March 2006 -- Letters to a Teacher by Sam Pickering (nonfiction)
Writer's Conference Author
Meeting Location: Suite 49 & Hilton Garden Inn
Each year one author at the UND Writer's Conference agrees to meet with our RRVWP participants and our book club members usually try to get involved and make that our book for the month of February or March. This year our author was Sam Pickering and we met at Suite 49 in their back room to discuss. The food was good and the conversation too, unfortunately the good conversation happened around Mr. Pickering rather than as stimulated by his presence... there may have been too many people or perhaps we shouldn't have tried to EAT and discuss... a coffee shop or the fireside room at Christus Rex might have been better suited for our purposes. Nevertheless Mr. Pickering echoed back many of his remarks from his book and the following night he entertained the crowd at the Empire Theatre as he offered more of his remarks on teaching and life.
Having recently read Teacher Man by Frank McCourt didn't help this reading situation. In some ways, I felt both books were a bit similar and neither were quite what I had in mind. For the month of March we did meet once BEFORE to discuss this title at the Hilton Garden Inn and Judy, Kristi, Larry, Pam and I were able to prepare for our meeting and discuss the book fully and prepare to meet the author.
