Liam--The nearest motel/hotel accommodations to the Eastern Middle School (FSGW minifest) are those in downtown Silver Spring, about 1-1/2 to 2 miles from the festival: there's a Holiday Inn on Georgia Avenue, a Day's Inn (on 13th Street), the Town Center Hotel (formerly a Quality Inn, on Colesville Road), and the Ramada Inn (on Georgia Avenue, which was an EconoLodge until a few weeks ago). Or you might wangle an invitation to come stay with someone in the Folk Shtetl of Silver Spring, between downtown and the site of the MiniFest. There are more than a half-dozen Mudcatters in that immediate neighborhood.

The schedule was being worked on this past week, but I'm leading a workshop entitled "The Soul of Song," looking at how one chooses and performs songs that are ment to move people rather than merely amuse them. Lisa Null, Joe Hickerson, Ed Trickett and myself, scheduled (tentatively) for Saturday afternoon from 4 to 5 p.m. [Ed Trickett is also one of the evening performers.]

--Charlie Baum