This workshop focuses on what young writers can learn from authors who have succeeded in their professions through a variety of interfaces: reading and analyzing their works, listening to them talk about their work and the processes through which they created them, and reading about their ideas on what is important in writing.

These are the key points the teachers, educators, authors, and students consider:

1. Professional writers follow the same processes in writing as do all writers. The steps may be prolonged or contracted, and followed in a random pattern. As writers are all individuals, so, too, are the patterns through which they create.

2. Students can learn about not only the processes of writing, but the joy to be obtained through the processes, by looking at the works and words of prominent authors.

3. Professional writers can inspire young writers to continue as they develop as writers.

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Interested in building your skills as a writer? Try this interactive activity, where you can participate along with others in a writing workshop led by celebrated author Judith Ortiz Cofer.