“Never a day without a line,” Brenda repeated.

In the summer of 2011, I had the pleasure of participating in the PA Writing and Literature Project Summer Invitational Writing Institute. Although I’d been teaching for several years by then, my experience with the writing project that summer was the first time I started to think of myself not just as teacher of writing, but as a writerwho teaches.

The truth is that I had been always been a writer. I’d kept journals and notebooks and diaries for years. And as an English major, I’d also written my fair share of essays, papers, and assorted assignments. But in my mind, none of these things qualified me to be a writer. Writers publish their writing; they write books and for newspapers, magazines, and journals.

That changed when I participated in the writing institute. Which brings me back to Brenda. Brenda Krupp, a third-grade teacher and co-director of the writing project, facilitated the institute that summer. Her boundless energy and passion for not just her students’ writing lives but also our own—as teachers, as colleagues—was palpable. Although she taught us many things those four hot weeks in July, if I had to choose one thing that I will always remember, it’s the words she shared from writing legend, Don Murray: “Never a day without a line.”

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