Dear Readers:

I started my Introduction to Creative Writing class knowing I had a lot to learn. However, I didn’t realize just how much. In just a short sixteen weeks the instructor told us we’d have assignments in what she called the basics. Then she listed a few: Flash fiction. Found poetry. Microfiction. Holy Cow! I’d never heard of these. Looking around at my teeny-bopper classmates, none of them looked the least bit puzzled. In fact some of them were so unimpressed, they appeared to be sound asleep. I knew I was the granny in the class, so I sharpened my pencil and started taking notes. We ended the class with our teacher, Jimmy, herding us all to the computer center to get signed on so that we could access assignments, submit projects, and see our running evaluations and grades from the comfort of home. Of course, my assigned account number had me stumped. I tried it multiple times and then looked around and realized I was one of the few students who remained. Most of them had whizzed through the basic sign-on procedure and then high-tailed it to the parking lot and early dismissal. Jimmy tried my number. I was relieved to see she had trouble with it too. Off we went to the inner sanctum of computer operations where a young woman who looked about eight years old explained that what we were interpreting as the letter” l” in this string of ten symbols was really the numeral 1. So back we went, I input the magic numbers and letters and viola! I was in like Flynn. I was grateful to Jimmy for her patience with me and thanked her. She winked at me and said “Us old fogies have to stick together.” The plot thickens.