Arts Learning
ACHF Arts Education
We will increase the quantity and types of arts learning available to writers in northern Minnesota and beyond by reviving the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference. Once we have brought talented, successful writers to our rural, traditionally underserved region and run a successful writers conference we will use written evaluations from participants and faculty to assess our level of achievement of our goal. 2: The writers conference is accessible to more Minnesotans because a financial barrier is addressed. We will know we've achieved our goal by awarding three need/merit-based scholarships to Minnesotans to lower the financial barrier with the goal of encouraging more Minnesotans to attend the conference and engage in this unique arts learning opportunity.
The main outcome was to increase access to a high quality literary experience, appreciation for the literary arts, and access to and awareness of award-winning writers from the national literary scene. Based on responses to questionnaires 27 out of 31 respondents felt that the quality of the workshop they attended for the week was excellent and the remaining 4 felt it was good, the next best response. In regards questions about the quality of the Craft Talk and Conversation with Ron Carlson and the quality of the Evening Reading Series 27 out of 31 respondents felt that their quality were excellent and only 3 others responded to these questions, but their responses were good. The Craft Talks and the Workshops positively impacted the participants' knowledge and awareness of creative writing. When asked how much has the conference increased your understanding of creative writing? 12 participants responded with 5, 11 with 4 on a scale of 0-5; 0 being none and 5 being very. 2: With the goal of attracting more Minnesotans to attend this conference in the Outstate in order that they could engage with nationally recognized writers from outside the state in this unique arts learning opportunity, we offered 3 need/merit-based scholarships to Minnesotans to lower financial barriers to Minnesotans participation. We intended for the conference fee to be affordable, and 28 of the 31 respondents to our questionnaire felt that the fee was excellent or good. We had 42 workshop participants, the majority of them Minnesotans; we had participants from 14 counties in Minnesota. And our evening reading series, which was free and open to the public, attracted a number of people from Bemidji and the surrounding area.
Other, local or private