I'm Published!

Taking the Long Way Around
by the 2006 Maine Writing Project Fellows

As a culminating activity for the Maine Writing Project, each participant submitted 1-2 pieces of writing to be published. This anthology is an expectation for each year. An editing board was established by the end of the project, and those members met a few times to organize the material, design a cover, and find a publisher. The budget (for about 100 bound copies) was about $600.

The one poem that I submitted had a huge typo, but nevertheless, I was excited to see my writing in print. And my students were even more excited. They just couldn't believe that their teacher, someone they actually know, had a piece of writing published. Their reaction has motivated me (even more) to continue to search for local authors to visit our classroom and to closely examine the lives of published authors. My students aren't yet convinced that authors are real people who write about or are inspired by real-life experiences.