It’s a FFW live blog from your local friendly post calvin editor! This post will be updated throughout the weekend. Stay tuned for wise words and cheesy English major feelings.
Wednesday, April 11
4:50 p.m.
I stop by the registration desk for early packet pick up. There’s something about that name tag and beautiful, thick program that gets my stomach all jumpy. I’m bringing four high school students with me to share the joy of FFW this year, so I grab their tags and programs, too!
Thursday, April 12
10:15 a.m.
I pack my tote bag with pens and pencils, water, phone charger, and notebook. It’s my Festival notebook, and I dug out from the confines of my bookshelf yesterday. The notebook starts at Festival 2010, and my first set of notes is from Avi’s talk.He says the thing he’s proudest of is that “Children see me as a good writer. That’s enough for me.” Notes from 2012, 2014, and 2016 follow. This is the last year that will fit in the book—I’m almost out of pages.
12:10
“It’s always about saying yes.” – Kwame Alexander.
2:00
Flannery O’Connor kept a prayer journal during a year of grad school at Iowa. One of her deepest fears was not of failure, but of being mediocre.
“I would like to be intelligently holy,” she says.
“I do not know you, God, because I am in the way,” she says.
Abby Zwart (’13) teaches high school English in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She spends her free time making lists of books she should read, cooking, and managing the post calvin.
