A Look into Awaken Creativity Writer's Group
As espresso machines whirred to life at The Pearl Cup in Richardson, nine writers from across the Metroplex gathered together on April 10, 2014 for the inaugural meeting of Awaken Creativity, the first Art House Dallas writers’ workshop. Focused more on encouragement through community rather than critique by committee, Awaken Creativity lived up to its name in the very first meeting.
As evidence of the desire for creatives to connect with each other in meaningful ways, one writer drove from Ft. Worth in rush-hour traffic in order to attend. After she arrived and most writers had achieved optimum caffeination, each person introduced themselves and shared their passions for the written word. They then stated their literary goals as a result of attending the workshop on a monthly basis.
Despite the purposefully small number in attendance, the writers’ particular bents ran the board, from bloggers, screenwriters, and poets to authors-in-waiting and published authors. Even those that had been published varied from memoir to nonfiction to young adult to children’s books.
Following the introductions, Art House Executive Director Marissa Delcambre challenged each person to jot down a writing prompt for themselves to finish before the next meeting. Then, in a twist worthy of M. Night Shymalan (The Sixth Sense M. Night, mind you), each writer had to pass their prompt to the person sitting on their left, resulting in many of the writers being tasked with a prompt likely outside their normal realm of creativity. At next month’s meeting each writer will then report on their experience writing toward such a prompt.
Awaken Creativity indeed.
After the hour-long meeting finished, many of the writers remained to further connect with others in the group. From comments made at the close of the workshop, it appeared that such a group was exactly what these writers were looking for and precisely what they need in order to pursue their creative goals in the coming year. While this inaugural group is closed to new attendees, another writers’ workshop group will likely begin in the Fall of 2014.
In the coming months, the group will talk about paths to publishing and read through Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, all the while supporting each other’s words.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a prompt I need to write.
Blake Atwood is an editor at FaithVillage.com, a freelance writer, and an unabashed fan of both Breaking Bad and the Oxford comma.