Good choice, Whistle Stop. Even though many of Earle's songs are about people in hard times, and sometimes desperate straits, they are generally not without hope. It just makes the hope more realistic for me.

Jerry

Thanks for the alternate suggestion, El Greko. It would be well worth a try. It depends heavily on who is in the workshop and whether they are willing to do some advance planning before the festival. I tried a songwriter's workshop where I asked people in advance to come prepared to do songs that were written in differrent ways... from the first person, from direct experience, songs that came in a dream, songs written about an actual historical event, etc.
It worked pretty well I think, but I had some wonderful songwriters in the group, including Gordon Bok, who gave some real thought to what they were doing.

Jerry