Fairfield University’s Connecticut Writing Project awarded $3,000 grant from National Writing Project | Press Releases

The National Writing Project (NWP) has awarded a Mini-Grant of $3,000 to the Connecticut Writing Project (CWP) at Fairfield University to assist in building a strong State Network of teacher/leaders from the three Connecticut sites of the CWP - Fairfield University, the University of Connecticut at Storrs and Central Connecticut State University at New Britain. The grant will enable the three CWP sites to unite in a group totaling twenty members for participation in a four-day Professional Writing Retreat in Summer 2009. CWP has chosen Wisdom House, a lovely retreat and conference center on 70 quiet, country acres, near historic Litchfield center, as a site location. Deadline for applications is Jan. 15, 2009.

According to Faye Gage, director of Fairfield's CWP and recipient of the grant, "The best teachers of writing are teachers who write. We look forward to providing a contemplative and supportive atmosphere for teachers who rarely have the time to address their own professional writing. The luxury of spending four days together is certain to invoke a sense of community that the participants will take with them at the end of the retreat."

Gage and her fellow directors, Jason Courtmanche of UConn and Lynda Valerie at Central Conn. State, will accept five participants each to form a group of fifteen that will work together collegially. Interested people should contact their area site directors at the following e-mail addresses before Jan. 15, 2009: Faye Gage - Fgage@mail.fairfield.edu , Jason Courtmanche - jason.courtmanche@uconn.edu , Lynda Valerie - valerie_lym@ccsu.edu .

Participants will have the opportunity to write a piece of professional writing that will eventually be submitted for publication. The published articles will benefit teachers of the three sites as well as the larger audience for the publications in which they appear.

The Summer 2009 retreat initiates an effort to begin to develop a statewide community of people that will strengthen the Connecticut state network and increase productivity among teachers by sharing information and working as a cohesive unit. Gage's optimism is apparent as she declares, "There is strength in numbers."

For more information about the Summer 2009 Professional Writers Retreat, please contact Faye Gage at (203) 254-4000, ext. 3124 or e-mail your area director.