Visiting Dan's Cabin

Clockwise from lower left: Karen Berg, Barbara Braithwaite, Bernard Malaga, Deborah Abbott, Dave Braithwaite (guide), Lynn Israel, Susan Giesen, Steve Robinson, Irene Haller, Leslie Toombs, Bruce Ruutila (guide), Bubba (Lab) and Wendy Anderson.

Today my class at the Friends of the Porkies Folk School Writers' Workshop in Upper Michigan's Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park spent the morning discussing their work of the previous week.

Afterward, we hiked deep in the woods to Dan's Cabin, a rustic and beautiful timber-framed lodge where the Friends' artists-in-residence live and work during their stints.

During the next couple of weeks the students will be writing about their experiences and observations at the cabin and on the trail to it, and, believe me, I'm looking forward to reading their stuff.

Helping these doughty and talented folks with their writing for the last couple of weeks has been a tonic for a jaded old retired newsie and occasional mystery novelist like me.

The students listen to critiques during the morning session at the Folk School.

Dan's Cabin somewhere deep in the Porkies, where artists-in-residence create.

The "back porch" of Dan's Cabin

Bruce Ruutila (left) explains the fine points of timber framing construction.

A few steps away from the cabin lies a beautiful glen with a waterfall.