Harvest Commons Writing Group

The Community Writing Project stands in solidarity with Black and Brown communities in the current fight for full justice and the abolition of racist, white supremacist brutalities of all forms. 

Because community writing is one way to collaboratively consider the world as we encounter it and as we seek to transform it, the CWP is hosting virtual, Zoom-based writing groups during these times fraught with plagues and possibilities. 

It is central to the CWP mission to help give voice to all peoples who have been marginalized, exploited, and silenced through the systemic oppressions of racist, patriarchal, imperialist capitalism. In those voices and stories are found the seeds of lasting change.

Earlier this fall, the writing workshop in Howard Area Community Center’s ESL 5 class held a reading, inviting students from other ESL classes and Howard Area teachers and staff to hear what they had written over the past eight weeks.  Writers read from their newly printed magazine Stories from Our Lives, volume 2. Their stories touched on themes as varied as memorable and important meals, everyday routines in new and familiar places, and advice and traditions received from families, friends, and communities.

Videos from the fall reading are below.

The reading was held at the Howard Area Community Center–see their website here for more information about the center. 

At the end of the Spring 2017 writing workshop, Howard Area Community Center writers from the Level 5 classroom celebrated by sharing their writing with other ESL students and HACC teachers and staff. They pulled aside tables and set up chairs in the familiar classroom, turning it into a place to share the stories they had published in the spring booklet, Stories from our Lives (HACC writings_spring 2017)  Listeners responded with attentiveness and friendly laughter as the writers read their stories aloud.

Video clips from the spring reading are below.

 

The reading was held at the Howard Area Community Center–see their website here for more information about the center.