Participants over and over have said they would simply like more offerings like these. The expected outcomes of increased knowledge of, and interest in, the writing and publishing process increased exposure to a variety of writers and writing styles exposure to seasoned writers and writing techniques for interested beginning writers were all met.
We advertised the events as a series with a brochure that was available in all the branches (as well as online), and on our online calendar, so that people could see at a glance what’s offered county-wide. This is the third year we’ve offered this programming, and people have come to know that the quality of presenters is very good and so they are willing to travel to attend the events. We had a lot of participants going from one community to another to attend the events this year, for example, someone from New Prague came to a class at Prior Lake or Savage and vice versa. All presenters talked about their writing and publishing process which was helpful to those who are aspiring writers. Evaluations for the John Diers program commented on how much they learned from the presenter. We also had three authors who talked about and read from their books. The most frequent written comments were from participants who wanted more writing classes and classes that were more than one class long (6).Īttendance for the 9 Loft "First Pages" classes was 76, and are not reported below but by MELSA elsewhere, as was attendance for Jack El-Hai (Minnesota Book Awards panel). Comments on the evaluations often cited the positive and energetic teacher or said that the presenter was great. When asked to respond to the statement “My understanding of the writing process increased due to this program.” Again about 90% gave it a 5, 10% gave it a 4. On a scale of 1-5 (5=excellent), 90% rated the class as 5, while about 10% rated them as 4. We offered 9 writing classes through the Loft Literary Center ("First Pages," funded by MELSA Legacy funds). National New Play Network (NNPN) is an alliance of professional theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays. Inkslingers writing programming was offered at all seven libraries in the system during October – November 2014. The NPX, a National New Play Network program, is flipping the script on the ways in which new work is shared and discovered.