mornings at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, N.Y. Details to be announced on Friday.

You are invited to come and meet the Hubbard Hall Writers (and me and Red) talking about our very successful workshop and reading from their surprising, powerful and very poignant and uplifting work. Dr. Jen Baker-Porazinksi, John Greenwood, Rebecca Fedler, Rachel Barlow, Diane Fiore and Kim Gifford have written about pugs, relationships, memory, Alzheimer’s, the challenges of dating in various ways. I will also be offering a sneak preview from my next book “Second Change Dog: A Love Story,” and Red will be along, he is the workshop writing dog. There will be a reception with food before the reading so people can look at the poems, blogs, photos, drawings and artwork that has come out of the workshop.

At the reading, we will use screen projections to talk about our blogs and explain how we are exploring new technology and platforms to get our work out into the world. Some of the group are moving to be professional writers, others just want to write for other reasons. The evening is being held for the benefit of the Hubbard Hall Scholarship Fund, so if you come, you will not only hear some wonderful writing and support the writers, you will help kids enjoy Hubbard Hall’s great educational activities and programs.

Thanks to Hubbard Hall’s generosity, we are pricing the reading to make sure everyone can come – kids and young writers are especially welcome. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Advanced ticket sales are $10 and are available at the Hubbard Hall website. Tickets are free at the door but donations to the Hubbard Hall Scholarship Fund will be welcome. Writing workshops are complex and challenging, but this one has really worked. It was supposed to be a six-week workshop, we are heading into our second year, and I don’t think this group will ever disband. We meet almost daily on Facebook and have all explored the ways in which we can use writing to make a living, explore complex issues in our lives, and to use blogs to advance our work and reach new audiences.

I am very excited about the work this group has gone. For years, I’ve wanted to figure out how to reach writing in a positive and effective way, and this is the group that showed the way. You will be hearing from the milkman who writes poetry and memoir, the doctor who is struggling to find her humanity, the housewife and mother who writes like Erma Bombeck, the artist/photographer/writer and teacher whose life revolves around pugs, the young poet raised on a family farm.  Their work ought to be shared with the world. These people are a light unto the world. In the way that independent bookstores need to be support, so do writers started out and working to find their voices and communicate. So please come if you can. We will have fun, share what we have learned, touch some hearts and souls. The readings will take place at the Freight Depot at Hubbard Hall. Reception at 6 p.m., readings at 7 p.m. Hope to see you there. Readings are supposed to be a dying art form, but so are bookstores. Both will be around for a good while.

The Hubbard Hall Writer’s Workshop came to the farm this afternoon to plan the first public reading of our works at Hubbard Hall on Friday, May 21st. There will be a reception at 6 p.m. – you can see their photos, videos, poems, and then at 7 p.m. a reading of our works.  You can order tickets from Hubbard Hall, the Cambridge, N.Y. arts center. That night, I will read from my next book “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story,” and the writers will show their blogs on video screens and read from their works. The Writer’s Workshop began last year and was supposed to last a few weeks, we are going to keep going indefinitely. It’s too creative a group to disband. This is a remarkable group of writers, bloggers, animators, poets and thinkers, one of the most talented and enthusiastic and supportive group of creative people I have meet.

The writing workshops I have heard about are rarely fun. We are having a blast, and moving forward with our work.

I asked each of the writers to start a  blog, and boy, did they ever. Diane Fiore (from left) began writing about her extraordinary relationship with her father, who she did not got along with until he got Alzheimer’s. They had ten wonderful years together. Her’s is a love story told on her blog every day. Her mother has Alzheimer’s now and Diane has moved into her home with her husband to help care for her. Home is where the heart is. People all over the country are finding her poignant writing about her family helpful and riveting. John Greenwood started his career as a milkman and now runs Stewart’s milking operations. His blog, Raining Iquanas is colorful, honest and amazingly creative, a spectacular explosion of writing, video, photography, a powerful new kind of memoir from a creative warrior.

Kim Gifford is a brilliant artist, photographer, writer and teacher. On her blog, she celebrates her quite wonderful art and her all encompassing love of pugs and her search for a meaningful life. Jen Baker-Porazinski is a compassionate and dedicated family physician struggling to keep her humanistic view of medicine in the midst of a complex and sometimes dehumanizing health care system. She writes about her determination to help people heal with great clarity and passion and her perspective as a doctor is very powerful. The writing workshop has helped give Jen a voice about her life in medicine.

Rebecca Fedler is a young poet who grew up on a Washington County farm (she works on the farm and also is a waitress and bartender.) Her blog is new, her poems are powerful, wrenching and honest. I call Rachel Barlow the sustainable Erma Bombeck. She writes about motherhood, family life, and life itself with great humor and insight and especially her two sons, Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Like so many fine writers, she is open and eloquent about her own struggles with depression on her increasingly popular website. Rachel is a talented animator as well as a writer.  She will shortly publish some of her original stories as e-books from her website. She and her family are committed to environmental consciousness and living.

I hope you will check out and follow the work of these very gifted and determined people, and if you can, please come and meet all of us (Red, too, he is the workshop dog) at Hubbard Hall on May 31. There is a suggested donation of $20 a person to benefit the Hubbard Hall Scholarship Fund. You can order tickets on the Hubbard Hall website. This is a celebration of the creative spark, in fact that’s what we are calling the evening “Creative Sparks.”