Cookala, I'll answer your questions. Don't concern yourself with publication at this stage. Of the staff members here who have published trade press books, Alicia was the only youngster, at 31. I was 48, and Clive, David, and Deborah are all in their fifties.
I've looked at a few other sites, and if you're interested in writing formal verse, nothing is in the league of the Erato workshops. By all means take courses at a local college, preferably in literature rather than creative writing. Find some great teachers. Most important, don't just read great poetry, but memorize it. My undergraduate tutor had me memorize roughly 30,000 lines of poetry, and that exercise developed my memory and confered upon me a highly trained ear which simply doesn't allow me to make metrical errors.
For an on-line intro to contemporary Formal poets, try
www.poemtree.com and The New Formalist's e-books, both of which are anthologies which feature a great deal of work by senior members of the 'Sphere. The Conference on Form and Narrative a West Chester University in Pennsylvania is terrific and worth every penny (it's much cheaper than Breadloaf!)
Finally, be very patient. Though I wrote and published in my teens, the earliest extant poem in my first book was written at age 25, simply because it took 8 years for me to get the most fundamental grasp of meter and rhyme.
Now, some additional thoughts for everyone. When I say our time will be limited, I mean very limited. So the questions I pass on will be few in number, and I'll respond to others directly, as I have above. I'm also going to select half a dozen poems by our members, post them here, and have Richard critique those efforts. He has a knack for saying more about a poem in two sentences than most people can in two pages, and I think this will be the most valuable aspect of his brief visit.