[IN-PERSON!] Tuesday Central Phoenix Writers Group

NOTE: We have extended our meetup subscription for a few additional months so there is plenty of time for current and previous members to move over to the Discord Platform.

Hello!
Mighty Central Phoenix Writer's Workshop!
We are evolving! We are changing! Please come along with us!

In a few months, we will no longer be on Meetup. Meetup is getting expensive and Discord seems a better fit for pricing, online communication, and maintaining an active, participating community. If you have attended group in the last year, we will message you (via Meetup) the link to Discord in October and November. If you haven't attended in some time and want to stay involved, please attend group on a Tuesday before the end of November and check out our new format. We're going to rise anew with a new name and we will take suggestions at Tuesday meetings! See the event description for more details!

\> We will still meet every Tuesday 5:30\-8 pm at Valley Coffee to workshop writing\. We will ask you to RSVP on Discord\, or be there by 5:30 on Tuesday to sign up\. We'll ask everyone to be there no later than 5:45\, please; we know it's a struggle with traffic\, but we're going to be moving to a more informal\, opt\-in group formation\, so we want to form groups so we can get going right at 6 pm\. There will be groups of no more than 4 people with words; each person will get 25 minutes to read and workshop what they bring\. Please bring 5 copies if you plan to share work\. People without words can fill these groups in\. We'll work together to maintain a safe\, healthy space\.

\> We invite all of you to invite any friend or writer who you think would enjoy our workshopping space to attend on Tuesdays\.

\> You'll see the familiar faces of Stephen\, Lia\, Virginia\, Nikka\, Richie\, Claudia\, Kara\, and Jake around during this transition; hit them up with any questions\!

This phase of our Mighty Central Phoenix Writer's Workshop has been EPIC, with so many books, works, performances and FRIENDSHIPS created; the next phase will bring a whole new set of enriching connections to our community; please join us and share your VOICE!!!

Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Central Phoenix Writing Workshop! Here's how we work:

We are open to all styles, genres, and forms of creative and non-creative writing. Just no hate speech, please. Our group is so successful because we treat each other with respect and trust.

The first half hour (5:30-6:00) is hanging out, getting situated, ordering food/drinks, and giving the moderator time to set up the subgroups.

Group goes like this: we ask the person if there's anything we need to know, what they're looking for in terms of feedback, the person passes their work out (we use hard copies to follow along while you're reading and take notes), and then they read. Reading aloud creates a more communal experience and helps people get better at reading; it also helps copy-edit/proof the work, too.

When the person is finished reading, we have a conversation. One person speaks at a time, giving feedback (things that worked/didn't work for them). When that person is finished, another person will start. If you want to talk while someone else is talking, just wait until they're finished or there's a pause and ask them if you can talk, at which point they can say yes or no. If they say yes, we'll make sure it gets back to them. If they say no, we'll make sure it gets back to you. Super easy. The author is encouraged to talk too, but not too much.

If you think that you don't know how to give criticism, don't worry about it. Other people will say things that you can agree or disagree with. We'll ask you questions. You'll tell us what you think. Keep coming back. You'll get better at it. As will your writing. Praise and adulation is always nice, too.
We take a short break for bathrooms and text messaging around 7:00 p.m. and finish at 8 pm.
See you soon!
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A few notes:

1. HEALTH: We strongly encourage everyone to protect vulnerable participants from illness by being up to date on vaccinations, staying home when feeling ill, and wearing masks when community levels are high for contagious airborne infectious diseases. It’s the honor system.
2. SENSITIVITY: While great writing is often about tragedy, pain, and therefore ripe with heavy content and themes, we also want to recognize and respect that there might be specific scenes or pieces that we bring that could trigger other writers’ past trauma if they are caught unaware. One way we can respect each other is to provide a trigger warning if a piece contains graphic images of rape, extreme violence, child abuse, suicide, substance abuse, sex, or death. If you bring a piece with sensitive content, please include that information in your RSVP with word count and/or let the moderator at group know. We hope to give each member that attends as much information as we can, so that, with topics such as these, readers have opt/out or opt/in choices, and writers are able to share work with a group whose members are open and prepared to give great feedback. Thank you for your consideration.

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