Y’all, I am doing a New Thing!!
As you may have heard, here in the town of State College where I’m a professor at Penn State, football is kind of important…but so is writing! I’m nervously excited to say that I’ve started a small business dedicated to writing (but Professor remains my “A” job!).
Write On, State! LLC is dedicated to supporting writers for living authentic lives. That is, I want all human beings to have access to writing for expressing themselves, for learning, for personal health and growth, for activism, for community.
We struggle with identities, with histories, with inequities, with transitions in personal lives and in communities, with mental, physical, and spiritual health— all of which can be explored and even transformed through the practice of writing.
So many of us have been alienated from our own writing power because of experiences they had in school: maybe they were compelled to write only in specific formats, or in fear of making mistakes, or in boredom and detachment from assigned topics and prescribed processes. Also, at the same time, so many of us are in such pain. We struggle with identities, with histories, with inequities, with transitions in personal lives and in communities, with mental, physical, and spiritual health— all of which can be explored and even transformed through the practice of writing.
This means that through Write On, State! LLC, I am (or will soon be) offering:
- Summer day camps for young people where they can experience writing that is fun and entirely their own
- Family Writing Events where families can write together to connect and reflect
- Reflecting on Practice workshops for any kind of work group, to build connection and offer new insights for the
- Teacher-Writer Group Writes for teachers to reconnect to their own writing lives AND process some of the overwhelming input of classroom life
- Making/Remaking with Art and Writing sessions where writing intersects with other creative practices like collage, building, painting, and more
- Custom events for all ages: birthday parties, faith groups, friend-nights-out, etc.
And, for those of you not Penn State football fans, the name “Write On, State” is a play on the Nittany Lions’ fight song!
