A week ago I participated in an incredible experience. I spent a week at the Wainwright House in Rye, New York, with 14 other women from around the country (and Saskatchewan, eh!) at the Guideposts Writers Workshop. We all had to submit a story about an experience that changed us and how faith made a difference. The editors at Guideposts choose 15 of us from nearly 5,000 manuscripts, and I was one of the lucky 15. There are two really cool things about this contest. The first is that an alumna of the 1978 workshop is Sue Monk Kidd, a frequent Guideposts contributor and author of the book The Secret Life of Bees. The second is that I was an intern at Guideposts 20 years ago as part of the American Society of Magazine Editors program. We lived in a dorm at NYU and worked at the nation's top magazines. I've posted a photo of me on "graduation day" at the Waldorf Astoria (in my version of "New York" clothes) with my bosses, Rick Hamlin and Mary Ann O'Roark. The other girl who interned with me was Becca Allen, a Yale graduate and the granddaughter of Norman Vincent Peale, founder of Guideposts and author of The Power of Positive Thinking. Becca will always be one of the best people I have ever known. The other photo is me, 20 years and about as many pounds later, with Rick at the workshop last week. He said everybody in the office laughed at his Seinfeld hair in the old photo.
At the Wainwright House we lived dorm-style and shared a circa-1940s bathroom. It actually improved the experience, though, because by living together we got to know each other real quick and trusted each other with our precious manuscripts that we worked on that week.
I can't publish my story here because I'm submitting it for publication in Guideposts next year. But if it makes it past the rigorous eye of Rick Hamlin, I'll send you a copy.
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