by Stephen Faure
“I’m a writer.”
With this affirmation spoken by each participant to another, the Covington Writing Marathon began. Fifteen writers had gathered, mostly teachers from area high schools, as well as Dr. Richard Louth and Dr. Jeff Wiemelt, professors in the English department at Southeastern Louisiana University. Dr. Louth is head of the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project; Dr. Wiemelt is director of the university’s Writing Center.
I joined the group on a Saturday morning at Covington’s City Hall. The FarmersMarket provided a colorful backdrop for the group’s first exercise. It was a gorgeous spring day in April—one of those days sandwiched between the gloom and rain of winter and the unbearable heat and humidity of summer. It was a day to truly enjoy what life here has to offer.
Dr. Louth explained how the marathon worked. The group would meet, perform a warm-up exercise, and then split up into small, informal groups for the rest of the day. The participants were encouraged to wander about town and to stop and write periodically as they found interesting locations. At the end of the day, they would all meet at a local restaurant and share their experiences and their work. Given the writing prompt “old shoes,” they scattered about City Hall’s lawn, pen and paper in hand, found comfortable spots, and began to write.
People leaving the Farmers Market observed the group sitting on the grass, or steps, or under a tree, silent, heads down, writing. Most kept walking, minding their own business. As I was taking pictures of the group, a woman stopped and asked me what was going on.
“They’re writers,” I said.
“Oh, how wonderful!” was her response. And I could tell that she really meant it.
After a few minutes, another woman passed by; she pointed to the group and asked, “Are they being punished?” When I explained what the group was doing, she immediately warmed up. “That’s really great!” she exclaimed.
I later found out this kind of wonder is a common reaction to the working writers. As Dr. Louth said, referring to a previous marathon in New Orleans, “I have discovered that thinking of yourself as a writer not only affects you but also others, and that it can open many doors. During one marathon, my group crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry and looked for a place to write along the levee, but cold February winds forced us to seek shelter. We approached a restaurant perched on a bend in the river, only to have a waiter tell us they were closed. However, when he asked us what we were doing there, and we replied, ‘We are writers looking for a place to write,’ his demeanor suddenly changed. ‘In that case, come in by the fire,’ he said. We wrote that afternoon in overstuffed chairs by a cozy window overlooking the river, sipping hot coffee that he brought us.
“Similar stories abound—marathoners admitted to a private garden in Arkansas, a writing group given a free ride in a Florida trolley, etc. It happens, I think, because writers who believe in themselves tap into an unimaginable power; people sense this, and treat them with the kind of reverence often given to priests.”
So why are these writers writing? The Covington marathon evolved from a five-week institute offered each summer by the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project. The project, whose motto is “teachers teaching teachers,” is one of five sites in Louisiana of the National Writing Project, which is based on the belief that teachers who write are better teachers of writing.
A professional development program for educators, the institute prepares secondary school teachers for leadership roles. It allows experienced teachers to share what has worked in their own classrooms and to learn solid practices and successful activities, not gimmicks or fads. Teachers become students, learning about writing—and learning through writing—in order to be better teachers.
Activities include demonstrations on teaching writing by classroom teachers; guest presentations; writing about self and profession; a New Orleans Writing Marathon; sharing and publishing of writing; and studying research on writing, technology, assessment and standards. Participants develop teaching practices into workshops that may become future in-services for their own and area schools.
The writing marathon began as an indoor exercise where institute participants would break into groups, write for a period of time, and then get together and read to each other. One main rule is that there are no comments made on each other’s work, no “good” or “bad.” This allows the writers to be less self-conscious and free to write what they wish.
Dr. Louth discovered in 1994 that the experience could become something completely different by having the participants do their writing in the streets of New Orleans, where, he notes, “Faulkner wrote his first novel, Tennessee Williams set “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and Andrei Codrescu insists, “The Muse is Always Half-Dressed.”
The northshore marathon began in 2002, when a group came to Madisonville to write on a sailboat. A few months later Mary Koepp, a Covington High School English teacher, and some of the other participants decided to keep it going. Now she organizes it on a regular basis, at least one per year. There will be a minimum of two northshore marathons this year.
So, what was written in Covington that beautiful spring day? After the initial meeting at Covington City Hall, and given the cue “old shoes,” the participants began a short, five-to-seven minute writing session. Some wrote poetry, some prose. Here are some excerpts:
New shoes that hold new babies
And push gas pedals on new vans.
New shoes that write new lessons
And curse in frustration.
New shoes to go with new suits
New suits to wear to new classes
New classes to create a new mask.
New shoes that will become old shoes
In a closet full of new shoes.
—April Schmidt (Covington High School)
As the day progressed and they made their way around town, the writers took cues from their surroundings. Vicki Tangi, an adult education teacher from East Baton Rouge Parish, found herself on the banks of the Tchefuncte, where she penned the following:
And still, the river…
Once again I come to the water’s edge to write. The water is quiet, yet moving, always moving. Fifteen months have passed since I first sat at this river’s edge, and again I am held here by the same gentle compulsion that drew me before. Today’s bright atmosphere is nothing like that chilly gray afternoon when mosquitoes buzzed around my face until an icy, drizzling rain drove both the bugs and me away. That day I had gone to the river to think, to reflect, and to write. I remember watching a brown leaf float gently down from a tree branch, landing in the water where it began to spin around and around, neither fighting the current nor being consumed by it. I watched the leaf as it seemed to ultimately ride the current, in harmony with the river and yet not part of the river. As I watched it turn the bend, a decision that had eluded me slowly became clear, and I realized that I would soon go to another river, a river a continent away, to observe, to learn, and to write. Above all, to write.
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