From July 11th to July 15th, I went back to my school, Washington College, for my very first internship; the Cherry Tree Young Writer's Conference. The majority of events were held in the Rose O'Neill Literary House. I was one of 7 interns that served as a sort of "mentor" to high school students that arrived on campus. There were 19 students in all, and I was assigned three of them.

This will act sort of like a review of what I learned during those four days.

So, the most prominent thing I learned, and the factor that has stuck the most with me is this:

Nonfiction Writing isn't simply writing essays or research papers, it's writing in a style that enables me to express myself when I'm unable to do so with poetry.

I was in the creative nonfiction workshop of the visiting poet, Julie Marie Wade. I was mildly upset a bit at this, because when I signed up for the conference, I put down fiction as my workshop of choice, and then poetry, with nonfiction being my last. Then, I got put in the one I didn't want, and I ended up loving it.

The reason I wasn't fond of nonfiction writing before the conference is, because of high school and college, when I heard "nonfiction writing", I thought of research papers and essays for school; things that I wasn't particularly fond of. However, being in Julie's workshop class, I've learned that it's much more than that. Creative nonfiction is comprised of biography, autobiography, memoir, surreal memoir, diary/journal entires, personal essays, lyric essays, and much more.

It was such a relief to know that creative nonfiction is more than just boring research papers. It's writing that's actually... fun. And, I even realized that creative nonfiction is what I've been writing all along.

What I mean is, ever since I moved out from campus and returned home, I've struggled in my writing in the idea that I thought I wasn't making an effort to write. Since the end of second semester, I had only written two or three poems, and no fiction pieces. As a result, and my inaccurate idea of creative nonfiction, I thought I wasn't making any progress in my writing. However, because of my consistent and weekly writing for the Odyssey, I have been writing, albeit in the genre of creative nonfiction and in the style of autobiographical writing.

I've also learned that I actually enjoy this genre of writing. It suites me in a variety of ways. For example, when I have an idea for a poem, and I write it down, but do not like how it comes out, I can always switch over to nonfiction form, and it could possibly be better that way.

Additionally, I learned of some really cool examples of creative nonfiction writing by reading the works of Patricia Smith, Paisley Rekdal, Anne Panning, Toi Derricotte, Ryan Van Meter, Brian Arundel, Brenda Miller, A. Papatya Bucak, Jill Talbot, and Jamaica Kincaid.

I also learned that my personal style fits a bit better with creative nonfiction. My style in writing is that of a casual, almost colloquial, voice, and I can utilize that in writing, especially when I make pieces that use the first or second voice.

All in all, I left the conference with an even deeper appreciation and love of writing, and it has definitely encouraged me to keep writing. I hope this has helped you in some small minor way of better understanding this so called "fourth genre of literature".