From Our Executive Director

Summer fills the air with possibilities of the creative dreams we all share. It’s often a time to catch up with old friends, with work we should have done in the spring, and with our own goals in life.

In the summer when I was 13, I decided I would write a novel. Not just any novel. A book that would win awards and become a best seller. I didn’t know where to start, so every night after riding bikes and playing Atari with my friends, I would go up to my room, sit in front of the computer we had just bought—which was still on the floor of my bedroom—and write. I couldn’t stand the taste of coffee, so I made a cup of hot, caffeinated tea and typed page after page, often way too late for my mother’s taste. 

In the months that followed, I wrote about 120 pages, single spaced, heavy on big swaths of dense narrative and what I thought was sparkling dialogue. But I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t have anyone to show it to and tell me how to make it better, how to unleash that perfect story that lived inside. 

I never finished that book about five friends who tried to save the earth from an invasion from another dimension. School started, and my teenage life quickly took over. 

I recently came across those pages lurking in the archives of my computer. How I wish there were a Muse back then. A place I could go to and learn from amazing writers and teacher about story arc and structure, making characters come alive, and how language can be so much more than words. 

I kept on writing off and on through my teenage years, showing my attempts at stories and poems to friends and college roommates. It wasn’t until my junior year of college that I was finally able to take my first creative writing workshop, and soon the craft started to click. But all that time, I was continually trying to express myself so others would know the fantastic adventures and ideas that lurked in my mind. 

Isn’t that why we all write? To express ourselves so that someone (perhaps even ourselves) can understand? Understand our dreams. Our hopes. Our spirits.