Community Writing Center

Salt Lake City Girls Write

Imagine yourself as a junior in high school, not sure of your future, (college? career?), but one thing you do know is that you like to write. Now imagine yourself as a person with a career, who uses writing on a daily basis. Bring these two people together and you’ve got a new community writing program being offered by the CWC and the Salt Lake City Library.

Starting in Fall 2010, at-risk young women (ages 16-17) will partner with women who use writing in their careers in mentoring relationships for nine months. Meeting weekly, these writing teams will work together to develop strong writing skills and abilities in all types of writing: creative, professional and academic.

• If you are interested in participating either as a mentor or a mentee please fill out the applications below:
  
  Mentees
  -- Mentee Interest Profile
  -- Parent/Guardian Consent Form
  -- Teacher Recommendation Form\
  -- Publicity Release
  
  Mentors
  -- Mentor Interest Profile
  
  

Writing For Change

Does change in democracy require civic dialogue? If so, where is it and who gets to talk? Or write? Join the CWC as we learn the techniques of civic writing, such as Letters to Editors and Public Officials. Come with a concern; stay to write a letter with the help of CWC writing coaches.

Beginning in January 2010, the CWC launches three new areas of programming within our new Writing for Change initiative: the Utah Community Literacy and Writing Consortium (UCLAWC), Writing for Change Events with the Salt Lake City Library and a Community Survey on Writing and Change. Please explore all of these programs, and find out how YOU can make a change with writing!

For more information, visit our Writing for Change page

One City Westside Stories

Salt Lake City may be the biggest small town in the west, but it consists of many smaller diverse communities. In partnership with the Salt Lake City Library, the Community Writing Center presents One City: Westside Stories. This program invites community members living on the Westside to participate in mutual dialogue about their community. High school students and senior citizens will interview each other about their experiences living in this vibrant community.

The interview teams will write stories after the interviews. Podcasts and writing will be shared on-line to create a portrait of the Westside.

High School teachers, senior citizens, and community volunteers are encouraged to be involved.

In 1974, inspired by mythological tales and the writing of contemporary fantasy authors, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created a system to build stories around the miniature-figurine wargame, Chainmail. This system developed into the first modern roleplaying game, known today as Dungeons and Dragons or D&D. The game provides individuals the chance to create a story around personalized characters in a shared narrative. Many narratives are started by a pre-written adventure hook, but each story is open enough to allow the characters to take on a life of their own.

The adventures of characters such as these have been developed through the imagination of the players at Chapman Branch Library in Salt Lake City. Each week, librarian Sean Carrico assists a group of local teens in the development of an ongoing tale. Recently, however, the pace has slightly changed—the players, interested in creating their own little corner of the D&D world, have given up one game night a month to start the building process.

Sean and the Community Writing Center’s Jeremy Remy provide feedback and time for these young writers to inscribe their ideas. Moreover, they assist in giving the tools needed to help write such an epic: discussing the invention ideas, working out character hooks and motives, developing and structuring plot, revision techniques, game design, and editing skills.

The writers themselves were already familiar with a variety of character creation tools and the plot-driven storytelling necessary to play Dungeons and Dragons. Their experience as players has helped make them quick to pick up on the methods used to create a story.