My Thoughts on WriteCamp

WriteCamp was here in Milwaukee this past Saturday, June 6th - for those of you who haven't heard me gabbing about it for the last two months. I believe that it was a huge success, and I am eager for the next iteration of it.

Over the course of the day, I learned a few things:

1. Writers are not nearly as isolated and introverted as people think. Not only did we have nearly 80 people, but all of those people were on-board with the whole notion of participant-driven sessions and interacting with as many people as they could while they were there.

2. Writers are savvy networkers. I saw more people interacting with complete strangers at this conference than I ever saw at UWM's Spring Writing Festival. That's not to knock that conference, because it's great, but the atmosphere at WriteCamp was so much more relaxed and open, that people felt comfortable stepping out of their bubble.

3. Milwaukee's community is big. Outside of the members of The Milwaukee Writers Workshop who showed up to the event, there were a large number of people who I've never met. We did, however, have people come all the way up from Chicago-land.

4. Community - or the notion of community - is changing dramatically. I had more than one person come up to me during the conference and say that they enjoyed the approachable nature of the conference and how they felt more apt to share and listen than they do at their regular group or with their colleagues. This made me happy.

WriteCamp is an evolution in the way we think about how people in the writing/editing/publishing world think about disseminating knowledge to the world at large. Traditional means are working anymore, and no one likes the idea of the acedemic world thinking that they have the keys to the publishing world by determining what's "good" and "bad." WriteCamp proved that there are more experts in the world than people know about, and they're willing to share, to mentor, and to support the community that they're becoming a part of.

Let's hope that word spreads about WriteCamp and that we can hope to begin fostering a new generation of writers who believe in our mission. Thank you to everyone who attended, participated, volunteered, and came up to me and said nice things.

WriteCamp Ahoy!

June 6th seemed so far away not too long ago. Now, here it is only a month away. The inaugural WriteCamp here in Milwaukee is about to be unleashed upon the world. I'm very excited about the progress the planning board has made over the course of the last three months. As it stands now, we have about 40-50 people signed up officially, at least a dozen or so more than that unofficially, and we have folks coming all the way from Chicago to join us. I think it's going to be a great event.

So that's what I've been working on. I've had a lot of opportunity to speak a lot about WriteCamp and what it is and what it's meant to function as, and I've come to realize that people don't understand it. The literary community is so engrained with academia that the thought of a free exchange of knowledge is baffling to most of them. So often I've heard the phrase "Well, people don't like to do things for free," and it disappoints me. Offering things for free shows to the community that we're here to support the community - without having that feeling of "obligatory compensation."

I hope the community here in Milwaukee shortly sees that we're here to help. Not only is the Milwaukee Writers Workshop here as a support group, but groups like Robinson Writers and individuals like Liam Callahan are here to be a part of the community.

If you haven't heard of it - btw - please visit www.writecampmilwaukee.com for more information.

Free Knowledge

Since I began the Milwaukee Writers' Workshop in 2006, there have been four major groups in the city for writers. One is a group that has dues; one is a non-profit that charges for its classes. The other two were the Milwaukee Writers Group & MWW. Now there will only be three. Since Trevor and I first talked about combining our efforts and making the two groups one, one question has continued to plague me: why are we doing this?

Over the weekend, I think I finally came to a solid answer.

I began MWW with a slightly selfish goal in mind: I wanted my writing to be looked at, so I could get it published. I think any writer who joins a group can admit to that. Now, though, my goal is more altruistic. I enjoy providing this community. I thrive on it. I think that Milwaukee deserves a community like we have because education like we provide ought to be free.

I look at events like BarCampMilwaukee and MilwakeeDevHouse, and even Bucketworks, and I'm envious that the tech community has such a broad network to host so many free events. Even our eager art community has MARN. Writers in Milwaukee, though, don't have that same option outside of our group, and I think part of it is because we're archaic. Our art form is one of the oldest, and we like to stick to tradition. Every writing conference or convention costs something; most of the famous workshops are expensive. MWW costs nothing, and I hope to keep it that way because I think what our small community provides is value enough, and writers ought to come together for free.

Come the beginning of the year, MWW will be a much larger group with bigger goals. Perhaps a free conference in the city is in our near future; perhaps more local events will be offered. Whatever we do, it will remain free, because that is how I foresee the way of the future in the realm of disseminating knowledge.

Building A Community

It's December 5th. Five days ago I failed to complete NaNo. I'm not terribly disappointed, but I had hoped to fare better this year than I did last, and I only did by a little bit. I did, however, succeed in producing two new short stories, which I didn't even manage to do last year. So there's some good to come of it.

I've been talking a lot lately with various colleagues about "community". For writers, community seems like a vague notion of being a part of something within the realm of "writership". Many writers think of it as merely being a part of this movement or that; to me, though (and to a lot of my colleagues), being a part of a writer community means interacting personally with other writers through workshops, critiques, and group sessions that enhance our own writing while benefitting our colleagues with our knowledgeable critique. There are writers I know who write in isolation, hoarde their writing, and chastise the writer who exposes himself to unnecessary criticism. To me, those writers have a disadvantage, because the very writers they believe will be giving this criticism are, in fact, their readers. To be able to reach even one of them, means reaching an audience, and that is an indication that the story is worthy of a larger audience, which is the point of writing, right?

Yes, I've said before that you write for yourself, but most of us hope to at least make a little but of money. In order to do that, we have to find an audience that will accept our work. It is much easier to figure that out in a small group setting than to wait years to try and find it the hard way: that is to send it out over and over again to publishers who continue to reject our work. Find the one or two people in your group who enjoy your work; figure out what they read; find magazines that publish work similar to that; then stick to trying to reach the audience at that publication.

Communities are meant to help others. We build communities because we want support: everyone wants to feel like they're part of something. To be a part of a writing community is a big deal to me, because I feel like my career relies on it. Creativity breeds in communities because creative types tend to enjoy fostering creativity in others. Writers can be very selfish at times - not wanting to share their vision with the world - but most ofthe time we're very good about sharing opinions and aiding our fellow writers.

Trevor, the leader of The Milwaukee Writer's Group, and I have been discussing the merger of our two groups, hoping to provide a wider array of options to the writing community here in Milwaukee. I think it's a good venture, and I look forward to the fruits of our labor.