Heading home after a perfect week

I've spent the week on St. Simon's Island off the Georgia coast, teaching Beginning Novel-writing at the Southeastern Writers Association annual conference. My husband came along and we'd get up early, eat breakfast with the other authors, then ride bikes for forty minutes. After a shower, I'd join the other instructors and authors, evaluating manuscripts, listening in on other classes, and then it was lunchtime. After lunch I taught my class. As the sun set, I'd walk on the beach for miles with my honey, watching folks skip balls into the surf for their dogs as kids ran back and forth and some seriously intense kite flyers tried to get expensive-looking kits aloft.

Today we visited the bell chapel on site. You walk through a small door and find yourself in a tiny vestibule. A ceramic basket holds prayer requests. I read them, and most prayed for jobs and deliverance from hard economic times. I pushed through the next door and found myself in the miniscule chapel. six pews, three to a side, plus three stained glass windows. You can't stare at Christ on Gethsemene and not think of the prayer requests you just read. I prayed for those folks, whoever they were, as well as for the kids that my dynamic new friend Frances told me about. Her visit to the chapel revealed prayer requests from a kids' group that cried out for reconciliation with estranged famly, or just the return of a missing parent. Heartbreaking.

The conference is held at the beautiful and incredibly historic Epworth by the Sea. Gary and I visited the Methodist museum on site the other day. Really interesting,

I can't believe it's time to go home. I read some fabulous manuscripts, some that truly deserve to be published - now!

Tomorrow we'll drive to Savannah for lunch with our nephew, a grad student at SCAD. Maybe we'll be able to squeeze one more bike ride in before we check out.