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In pursuit of write ideas Photo by Jim Craven McKenzie Workman, 10, of Medford, concentrates on a story during the Southern Oregon Young Writers' Festival at Southern Oregon University Monday. Local wordsmiths help students hone their skills By VICKI GUARINO ASHLAND -- Enough talk about poetry, creativity and communicating ideas. "Write it down," Dave May urged a roomful of young poets on Monday. "Get going." May, a poet himself, is one of eight local writers sharing their craft with youngsters this week as part of the fifth annual Southern Oregon Young Writers' Festival. Daylong sessions at Southern Oregon University are intended to give students the chance to hone their skills and explore the writing process. About 360 students in grades 3-6 are participating over three one-day sessions. The program is sponsored by the Arts Council of Southern Oregon and the Mail Tribune. Several other businesses also donated to the event. Teachers in Ashland, Phoenix-Talent, Medford, Central Point and Grants Pass schools nominated students for the sessions, picking youngsters for their writing talent and interest. The students, like the 15 in May's first session, picked the workshops and the kinds of writing they wanted to discuss and practice. In essayist William Ashworth's sessions, students viewed scenic slides for inspiration to write about nature. Ashworth has published 10 books, mostly on natural history and the environment. Myth, history and fantasy came together in playwriting sessions led by Peter Buckley, a playwright whose commentaries are aired on Jefferson Public Radio. His students produced mini-dramas -- complete plays three minutes long. In May's poetry-writing class, students talked about the kinds of detail and description that make something real, then put the lesson to use. "What are we writing about?" Griffin Creek Elementary School fourth-grader Makenzie Doyel wanted to know. "You get to pick," May answered. Better still, he added, "Don't worry about spelling ... commas, periods. We're just having fun making it up." So Makenzie wrote about a small house where she once lived. Her family outgrew the place and moved on, but the old house still has a home in Makenzie's memory. Memories were the core of an autobiography workshop led by writer and elementary school teacher Deborah Colette Murphy. Students charted time lines of their lives, remembering special events and the reasons those events were memorable. So for Brandon Thoms, a sixth-grader at Lone Pine Elementary School, it wasn't just any Christmas he recalled, but the Christmas his grandfather had overcome cancer. As students pinpointed events and wrote out brief recollections, Murphy noted that some had picked out the young writers festival. An appropriate choice, Murphy said. "You know what? You will remember this day. This is a pretty special day." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA