“To be a balanced human being, there are things you should do not to get on your résumé, but to be more passionate and empathetic.”
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By Beth Ann Downey
By Beth Ann Downey
“To be a balanced human being, there are things you should do not to get on your résumé, but to be more passionate and empathetic.”
Read MoreBy Julia Terruso, Philadelphia Inquirer
“This has not been a place to hash out the kind of town-gown tensions one might associate with neighbors and students. It’s become a haven for secrets and fears, hopes and dreams, and advice and wishes for each other.”
Read MoreBy Chanel Hill, The Philadelphia Tribune
“The day that I visited the Dornsife Center at Drexel was the day that everything changed for me because it was in that moment that I found out about photography,” Pitts said. “When I first found out about photography, I was so excited. It was during that time that I picked up a camera and learned how to shoot.”
Read More“The resources and expertise that Canon brings to this collaboration make possible a whole new level of engagement,” said Roger Kurtz, department head, of English & Philosophy in Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences. “We are creating new opportunities for Drexel students, faculty, staff, and community members to learn and grow together.”
Read MoreBy Hazara Begum
And when Hymms, a frequent visitor of the Writers Room, was asked about her favorite part of the room, she replied, “Everything is my favorite part. This place is now my second home.”
Read MoreBy Margaux Cattelona
“We are not an inaccessible enclave for the initiated … [it’s about] being changed by everyone who walks in.”
Read MoreKirsten Kaschock recently interviewed Carol McCullough and Rachel Wenrick for the Writing Networks for Social Justice zine put together by Donald Unger and Liz Lane of 4C4Equality.
Read MoreWe’re proud to announce that Writers Room was selected as one of the 70 finalists being considered for ArtPlace America’s 2017 National Creative Placemaking Fund. Our proposed project, Writers House, will provide a model for inclusive community and act as a catalyst for equitable development in response to gentrification and urban town-gown divides. Learn more about the Writers House project in a video courtesy of our friends over at Melodius Thunk Productions.
Read More“Seeing the seriousness and growth within our group reminds me why I write, too—to express myself, but also to reach and be read by an audience, to connect with others.”
Read MoreBy Andrew Zitcer, Julie Hawkins, and Neville Vakharia
“In West Philadelphia neighborhoods, it may be possible to create the conditions for rapport between longtime residents and new arrivals through the cultivation of awareness and respect for the cultural assets that have long existed in the neighborhood, and through the co‑creation of new cultural activities. We see possibilities for such rapport in the Writers Room, an NEA-funded project that brings together Drexel students and community residents to write and publish literary anthologies, host readings, and share meals. Initiatives like this one place art at the center of an expressive public life and help to guarantee that neighborhoods have the strength and spirit to resist and endure in the years to come.”
Read MoreBy Frank Otto / Photo: Jen Britton
“I hope it continues to show us that we are more the same than we are different,” Wenrick says. “Things like the Big Read and Writers Room, where we take time out of our daily existence to share an experience with someone else, those moments are transcendent. You find your folks, that’s what art does. And that’s what we come together at Writers Room to do.”
Read MoreBy Kirsten Kaschock / Photo: Christopher Fascenelli
When I came back to read and listen in June, I was blown away by the depth and breadth of the work I heard. So was the rest of the standing-room only audience that attended. In the words of one participant: “To me it exemplified the ideal of what community-engaged work should be—authentic partnership and real relationships between any and all interested peoples.”
Read MoreBy Walker Alexander / Photo: Andrea Hu
Writers Room hosted the first of nine events Sept. 22 in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read Initiative. The keynote speech examined the life of Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston and her acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Read MoreBy Valerie Russ / Photo: Charles Fox
"The Writers Room perfectly exemplifies our vision with the work we are doing at the Dornsife Center and with Drexel's neighborhood initiatives," said Lucy Kerman, vice provost, Drexel University and Community Partnerships.
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