The Beginning

I first learned about the Young Writers Project nearly three years ago, the first year that it joined the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival. Encouraged by my sister, who had been a member on the site for a few months, I joined YWP and wrote my first poems on the site throughout a week immersed in music from Schubert to Bach, Dvorak to Mendelssohn. It was an amazing and unique experience, meeting and interviewing professional musicians and listening to the behind-the-scenes rehearsals (which never fail to be as interesting as the performances themselves). I wrote non-stop for that entire week, pouring out ideas and filling a hitherto-empty blog with pages of poem and prose. It was the first time any of my work had been published, and now it was not only being published on the walls of the concert hall, but also printed in newspapers and read at the breakfast table by the very musicians I was writing about.

I have returned each year to the music festival, each year meeting new musicians and hearing new music. Of all the moments on YWP, this one, the first, I remember the best. It connected two artistic ideas and turned it into an unforgettable time.

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