Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Central Phoenix Writing Workshop! Here's how we work:
We are open to all styles, genres, and forms of creative and non-creative writing. Just no hate speech, please. Our group is so successful because we treat each other with respect and trust.
The first half hour (6:30-7:00) is hanging out, getting situated, ordering food/drinks, and giving the moderator time to set up the subgroups. You don't have to bring work to share in order to attend or participate. If you don't RSVP and enter word count below, please arrive by 6:45 to tell the moderator your word count. If you arrive later than 6:45, you'll be welcome to sit in, but we won't be able to read your piece, because we need time to balance word counts for each group. Thank you! To give everyone a chance to have their piece workshopped, we recommend limiting your word count to 2,000, but please, no more than 2,500.
At 7:00, we split into sub-groups. The assistant moderator for each group will ask each person to introduce themselves, then say a few things about Group.
Group goes like this: we ask the person if there's anything we need to know, what they're looking for in terms of feedback, the person passes their work out (we use hard copies to follow along while you're reading and take notes), and then they read. Reading aloud creates a more communal experience and helps people get better at reading; it also helps copy-edit/proof the work, too.
When the person is finished reading, we have a conversation. One person speaks at a time, giving feedback (things that worked/didn't work for them). When that person is finished, another person will start. If you want to talk while someone else is talking, just wait until they're finished or there's a pause and ask them if you can talk, at which point they can say yes or no. If they say yes, we'll make sure it gets back to them. If they say no, we'll make sure it gets back to you. Super easy. The author is encouraged to talk too, but not too much.
If you think that you don't know how to give criticism, don't worry about it. Other people will say things that you can agree or disagree with. We'll ask you questions. You'll tell us what you think. Keep coming back. You'll get better at it. As will your writing. Praise and adulation is always nice, too.
We take a short break for bathrooms and text messaging around 8:00 p.m. or 8:15 p.m. and finish around 9:30.
See you soon!
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A few notes:
- HEALTH: We strongly encourage everyone to protect vulnerable participants from illness by being up to date on vaccinations, staying home when feeling ill, and wearing masks when community levels are high for contagious airborne infectious diseases. It’s the honor system.
- HARD COPIES: Bring 5 to 6 hard copies of your work. Please keep your word count under 2500 words to help the group stay on time. If you are bringing work, please enter the word count of your piece in your RSVP to help us assign groups.
- SENSITIVITY: While great writing is often about tragedy, pain, and therefore ripe with heavy content and themes, we also want to recognize and respect that there might be specific scenes or pieces that we bring that could trigger other writers’ past trauma if they are caught unaware. One way we can respect each other is to provide a trigger warning if a piece contains graphic images of rape, extreme violence, child abuse, suicide, substance abuse, sex, or death. If you bring a piece with sensitive content, please include that information in your RSVP with word count and/or let the moderator at group know. We hope to give each member that attends as much information as we can, so that, with topics such as these, readers have opt/out or opt/in choices, and writers are able to share work with a group whose members are open and prepared to give great feedback. Thank you for your consideration.
