A Hollins Summer

I mostly hung out on Facebook this past summer, so will provide a blog wrap-up here. (I'm getting back into my blogging habit!)
     As usual, it was an awesome summer at Hollins University, filled with that Hollins magic I keep telling people about. I got to room with the amazing and fascinating Karen Coats, head of the Children's Literature programming at the University of Cambridge in the UK. We've roomed together before and get along famously well. And I just learn so much from her! Here we are with her daughter Blair, being silly on a downtown Roanoke Saturday. And here is the card I made of her - she loves to KNIT!!! It was so good to have friends back together - it's like a big slumber party... with a lot of fun work thrown in! Here are some of our returning faculty, Ashley Wolff (from Vermont, she teaches Media Studies), Karen Coats (from the UK, she teaches Critical Studies), me (now from Roanoke! I teach Picture Book Design), Lisa Fraustino (Arizona, Creative Writing and Critical Studies), and MJ Begin (Rhode Island, Illustration Portfolio). We stayed in the new Village, a new set of dorms with big front porches. This was my view. The best part of the village is the fire pit!We spent a lot of time there once the afternoon heat left.Studenst got lots of great work done - in my class, they did their book dummies. Here are Kelly and Teresa with their final projects. We had some great speakers too. Olivia Stephens...Ashley Belote... (Ashley and I went downtown to play and got corraled in a local restaurant because there was a BEAR in a tree on the square! Poor thing had mistakenly wandered into town. We couldn't really see it well, but it didn't stop us from a great photo op!) Ruth Sanderson gave a great workshop on scratchboard.And I had the great pleasure to interview this year's Margaret Wise Brown Prize Winner, Chana Stiefel for The Tower of Life. Here we were after the interview with our VP of Graduate Studies, Steve Laymon.And with most of our students...Of course, we had to soak up all the gorgeousness that Hollins has to offer. We went to Nancy Dahlstrom's for our annual cookout - our Author/artist in Residence, Rosemary Wells, joined us.And we took LOTS of walks! Deer were everywhere this summer!We also had quite a few Green Herons hanging out at the pond this year (on the metal thing in the water).And we enjoyed a celebrity visit from the Budweiser Clydesdales!And we went to Floyd.Of course, one of the best things, is knowing I get to live here full-time now! I carry forth the torch from our previous directors, Lisa Fraustino and Amanda Cockrell. What an honor and a thrill to call this magical place home now!!!