Williston’s first visiting author of this year’s Writer’s Workshop Series was also the first dinner guest at our home when we hosted a meal in her honor with members of the English department. After dinner, Ms. Suzanne Strempek Shea regaled the capacity crowd in the Dodge Room with stories of how she came to be such a prolific and far-ranging author. For the budding writers in her midst, Ms. Shea had something for everyone, and her message was inspiring: out of the merest chance encounter or observation comes the kernel for a story.

Stories, as Daniel Pink notes in his often cited book, A Whole New Mind, allow us to “emotionalize and contextualize” the world of ready facts in which we live. Right-brained creativity, according to Pink, will differentiate our students in the 21st century marketplace, and Ms. Strempek Shea brought that idea to life by telling of her work as a newspaper reporter before turning to fiction.

Williston’s emphasis on writing, manifest not just in the work that our students undertake across the curriculum but also in our highly regarded Writing Center, goes a long way towards setting our students up for future success. We look forward to the second speaker in the series, Debra Monroe, on October 7th.