New writer’s group formed in Winchester

We think of writ­ers squir­rel­ing them­selves away, seques­ter­ing them­selves until mag­i­cal­ly, it seems, they pro­duce words that set them free, set­ting them apart from those who are not writ­ers. Those words may have been arranged as the Declaration of Independence, the Great Gatsby or sim­ply a let­ter to a grand­child, a lover, or you. It’s not mag­ic; words come eas­i­ly or they don’t.

This is an invi­ta­tion to writ­ers in Winchester, or at least with­in dri­ving dis­tance of our old Kentucky home­town, to join us, Jeanine Lister and Bill McCann. We ask that you leave your room, leave the lone­li­ness of your warm office, or leave that cold gar­ret beneath the eaves of your Victorian home, and join us week­ly for a writ­ers’ group.

Bring your best piece of writ­ing, or one you’re strug­gling with. We believe in pos­i­tiv­i­ty, accep­tance, and con­struc­tive crit­i­cism. No one is going to be harsh, dis­mis­sive, or judg­ing. We won’t allow any of that. Writing is dif­fi­cult enough with­out neg­a­tiv­i­ty hang­ing over our heads.

We intend to encour­age writ­ers to write, to improve their best writ­ing so that they become bet­ter writ­ers. Perhaps they’ll be bet­ter peo­ple or will become writ­ers who extoll the beau­ty of nature, or nur­ture sto­ries of hor­ror and mon­sters, humor, opin­ion, and satire. Perhaps they will be poets whose words move all who hear them. Who knows what may come from our pens or yours?

Perhaps your best efforts will pro­duce a five-para­graph essay for English class that is grad­ed an A, or maybe you will write a nov­el that wins a Pulitzer Prize. Or maybe you will just cre­ate your per­fect sen­tence or para­graph. Or maybe you will sim­ply find some peace; seren­i­ty in words writ­ten by you, instead of being shout­ed at you.

We are seek­ing, just once a week, to bring togeth­er local writ­ers to sup­port one anoth­er, to encour­age the cre­ation of poet­ry, essays, sto­ries, plays, nov­els and novel­las, or per­haps just that let­ter to a child or grand­child that nev­er quite seems to get writ­ten. Journalist, nov­el­ist, poet, or pun­ster, all are wel­come. Bill and Jeanine are grow­ing writ­ers ourselves.

The meet­ings will be held in the Fellowship Hall at First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, at 24 W. Hickman Street, Winchester, KY from 6 pm to 7:30 every Thursday night. There is room for all and all are wel­come. The church’s com­mu­nion table is open for all who believe; the writ­ers’ group is open to ALL peo­ple: believ­ers, non­be­liev­ers, ques­tion­ing folks, even peo­ple who are mad at the world. However, you must be six­teen or old­er. So that means YOU!

Join us this com­ing Thursday night (or maybe just some Thursday night) so that we can wel­come you to our fel­low­ship of writers.

We hope to wel­come you soon.

Bill and Jeanine