Night of Writing Dangerously update (10/17/2011)

First and foremost, a sincere "thank you" to the following people who have donated to The Office of Letters and Light on my behalf: Joss Burnel, Brenda Warren, Paula Wanken, and Kim Nelson. I truly appreciate your financial support of this wonderful nonprofit organization.

I'm pleased (giddy, actually) to announce that I have now reached my goal of $250, which means that I may now attend The Night of Writing Dangerously, the write-a-thon that will be happening in San Francisco on November 20th.

I've now set my sights a little higher, to $350. If I can raise $100 more I will be able to take a guest. I want to take my friend and colleague, Michael Drum, with me. He also teaches fifth grade students at Lafayette Elementary. When I told him about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) a couple of years back, he was instantly on-board. He wrote 50K words that November, and, like me, brought his students along for the ride. (He also writes poetry.) This will be our third year bringing NaNoWriMo into our classrooms thanks to free materials we have requested from NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program.

Please spread the word about NaNoWriMo and their Young Writers Program. Let your children's teachers know about it. Got grandkids? Let their teachers know too. Are you a teacher? Sign up. Do you have friends who are teachers? Give them the link to NaNoWriMo. It's easy for teachers to sign up with the Young Writers Program and then request free materials to inspire students to write. The Young Writers Program also has PDF files of "100% NON-LAME workbooks" that you can download for free from their website.

Please consider sponsoring me on my fundraising page. (There you you can see a couple of photographs of former students of mine, from two years ago, writing in my classroom.) Your tax-deductible contribution will help The Office of Letters and Light bring National Novel Writing Month and the Young Writers Program to adults and children all over the world this November.

Sincerely,
Richard (aka Mr. Walker)