The spirit of Write Now started almost 15 years ago in a
small classroom - a demonstration kitchen to be precise - in a continuing
education center in Pennsylvania. I had
been teaching creative writing for several years, but it wasn’t until this particular
group of students gathered in the demonstration kitchen that I discovered the
power of creative chemistry and of teaching creative writing with compassion, patience,
humor, and of course some lecture notes.
As we went through our introductions, one student disclosed that she had been traumatized by a creative writing teacher in
high school who told her that she couldn’t write, and that her grammar and
spelling were atrocious. She stopped
writing then, and didn’t work up the courage to take another class in creative
writing until she walked into our demonstration kitchen.
I watched many in the class nodding as she spoke, so I asked
if there were others who had had similar experiences and the room came alive
with creative writing war stories –I added my own.
Then I asked what their greatest fear was in this class –
and they responded almost with one voice: ‘making a mistake’.
Years later I had the pleasure of facilitating a workshop
for the writing group that formed from that class. They have gone on to write some impressive
work, some of them have been published, some write for pleasure, and all of
them have embraced the freedom to take risks and to make mistakes often. Their writing is the better for it.
***
“From her cross-legged perch on
the counter top of the makeshift kitchen at the tiny adult education center in
eastern Pennsylvania
Ellen told us “to throw away the rule book” on grammar and even punctuation and
not let anything get in the way of a good story.” She got me charged up and
shot out of a gun and I haven’t been able to stop knocking out creative tales
since. Her coaching style struck a chord in me that has yet to become unstruck. I
have had six of my short short stories published in various literary magazines
and have self-published one
book of 200+ tales and am about to publish another with 150+ and a whole flock
of poems to boot.”
Harris, creative writing class and workshop participant
