By Elizabeth White-Olsen, Executive Director of Writespace One of the aspects of working for Writespace I love most is getting to see people’s beauty, over and over. For instance, the beauty of a man named David C. Lowy, who joined the Processing Harvey through Writing workshop I led at Writespace in September. David wrote about sloshing through two feet of water and watching family pictures float by as the Meyerland home he had lived in for fifty-five years filled with water. His son Orion, luckily, had a high bed. Orion was perched on it, looking up to his dad, wondering what they should do. David’s wife, Jane, was looking to him, too. As he read to us about that moment, David’s voice got high, as if it were being twisted, and then he would stop. Take a deep breath. Clear his throat. And start again. He could have just skipped ahead to an easier part, but he didn’t give up. After five tries, David was able to finish the entire sentence: “Here I was again in the position of protector of my wife and my son.” The word “protector” had been hard to say, because he always protected his family, but in this case, he wasn’t sure what to do. To my mind, David got to the real danger of Harvey. Yes, that its winds and floods destroyed homes, but also that it ravaged our even deeper abodes—our identities and our relationships. As David read, Writespace was silent. The moment felt stretched thin, as if it to let in the holy. As we listened, silently inspired by David’s courage and love for his family, I thought of the time a couple years ago David came to support his wife at a Writespace Open Mic. Jane had just published her second book. That night, the two of them stood side-by-side, her opened book before them, and each read the lines of two different characters. David was so excited to help share his wife’s story, he seemed to dance before the microphone. His pride in her work was like a song that filled the room. They’re such good people, I thought as David read his own words. They should not have had to go through Harvey. A few weeks after our workshop, David brought Orion and Jane to Writespace’s Healing from Harvey Reading and Open Mic. They looked up at him as he read, as they had the day of the flood. He was their brave father and husband, as he had been when he led them through the water to a neighbor’s. This time, David read all the way through without hesitating. I was proud of him. Awed by him. David sets a great example for what a writer can be: someone who perseveres, despite difficulty, to speak the truth. After the reading, David and I struck up a correspondence. David shared that his parents had lived in his home before him, and he also wrote: David hadn’t mentioned his mother before, or her autobiography. This seemed to come out of left field, but then, in life and in art, sometimes left field brings the best gifts. In a later email, David shared more about his family: I took a deep breath and sat back to try to take this in: David had a half brother who, when barely a toddler, had either directly or indirectly been killed by Nazis. We like to catalogue the Holocaust as history, but it is not. David’s half brother could be alive with us today, had the evil that can overtake humans not interfered. Knowing David’s family history, I wondered if in the moment when David stood knee-deep in water in his and his father’s home during Harvey, if somewhere in David’s spirit, there might have been a deep echo of the son and wife his father could not protect? And I wondered if some of David’s love for family might have come from a sense of responsibility, given in sorrow and in gratitude, towards the brother who did not live, yet whose loss allowed for David’s very existence? Perhaps the injustice of the floods of Harvey could have washed up a more ancient and evil injustice, as well as revealed the courage and persistence that David’s parents must have taught him? And perhaps all this subterranean terror and beauty was a part of what made David’s reading so powerful? My husband and I were evacuated by canoe during Harvey. I remember thinking soon after, There’s nothing more painful than going through a natural disaster. And then I realized this wasn’t true: Oh, yes, there is. If humans had caused this to harm us, that would hurt worse. I can’t even fathom – And I thought of Syria, of Haiti, of so many countless places where people have been traumatized. And, of course, I thought of the Holocaust, the largest genocidal massacre in human history. From the safety of America, 2018, it’s impossible to imagine an uprooting not just from a home, but from a country and a continent. And, then, to lose not just your home, possessions, community, and career, but family members—brothers and sisters, parents and children, grandparents and grandbabies. Neighbors. Your grocer. Your mayor. Your rabbi. Nearly every single person you knew. And, then, to have these endless losses caused by fellow human beings. My mind couldn’t comprehend this depth of pain. This was the first time in my life I realized there is suffering beyond my comprehension—and injustice beyond my comprehension. As someone who comes from a race with no history of unjust suffering, and in fact with a history of even causing unjust suffering, I felt like I was being shown something I have needed to know for a long time. I could never have “thought” my way there, it took Harvey knocking me down. I realize it could be seen as arrogant to compare the tiny amount of suffering I endured to the grand scale of human suffering endured by millions during the Holocaust. There is no comparison. I know this, but I was grateful to have an entry, the cracking open of a door, and I do not discount it. David is going to come by Writespace to give me his mother’s autobiography soon. I am looking forward to reading it, because perhaps her words will build a bridge over time and teach me. At the same time, I am afraid to receive it. Having witnessed David’s courage at telling his story, I am going to try to follow David’s lead by reading even the difficult parts without looking away. Addendum:
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By Anne Alexander, Writer and Writespace Member Thank you, Writespace! Every December I make a special date with myself: just me, my journal, and coffee, so I can think about the upcoming year and what I’d like to accomplish. Last year, my mind kept going to just one thing: my writing. It was feeling kind of stale, and I was eager to tackle something new. It wasn’t long before I discovered Writespace, and I knew I’d found something special. This is it, I thought. I purchased a Writespace membership for myself that day, and signed up for Mark Dostert’s workshop, Introduction to Personal Essay and Memoir. Mark is a superb instructor and guide. Twelve writers of vastly differing levels of experience were there, yet he tailored the experience in ways that benefited all of us. I’ve collected countless books about the craft of writing, but by the end of the workshop, I had learned more than I had in all of those books combined. I had a writing M.O. I used for years… but in this class I learned fresh concepts about how to approach the idea behind the personal essay in ways I had never considered. After the last session, I jotted down a goal in my notebook: “ will get an acceptance from a literary journal by the end of 2018. On September 7 of this year, I reached that goal. I have part of the acceptance email from the editor of Burningword Literary Journal etched in my mind: “We love it and would like to publish it in the next quarterly issue.” I’ve had many publishing credits since I was 18 years old, but I’ve never felt quite the sense of accomplishment that I did that day. The print edition landed in my mailbox recently – I keep it on my desk so I can feel the warm glow of validation and pride whenever I need it, and to give me the courage to continue sending my writing out into the world. Persistence pays, and an acceptance from another publication popped into my inbox on September 21. There’s not a doubt in my mind I met my 2018 goal because of what I learned from Mark Dostert and from Writespace, and it gives me the confidence to keep learning, to keep writing, and to keep hitting that “submit” button. Check out Anne's publications, as well as other Writespace member successes, on our Success Story page!
By Cassandra Rose Clarke, Associate Director of Writespace As a writer, I hate revising my work. The joy of writing for me has always been tied to drafting my stories, sitting down at a computer and pulling new characters and worlds out of my imagination. I love the organic tangle of artistic creation. There's something magical about it.
Revising, on the other hand, is tedious and frustrating. The magic becomes mundane. That organic tangle? It's actually a disorganized mess, and now I'm tasked with seeing all of its flaws head on without having one idea how to fix them. I make lists, I reread my work, force myself to type up some new scenes. It's hard. But something has made the revision process easier for me--at least a little. Two years ago, I began offering editing consultations services with Writespace. As much as I hate revising my own work, helping someone revise their work is a whole different beast. Where I see unfixable flaws in my own stories, in others' writing I see potential. A few tweaked sentences, a reworked scene, and instantly there's the frisson of reading something exciting and new. It's revision, but of a novel or story I'm reading for the first time. It's revision, but with characters, worlds, and ideas that I would never have dreamed up myself. In short, it's writing, but collaborative. It's a cliche at this point to talk about how writing is solitary, but in many ways that cliche isn't even true. Yes, drafting is solitary, but once a piece of writing begins edging its way toward publication, a lot more people are involved. After all, what is reading but an imaginative collaboration between reader and writer? And I think that's why I find my work as an editor so rewarding. That collaboration becomes an actual conversation, held over ice coffee at a local Starbucks, printed manuscript pages spread across the tiny, rickety table. I tell a client what I'm seeing in their work, they tell me what they intended, and we work together to reconcile these two different visions into a work the writer can call their own. Working as an editor has forced me to re-examine my own revision process. Drafting is all about me, but publication isn't, and revision is nothing more than getting a work ready for publication. Should I drop that Stephen King insight in here about drafting with the door closed, but revising with it open? He actually learned that from working with--surprise, surprise!--an editor. And working as an editor has helped me to fully understand what he meant by it. Drafting is a brain dump, all those swirls of ideas in your head that make no sense to anyone but you. Revision is how you make that brain dump shareable. It's how you make writing not so solitary after all. By Elizabeth White-Olsen, Executive Director of Writespace I remember how unsure I felt as I approached my first chance to lead a Writespace online workshop. I was excited, but nervous. To begin with, being online is not really “my thing.” I'm the kind of person who would rather discover a brown-headed nuthatch feasting on pine nuts high up in a loblolly than the latest, coolest app, meme, or viral video. I prefer to pay attention to the tangible world--to catch a sunrise, to cuddle up with a hot mug of coffee and a book--and, as an instructor, I felt like I would miss seeing the faces of eager students just across from me. I wanted to know my writers, to be able to see the latest books they were reading, complement their new haircuts, hear the familiar buzz of conversation as writers became friends during group work, and once in a while catch a look of confusion during a craft lesson, so I could speedily help clarify. I love to lead writing workshops, but would the online experience be anywhere near as great as it was in person? Would it seem like something was missing? Within a few days, thankfully, I found the answer was a resounding “no.” What I found was that online writing workshops are just as lively, enjoyable, and effective as workshops I’d led in person. Though I didn’t get to see the new haircut or the new hardcover title pulled from a backpack or briefcase, everything I needed to know was right there: The look of confusion that would clue me in that I needed to clarify? The writer simply typed a direct question. The buzz of conversation as new writing relationships formed? I witnessed the same connections form online through writers’ comments to each other. All that I needed to know about my students and that they needed to know about each other came through their words, the words that comprised their stories and the words they typed to each other and to me. By our final week, I felt like I knew my writing students as well as I would have had we worked together in person. I’d fallen in love with them--with their passion, intelligence, creativity, and talent--just as I do in person. I was so excited about their online work, in fact, I wanted to meet them offline, in person. It happened that every writer in our online workshop lived within thirty miles of Houston, so I planned a meeting at Catalina coffee shop on Washington Avenue, not far from Writespace. As it turned out, all but one writer could come; I was excited! The day of the actual meeting, however, a storm got in the way. After I posted in our online classroom to cancel our get-together, I noticed a surprising twinge of relief. What if our writers didn’t look the way I’d imagined them? What if their smiles weren’t as warm as I’d hoped? What if these new writing friends I’d bonded with actually seemed like strangers? The irony--that I was just as anxious about meeting our writers in person as I had been to meet them online--didn’t escape me. Then I realized, everything that was supposed to happen in a workshop--the learning and growth, of course, but also the inspiration and strength we gain from our shared sense of purpose--had already happened online. We didn’t need to meet in person, because we’d already achieved everything we intended. The online experience had been every bit as valuable and satisfying as live workshops, and it didn’t need an additional live meeting to be complete.
Because you can gain so much so quickly from an online Writespace writing workshop--and without the commute--we hope you will join us in one this fall, so you can discover, as I discovered, that they are as exciting and powerful as the workshops we offer at Writespace studio. -- You can learn more about Writespace's online workshops by checking out our online workshops FAQs, halfway down this page. By Cassandra Rose Clarke, Associate Director of Writespace Four years ago I walked into studio 212 in Silver Street Studios for the first time. Writespace had only been open for a few months, and I was there to interview for a faculty position. I did land that position--my inaugural class was actually on tension, an emotion that fortunately has not plagued my time with Writespace. A few months after my first workshop, I also became a volunteer and then, in May of 2017, Writespace's first hired staff member. I had no idea what to expect when I walked into that quiet, minimalist room back in 2014, and I also had no idea that room would become a huge part of my life, a (if you’ll excuse the use of cliche) home away from home. In that space, I taught workshops, learned from other writers, and laughed with my fellow volunteers. I made friends and critique partners. I celebrated the release of my novel Our Lady of the Ice. I fell in love with poetry again. I tore through word counts at our Saturday 600s, read American Horror Story fanfiction at our Frightspace Open Mic, and undertook one of the biggest projects of my professional life: co-organizing Writefest 18. It’s pretty safe to say that Silver Street Studios #212 has shaped me over the last four years. Still, it was a tremendous honor to help organize the move from studio 212 to studio 208, just around the corner. Our new space has more square footage, glass doors that open out onto the deck, and a rather poetic view of the train tracks and jasmine-covered fence behind Sawyer Yards. It’s the perfect place for a writer, and I know it will shape all of us. By Elizabeth White-Olsen, Executive Director of Writespace Writespace takes a vacation in July, and so do I. This year, instead of leaving town, my husband and I decided to spend our vacation catching up on projects related to our relocation due to Hurricane Harvey. During our “staycation,” I’ve also been writing about Harvey. As much as I’d like to report that the writing is going along swimmingly, I’ve found it hard to write about the hurricane. It hurts so much to step once again into the brown floodwaters and into the canoe that took us from our home, but I feel I must to rescue myself in a larger way one year later. Until Wednesday, August 30, 2017, the day we were evacuated, my husband and I lived on the third floor of Lakeside Place Apartments in west Houston. Though we were forced to move when the apartments below us flooded, we didn’t lose all our possessions, as did most Houstonians affected by Harvey. Still, I’ve never lost as much in one week. The things I lost in Harvey were intangible, such as my sense of safety. My pride. My belief that I am in control of my life. Certainly some of the things I lost--like my pride--were things I needed to lose. Still, Harvey damaged me, and I definitely haven’t healed all the way. It was all so unfair, at the root of everything. Up until Harvey,I operated under the naive assumption that life could be a little unfair sometimes, but that it wouldn’t ever be hugely unfair. I do now feel greater compassion for those who suffer injustice, and I’m grateful for this. Still, there are aspects of my experience that just don’t make sense, and they may never make sense until the day I die. But I am a writer: My job is to try to make sense of life. To heal, I have to step back into the terror of Harvey with words and just keep wading forward without drowning. Along with the pain of remembering, though, nasty voices park illegally in my head and try to keep me from my work. They growl,
I’m sure that some of you are quite familiar with these evil voices that try to keep us from writing. The only thing to do is let them keep yacking and write anyway, so this is what I do. I counter these voices with my good reasons to keep writing:
If you lived in Texas one year ago and either were affected by Harvey or know someone who was, please come to my workshop on August 25 or to Leslie Contreras Schwartz’s workshop on September 8 (psst, it’s only $5, or you can come for free). I know it’s not easy to write about Harvey, but, together, we can do it. We will be better through doing so, and we’ll be helping our city move forward. Even if you can’t attend a Processing Harvey workshop, I’d love to hear your Harvey story: please let us know if you were affected or if you helped someone who was. Workshop participants will be invited to submit their writings to the Houston Flood Museum, a project devoted to gathering stories and media about Harvey in order to help Houston remember and to inspire city leaders to do everything possible to keep an event like Harvey from happening again. By Elizabeth White-Olsen, Executive Director of Writespace I never like to say, “I am speechless.” As a writer, I believe it’s my job to always have words at hand. But today I must say that Writefest has left me speechless. I don’t know how to describe Writefest, other than to say that on May 4th and 5th, it was as if a maelstrom of literary ecstasy dropped down to twirl and dance and spin around the corridors and art spaces of Winter Street Studios, awakening hearts and minds and pens in its wake. For someone working behind the scenes, who knows intimately just how delicious it all was, as well as how difficult—how many things could have gone wrong, but didn’t, (or did, but who cares since no one knew)—for someone who knows how amazing it felt to devote nine months to planning and then watch the magic unfold in even better ways than we imagined, with writers meeting and sharing and forming potentially lifelong bonds right before our eyes—I find it hard to “sum up” the experience. Luckily, I don’t have to. As is always the case with Writespace, others have come to the rescue. So for this column, I will let those who came to Writefest speak. In the words of Writefest attendees:
In the words of Writefest presenters:
Writespace volunteers will get a celebration party, because without them, Writefest and Writespace would not exist. Thank you to every writer who shared their time and mind and heart with us at Writefest this year. If you didn’t get to come, don’t worry. Yes, it was a blast, and we hope to see you at any number of equally awesome free and ticketed events that happen every week at Writespace. By Elizabeth White-Olsen, Executive Director of Writespace The other day at Writespace I apologized to a writer about my delay in responding to an email. “Sorry, it’s been crazy with Writefest,” I said. “Oh, is there a lot involved?” Mouth open, I had no idea where to begin. “Yes, there is a lot involved,” I said, but “Yes” felt like a blow-up swimming pool compared to the ocean of work involved with planning and hosting Writefest. I’m taking a break from the swim, mid-ocean, to share aspects of the journey that have brought me great joy:
I wish I could say that every moment over the last nine months of planning has brimmed with joy, but that isn’t life, as we know. As we dedicate long hours to writing emails, making phone calls, and updating spreadsheets, Writespace’s staff and volunteers have faced the typical enormous doses of stress and anxiety that come with trying to pull off something amazing with very little money—such as, wondering whether acoustics will be an issue in our super-cool but unconventional cement-floored event space, or waiting to hear back on that contract or from that volunteer we are relying on, who also has a full-time job, kids, and a house under construction post-Harvey, to boot. Yet people are coming through, are responding to our mission, through the crush of their lives. Slowly but surely, plans are falling into place. When you are brave and you love to do the right thing, this tends to happen, regardless of the hardships along the way. We keep the faith because we take great joy in getting to inspire, fulfill, and guide you, Dear Writer. If you will be in town the first week of May and you haven’t yet bought tickets to Writefest, get thy tickets, posthaste! If you already have tickets, please feast deeply on the fun and inspiration that is Writefest. As you do so, remember the ocean of work that we have swum through to bring you this gift. And feel special, because you are. Feel loved, because you are. By Elizabeth White-Olsen, Executive Director of Writespace Twenty-three poems, stories, and essays were submitted to editors and agents at Writespace this past Saturday, March 31st, at our very first Get Published Party. Twenty-three pieces that on that day, at that hour, probably would have otherwise stayed in the dusky purgatory of ten Houston writers’ hard drives. I love that we helped this happen. But at 4:15 p.m., fifteen minutes before the event, I still didn’t know how our first Submissions Party would go. I assisted our event leader, Hilary Ritz, who pitched the idea to me a little over two months ago, by wiping down the whiteboard and pulling out nametags from the bins in the bookcases as she set out chocolate to fuel our adventure. I greeted writers as they arrived and made their name tags. Things were revving up, but regardless of how much we plan, every time we host a new event, we take a hearty step into the unknown. Every attempt to support writers in a new way delivers a thrill of creative adventure much like the thrill of writing, and this is one of the reasons I love my job. When ten writers were seated around the table, Hilary introduced herself and asked the group, “What will you be sending out?” The range of genres was amazing, from poems to personal essays to literary fiction stories to fantasy novels. Hilary’s helper, Marcia Dao, asked, “What kind of music do you all want to listen to?” We landed on the “Nightmares on Wax” Pandora station, which provided the perfect chill atmosphere for what might have otherwise, had we been alone at our desks at home, been tense moments, in that here we were taking the culmination of dozens or hundreds of hours of hard work, these precious words we’ve poured our hearts into, and sending them out into the vast reaches of the publishing universe, to be read by people we do not know and may never meet, propelled by the hope that these strangers will like or even love our words well enough to publish them, so that our words can reach hundreds, thousands, or even millions of others we do not know and may never meet. When you consider what it means to submit writing, when you contemplate the depth of courage it takes to give complete strangers the power to accept or reject that which is precious to us, that which we have stolen valuable time from our family and work lives to make, when you realize how brave we must be in order to intentionally and repeatedly make our deepest selves vulnerable to strangers, for the sake of bringing others joy or communion through our words, the act of hitting “Submit” is heroic. Writers are courageous, and this is why I love you all and why I am devoting my life to supporting you.
At the party, each time one of us submitted, we clapped and cheered, delighted that one of us had been brave again. By the end, we had submitted to twenty-three diverse places, from obscure sci-fi journals to Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction to New Republic and The Atlantic to literary agents in NYC. And we did it together, with questions and laughter and cheering and popcorn and chocolate and cupcakes keeping us going. In the moment, lulled by the soft electronica music and the sound of typing and other writers breathing and hoping right beside us, hitting the “Submit” button could almost feel easy, but it never was. We knew what we were doing, and it was big. Learn more about Writespace Get Published Parties here. By Elizabeth White-Olsen, Executive Director of Writespace Every now and then, I walk into Writespace and see new Poets & Writers magazines in the freebie pile or craft books in the bookcase. The first time this happened, I paused, feeling puzzled. Who put these here? I didn’t know. The items could have been contributed by a faithful writing student, a writing instructor, or a board member. They could have been donated by someone who joined a Saturday 600 Write-In. Whoever left them did not leave a note. Once the shock passed, I felt a secret thrill of pride—not egotistical pride, but impersonal pride, like I was proud to be human and proud to get to play a part in something larger than I am. Sure, it seems like a small thing: magazines. But it isn’t just magazines. There’s no more amazing love than the love that humans can show toward those they haven’t even met. Through Writespace, I get to see this love every day. I even get to see it in big ways, such as through the donations that help us keep going and help us provide scholarships to writers in need. While my role as Writespace’s Executive Director is challenging and often marked by a feeling that there is ten times more work stacked up than I could ever accomplish in a day, I’m also deeply blessed to get to contribute and create opportunities for others to contribute. I don’t have a television or watch the news, because news stations tend to focus on bad news that kills hope, rather than on good news that builds hope, and I believe in building, rather than killing. But when I’m in a restaurant that has a TV blaring the freshest news of disaster over my delicious hickory hamburger or tofu pho soup or tuna sashimi, I see a world being depicted in which important things are not given, but taken away—whether it’s dignity and respect, automobiles, life savings, or even lives. Always, always, there is nothing I can easily do to help. I can, though, go back to work and help in the way that’s available to me. I can let go of thoughts of theft and death and return to a good place I have created, one in which things are given rather than taken. Given freely, without anything requested in return. And, of course, it’s not just Writespace. Literary endeavors are often characterized by generosity because ultimately we are all creating stories that are meant to be gifts to those we don’t even know. A spirit of giving imbues most literary endeavors. Thank you for participating in whatever ways you do. A year or two ago, these mugs appeared in front of our "Free Mags" sign: If the person who anonymously gave us these mugs is reading this, thank you! Know that we use them. And if you don’t read this--and to all the volunteers, board members, instructors, students, and community members who have contributed to the vitality of Writespace without seeking thanks, acknowledgement, or praise--I thank you. I acknowledge you. I praise you. Thanks for building hope in a world hungry for it. P.S.: If you have issues of Writer’s Digest, Poets & Writers, or other writing-related magazines you are finished with, please leave them in the freebie pile at Writespace (magazines unrelated to writing tend to stay in the pile, so you can recycle them or donate them elsewhere). Thank you! |
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