Writers Circle

Writing, especially creative writing, carries with it a lot of fear.  Perhaps as a result of an education system that emphasizes achievement over creativity and risk taking, or perhaps as a result of our own dark angels that hover on our shoulders comparing our own, surely sub-par, writing to that of our favorite novelists and poets, we learn to fear the process.  We fear that bad character, that bad plot line, that bad rhyme, or that bad sentence. We crumple up pages and clutch our drafts close, fearful of letting them out into the world, where they will surely be torn to shreds in a reader’s culture of harsh judgment.

The purpose of Writers Circle is to banish those notions, to engage in growth as writers with friends who are also writers, who are working to banish those same fears.  Writers Circle is about writing characters you want the world to meet, letting all their human imperfections shine. It’s about writing a single line of poetry that perfectly and beautifully captures your sense of the world, even though that sense may change tomorrow.  It’s about accepting that there will be bad sentences, and accepting that they will be mixed with beautiful ones, too. This is about supporting each other, joking with each other, sometimes even crying with each other, because sometimes the writing is just that good. That boils down to a willingness to be vulnerable, to hand over your writing and trust that it is in good hands. 

Below is a selection of works the students are pleased to share. We hope you enjoy them as well.