To put it mildly, a few things have changed around the world since my last blog post. Let me just say that there is ample reading material, information, misinformation, statistics, and memes concerning the COVID-19 virus across all social media platforms. Since I don’t really have much of anything to add to the discussion, I’m not going to talk about it here.
…well, except as it pertains to my writing classes.
Naturally, when everything else began to shut down, the university followed suit (they were actually ahead of the curve on that front). So as a result, we had to shut down the final session of Crafting the Short Story, and cancel An Introduction to Publishing. If you’re reading this, ladies, as promised we WILL do that final class, whether in person or via Skype or some such.
Further to that: as of this morning I’ve been in discussions with the powers that be regarding classes, and how to handle them moving forward. It looks like we’re going to launch online classes in place of classroom gatherings. I’ll discuss more details as they unfold, but for now it looks like what would have been the April session will begin sometime in May.
What does this mean? Well, it’s an adjustment, no question. I’ve done online lessons via Skype before, so it’s not entirely new for me, although I’m told we’ll be using a different platform here. It also means that suddenly my classes are available to people who don’t happen to live in the immediate area.
Just a short post today, to let you know I’m still plugging away over here. I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe. Talk soon!
-JP
Joe Powers, Author 
Times are a changin’! As a note, you could try using a program called Discord for outside the classroom chatting or as a side program to whatever the university will use. It’s a chat forum application run by web, mobile, or desktop/laptop that allows you to create a private “chat room” with voice capabilities. It’s a good way to actively chat with people in smaller chosen groups. It’s primarily used for gaming, but I’m a part of a bevy of online writing groups and communities and this software has helped out a lot.
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