The Last Days of Summer
Right now, the participants of The Summer of Short Stories are finishing up their final peer reviews and receiving feedback and celebrating wins and making plans to write on. I just love this course. It is ‘the fast and the furious’ and it is the perfect way to kick off a new year, full of ideas, immediate wins to set yourself up on a high, and the perfect playground to try new things.
Here are some of things that made me smile this year…
One participant was certain she could only write 300 words in a week (our maximum story length was 1,000 words). ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘Do that!’ Can you guess what happened? She wrote 1,000 words.
One participant had never written anything before. She said: Thank you Jo. I’ve never written anything so your feedback means the world to me. I enjoyed the challenge and now don’t want to stop.
Another participant rediscovered her joy. I finally feel excited about writing again… This is the most engaged I have felt about writing in a long time.
Oh, my heart. These little (big!) wins, these moments of transformation and revolution and rediscovery, are exactly why I teach. And as any teacher can tell you, when you teach, you receive and learn. I am enriched so much by all the moments that made up our intensive month of creativity, bravery and joy.
Thank you, to all who joined me, you have helped me to think deeply, to question what I want to know more about, to continually improve my methods and processes, and to make more neural connections and interpersonal connections each time we’re together. I love our community.
Finally, and definitely not least of all, I want to say a huge thank you to Sarah, who has worked so diligently behind the scenes to make sure everyone’s stories and reviews have been shuffled and posted through the email boxes between participants as efficiently as possible. (It’s a lot trickier than it sounds!) You are my new hero!
Love, Jo X
p.s. If you missed out this time, The Winter of Short Stories (the genre edition) starts 4 August, 2025.
