Chicago Writing Alliance's last hurrah
This post has been in the works for a while. I was originally going to call it "the slow death of the Chicago Writing Alliance," but... it looks like its slow, painful decline has reached its logical endpoint. The remaining members are pulling the plug - but not before giving it one last hurrah with the final Fifth Wednesday live reading, which is taking place on, when else, October 30, at Bezazian branch library in Chicago's Little Vietnam neighborhood.
I first found out about the Chicago Writing Alliance back in the fall of 2015. The newsletter from my local alderman has links to library events, and I noticed that the Bezazian branch was hosting a writing group on Wednesdays at 6:00 PM. By that point, Chasing New Dawn was only a few pages long, and I still harbored under the delusion that I could somehow fit the ever-growing story into 20 pages.
It wasn't until the following year that I found out about the group's backstory. According to an article in South Side Weekly's 2016 literary issue, it was originally one of the many groups throughout Chicago that were part of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance. The article gives a pretty good rundown on what it was and why it collapsed, but when it did collapse, some of the groups decided to keep going on their own. There are a few other groups that survived the initial collapse - the Budlong Woods branch library group, which meets on Friday mornings, and, for a while, the Chicago Writing Group that met at King branch library in Bronzeville.
(It wasn't until I started writing this entry that it occurred to me that I haven't seen any signs of Bronzeville group for almost a year, so I assume it closed, too - but please correct me if I'm wrong)
All of those groups carried on certain NWA practices - the facilitators running the groups, the sign-in sheets, the page requirements, the fact that everyone had to print out copies of their work and the fact that one copy had to be submitted "for the book." Back when NWA was around, all the submitted pieces were considered for publication in the Journal of Ordinary Thought, NWA's literary magazine that used to be a mainstay of Chicago Public Library system, but with NWA gone, this was this weird vestigial practice that seemed to carry on just because.
(I mean, Budlong Woods group does self-publish its own anthologies of member works, but, to the best of my knowledge, members who want to be in one of those anthologies submit their pieces separately).
Chicago Writing Alliance was the first writing group I joined, and the one I stayed with the longest. To be honest, it wasn't even entirely because of the feedback. It was because having a group to attend every Wednesday gave me the extra motivation to keep writing, and, over time, I got to know and appreciate its members, so it was a social thing. And I appreciated the Fifth Wednesday readings. On the months that had five Wednesdays, the Chicago Writing Alliance held a reading on the last Wednesday of the month. They were open to the public, and while, theoretically, we were only supposed to read works that got workshopped by the group, the rule was never really that ironclad. It wasn't exactly the first time I read my work in public, but did help to prepare me for open mics.
Over time, I couldn't help but notice that most of the regular members have been there since NWA days. Every once in a while, new people would join, but I was the only one who hung on longer than a few months. And it occurred to me that many of the aforementioned regulars were closer to Grandma Nina's age than my mother's. With the deaths of Grandpa Slava and Grandpa Roma fresh on my mind, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen to the group on the long run.
But, at least for a while, we usually had a decent number of people at any given meeting - but even that started to change.
Some members simply stopped coming without so much as an e-mail. Others would only come once a month, or even less. When we did get explanations, sometimes, it was because other commitments took priority, but other times, it was because they simply felt that they were getting too old to come to evening meetings.
What's worse is that several of those people were, I would argue, the hearts and souls of the group. Radmila, who always brought food to Fifth Wednesdays and always talked about how much the group meant to her, simply stopped coming. Tinamarie, who handled much of the preparations for Fifth Wednesdays, basically dropped out (for reasons that, in fairness, weren't entirely under her control), and there was no one to pick up the slack.
There used to be four facilitators who would take turn running meetings, but two of them left, and one came to the meetings to do the facilitating and to attend Fifth Wednesdays, but otherwise didn't show up at all.
And, again, that wouldn't be too bad if we had new people - but the more time went on, the fewer new people came by, and when they did, they either never came back or only came back for 2-3 meetings.
Meanwhile, another writing workshop opened in Edgewater branch library. It only ran on second and forth Tuesdays of the month, but the branch library was within walking distance of my apartment and I didn't have to worry about printing out copies, because the librarian who co-faciliated the group did it for us. At first, my work commitments made me miss most meetings, but once I reduced the amount of work I did for the Niles Bugle and eventually stopped writing for them altogether, I was suddenly able to make most of the meetings.
Another writing group, Write About It, launched in North Austin branch library on the West Side. Like Chicago Writing Alliance, it met weekly - first on Wednesday afternoons, then on Tuesday afternoons. I attended the first meeting just to do an article about them for Austin Weekly News. Then, I thought it might be a good idea to take part in them on the days when I'm covering some meetings and events in the evening, but over time, I found that I liked the group that eventually formed, even as some members came and went, so I wound up coming even on Tuesdays when I didn't have any work stuff on the West Side.
As people who've been reading this blog for the past few years know, I wound up attending a workshop in Chicago's East Side neighborhood for a similar reason - I liked the people there and liked the feedback. When the librarian who ran it got a job at the newly opened West Loop branch library, he moved the group there as well, and I wound up attending it, too.
Oh, and I got involved with EdgyWriters, an Edgewater writing group that is structured more like what most people think of as a writing critique group, in that there's a lot more critique. It deserves its own separate post, but given that they reviewed several of my pieces and given that I attended a book release party for one of the group's published authors a few days ago, I feel like I would be remiss not to mention it.
By this summer, attendance at Chicago Writing Alliance meetings slowly but surely continued to drop. There were times when I was the only person who was there, or when I was one of the two people. In fairness, I didn't attend every single meeting, either - sometimes because of work, sometimes because there was an open mic. I used to be pretty conflicted about attending open mics and writers events on Wednesdays, but lately, it became much easier to just go to the open mics. At least I knew people would show up to open mics.
But, having said all that, I held out hope that Creative Writing Alliance would rebound, somehow. Or, at the very least, that we shouldn't give up without a fight. The Neighborhood Writing Alliance meant a lot to people from all over Chicago. One of its few remnants deserved better than that. And, like I said, I legitimately liked hanging out with the people who still showed up. I thought about reaching out to instructors in local high schools and colleges, doing another flier blitz...
But then, two months ago, I saw a member who, whatever her attendance may be, clearly cared about the Chicago Writing Alliance and at least tried to encourage people to come out via e-mail. But lately, she's been dealing with a lot of stuff in her life... And, on that day, I saw that she couldn't even muster any joy, let alone enthusiasm. I'll be honest, ladies and gentlefolk - it was heartbreaking.
And I started thinking - the Chicago Writing Alliance was organized because NWA members wanted to keep their group going. If they don't want to keep it going... is there really a good reason for it to exist?
Last Wednesday, I got the e-mail from the three other members who could still sort-of be counted as regulars. We would have one last Fifth Wednesday on October 30, but after that, the group is ending. Well, the way they put it is that we would merge with the Edgewater Writing Workshop, but it's less of a merger and more of a ship picking up a lifeboat adrift at sea.
And I had to agree that it was probably the best course of action.
So, to any Chicagoans reading this - please, feel free to stop by Bezazian branch library (1226 W Ainslie St) on Wednesday, October 30, at 6:00 PM. The Chicago Writing Alliance - and, with it, a piece of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance - is coming to an end, but, hopefully, we can at least give it a nice send-off.
I first found out about the Chicago Writing Alliance back in the fall of 2015. The newsletter from my local alderman has links to library events, and I noticed that the Bezazian branch was hosting a writing group on Wednesdays at 6:00 PM. By that point, Chasing New Dawn was only a few pages long, and I still harbored under the delusion that I could somehow fit the ever-growing story into 20 pages.
It wasn't until the following year that I found out about the group's backstory. According to an article in South Side Weekly's 2016 literary issue, it was originally one of the many groups throughout Chicago that were part of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance. The article gives a pretty good rundown on what it was and why it collapsed, but when it did collapse, some of the groups decided to keep going on their own. There are a few other groups that survived the initial collapse - the Budlong Woods branch library group, which meets on Friday mornings, and, for a while, the Chicago Writing Group that met at King branch library in Bronzeville.
(It wasn't until I started writing this entry that it occurred to me that I haven't seen any signs of Bronzeville group for almost a year, so I assume it closed, too - but please correct me if I'm wrong)
All of those groups carried on certain NWA practices - the facilitators running the groups, the sign-in sheets, the page requirements, the fact that everyone had to print out copies of their work and the fact that one copy had to be submitted "for the book." Back when NWA was around, all the submitted pieces were considered for publication in the Journal of Ordinary Thought, NWA's literary magazine that used to be a mainstay of Chicago Public Library system, but with NWA gone, this was this weird vestigial practice that seemed to carry on just because.
(I mean, Budlong Woods group does self-publish its own anthologies of member works, but, to the best of my knowledge, members who want to be in one of those anthologies submit their pieces separately).
Chicago Writing Alliance was the first writing group I joined, and the one I stayed with the longest. To be honest, it wasn't even entirely because of the feedback. It was because having a group to attend every Wednesday gave me the extra motivation to keep writing, and, over time, I got to know and appreciate its members, so it was a social thing. And I appreciated the Fifth Wednesday readings. On the months that had five Wednesdays, the Chicago Writing Alliance held a reading on the last Wednesday of the month. They were open to the public, and while, theoretically, we were only supposed to read works that got workshopped by the group, the rule was never really that ironclad. It wasn't exactly the first time I read my work in public, but did help to prepare me for open mics.
Over time, I couldn't help but notice that most of the regular members have been there since NWA days. Every once in a while, new people would join, but I was the only one who hung on longer than a few months. And it occurred to me that many of the aforementioned regulars were closer to Grandma Nina's age than my mother's. With the deaths of Grandpa Slava and Grandpa Roma fresh on my mind, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen to the group on the long run.
But, at least for a while, we usually had a decent number of people at any given meeting - but even that started to change.
Some members simply stopped coming without so much as an e-mail. Others would only come once a month, or even less. When we did get explanations, sometimes, it was because other commitments took priority, but other times, it was because they simply felt that they were getting too old to come to evening meetings.
What's worse is that several of those people were, I would argue, the hearts and souls of the group. Radmila, who always brought food to Fifth Wednesdays and always talked about how much the group meant to her, simply stopped coming. Tinamarie, who handled much of the preparations for Fifth Wednesdays, basically dropped out (for reasons that, in fairness, weren't entirely under her control), and there was no one to pick up the slack.
There used to be four facilitators who would take turn running meetings, but two of them left, and one came to the meetings to do the facilitating and to attend Fifth Wednesdays, but otherwise didn't show up at all.
And, again, that wouldn't be too bad if we had new people - but the more time went on, the fewer new people came by, and when they did, they either never came back or only came back for 2-3 meetings.
Meanwhile, another writing workshop opened in Edgewater branch library. It only ran on second and forth Tuesdays of the month, but the branch library was within walking distance of my apartment and I didn't have to worry about printing out copies, because the librarian who co-faciliated the group did it for us. At first, my work commitments made me miss most meetings, but once I reduced the amount of work I did for the Niles Bugle and eventually stopped writing for them altogether, I was suddenly able to make most of the meetings.
Another writing group, Write About It, launched in North Austin branch library on the West Side. Like Chicago Writing Alliance, it met weekly - first on Wednesday afternoons, then on Tuesday afternoons. I attended the first meeting just to do an article about them for Austin Weekly News. Then, I thought it might be a good idea to take part in them on the days when I'm covering some meetings and events in the evening, but over time, I found that I liked the group that eventually formed, even as some members came and went, so I wound up coming even on Tuesdays when I didn't have any work stuff on the West Side.
As people who've been reading this blog for the past few years know, I wound up attending a workshop in Chicago's East Side neighborhood for a similar reason - I liked the people there and liked the feedback. When the librarian who ran it got a job at the newly opened West Loop branch library, he moved the group there as well, and I wound up attending it, too.
Oh, and I got involved with EdgyWriters, an Edgewater writing group that is structured more like what most people think of as a writing critique group, in that there's a lot more critique. It deserves its own separate post, but given that they reviewed several of my pieces and given that I attended a book release party for one of the group's published authors a few days ago, I feel like I would be remiss not to mention it.
By this summer, attendance at Chicago Writing Alliance meetings slowly but surely continued to drop. There were times when I was the only person who was there, or when I was one of the two people. In fairness, I didn't attend every single meeting, either - sometimes because of work, sometimes because there was an open mic. I used to be pretty conflicted about attending open mics and writers events on Wednesdays, but lately, it became much easier to just go to the open mics. At least I knew people would show up to open mics.
But, having said all that, I held out hope that Creative Writing Alliance would rebound, somehow. Or, at the very least, that we shouldn't give up without a fight. The Neighborhood Writing Alliance meant a lot to people from all over Chicago. One of its few remnants deserved better than that. And, like I said, I legitimately liked hanging out with the people who still showed up. I thought about reaching out to instructors in local high schools and colleges, doing another flier blitz...
But then, two months ago, I saw a member who, whatever her attendance may be, clearly cared about the Chicago Writing Alliance and at least tried to encourage people to come out via e-mail. But lately, she's been dealing with a lot of stuff in her life... And, on that day, I saw that she couldn't even muster any joy, let alone enthusiasm. I'll be honest, ladies and gentlefolk - it was heartbreaking.
And I started thinking - the Chicago Writing Alliance was organized because NWA members wanted to keep their group going. If they don't want to keep it going... is there really a good reason for it to exist?
Last Wednesday, I got the e-mail from the three other members who could still sort-of be counted as regulars. We would have one last Fifth Wednesday on October 30, but after that, the group is ending. Well, the way they put it is that we would merge with the Edgewater Writing Workshop, but it's less of a merger and more of a ship picking up a lifeboat adrift at sea.
And I had to agree that it was probably the best course of action.
So, to any Chicagoans reading this - please, feel free to stop by Bezazian branch library (1226 W Ainslie St) on Wednesday, October 30, at 6:00 PM. The Chicago Writing Alliance - and, with it, a piece of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance - is coming to an end, but, hopefully, we can at least give it a nice send-off.