As the year winds down, I and the arts and entertainment team at the Times Union have been looking back on the highlights of 2011. The thought exercise offers a reminder that the greater Capital Region offers a wonderful breadth and depth of cultural opportunities in dance, classical music, opera, literature, theater, visual arts, jazz and popular music.

This fall, I had the opportunity of taking part in one of those offerings from the New York State Writers Institute. It wasn’t the free authors’ readings — though I did attend plenty of those in what was a particularly strong season with Nicole Krause, Ian Frazier, Isabel Wilkerson, Colson Whitehead, Tom Perrotta, Robert Caro and, of course, William Kennedy, the founder of the instituteand author of many novels, including his latest, “Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes.”

The opportunity I had was an eight-week writing workshop for prose writers. The workshops — one was offered this fall in poetry, another in prose — are offered for free to residents of the Capital Region who are selected based on writing samples submitted beforehand.

I had applied for the workshops before, but this was the first time I had been accepted. Continue reading →