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Sunday, December 05, 2004 - 06:18 PM
New feature brings part of culture of the City in its most honest form
By Michael D. Altman and Jeff Syroney
In February of 2004, four volunteer writers from InkTank, a new writing and literacy program dedicated to “changing Cincinnati one word at a time,” started showing up at the Drop Inn Center on Thursday afternoons to facilitate creative writing groups with the men’s and women’s residential drug treatment programs.
Nearly a year later, the groups are still meeting, several new authors have published their work in Streetvibes, a standing-room-only crowd turned out for the first Open-Mic at “the Drop,” and two participants read their work at Writers’ Day, the city’s first annual celebration of writers and writing.
The writing groups at “the Drop” are actually a pilot program to see what happens when you bring the power of words to people who have not been asked to share their stories in the past.
To understand the success of the writing programs, you have to understand what happens when people come together in a room, drop all pretenses and decide to tell their truth to each other--on paper and often out loud.
Participants in the drug treatment programs are perfect candidates for this kind of exercise as honesty is an essential part of the recovery process. And honesty is at the core of all truly great writing.
In this edition of QCF magazine, the initial run of our newest feature, “The InkTank,” consists of some of the work created in the writing groups. For the first time, without filter, in an effort to combine the politics and culture of the city, some of the never before heard voices of the city will be heard.
Instead of writing about the writing culture in Cincinnati, QCF magazine and Inktank will feature short stories and poems from the authors in the City.
Links
· Inktank
Contact Information
· michaelda@queencityforum.com
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