When my family and I spent a year in Florence, Italy, I took a bus every day up into the little mountain town of Fiesole where I hiked up a mountain trail past an elementary school. Even failures and setbacks become part of the rich soil from which new ideas and stories bloom. In the Children's Voices Writing Workshop, students have an opportunity to write their own stories using the special creative tools I talk about in my presentation, such as memory, imagination, and curiosity.
Writing is many different things to different people.
But it can be a source of discovery, adventure and freedom for all of us, no matter what path we choose in life. I hope that by sharing my story with children, I help them to explore the power, beauty, and humor in their own stories, whether real or invented, and discover what writing is for them.