How Isolated Should a Writer Be?

Do you tell your creative writing students that writing is a lonely activity, the writer in a room all alone with a laptop?

My favorite places to write are the kitchen and coffee shops. I like people around when I work. I'm of the rock and roll generation and have raised, off and on, five kids, so noise does not disturb me usually. Dead silence and isolation do.

Likewise, get your students to go hear other writers read their work.

Slough Press, the literary press I founded, will be having a reading in Austin, Texas, tomorrow at 4:00 (8/21/10) at the Barnes and Nobel at 5601 Brodie Lane.  Listening to these writers will give you ideas for your own writing, and you'll be meeting people who are as enthusiastic about writing as you are.

Ken Jones, Mick White, Hedwig Gorski, and I (Chuck Taylor) will be reading.