Hi, All —

I’m Judy Fort Brenneman. I develop and lead writing workshops and retreats, including single and multi-day workshops for interpretive writers. “Interpreter” in this context means the folks who create and present exhibits and programs at heritage and nature sites of all kinds–state and national parks, museums, nature centers, zoos, living history sites, etc.

I’ve been trying to develop on-line versions of some of my shorter training sessions and workshops but haven’t finished any, in large part because I’m not happy with them. I’m also one of those folks who drop out of e-courses early–because I’m overwhelmed, frustrated with how the tech works (or doesn’t work), bored, impatient, or simply side-tracked by all the other responsibilities in my life.

I wanted (and still want) to create online courses that generate some of the “emotional hit” that happens in my in-person trainings–that excitement, enthusiasm, and willingness to risk being creative–that always results in participants feeling more confident in their ability to create high-quality interp programs as well as having improved abilities to create those programs. I need enough (but not too much) structure to learn how to do that, as well as guidance on how to get all these “moving parts” to fit well enough to work the way they should (or at least the way I hope they will). A good friend who is familiar with what the e-course adventure guys are doing (and who is probably tired of hearing me whine about my lack of progress [groan]) suggested I check them out, so here I am.

There are days when I think, “Ugh, I am so tired, I really don’t want to mess with this any more” –but then I get a program to my audience, and I have such a wonderful time–and so do my students. A great example from just this past week: I’ve been at the national conference for interpreters all week, and I presented a short, highly interactive session on creativity; had about 40 people in the audience. I feel like I’m 100% “on” when I share this material–and everyone in my session did wonderful and amazing stuff in the short time we had. And they kept seeking me out over the rest of the conference just to tell me how great it was and to share some cool thing they’d discovered. If this follows the pattern from previous years, I’ll continue to get emails from many of them once I return home, too. (And as I’m typing this, I realized I forgot to send around the sign-up-for-my-newsletter sheet…ah well…cannot do everything, no matter how hard I try…)

Ultimately, I want to have a series of online writing workshops for this audience, and then I want to expand my offerings to encompass the writing coaching work I do outside of interpretation (my coaching practice includes all genres and includes many people who have neurological differences, from dyslexia to mood disorders and brain injuries).