Local writers guilds encourage the craft of writing

For 20 years, Brian White’s vocation was retail management, but his avocation was writing. In addition to selling free-lance pieces nationwide, he was a humor columnist for a Florida hunting and fishing magazine.

Then the Ooltewah resident suffered a stroke in December 2007, from which he is still recuperating.

“That was part of the reason I founded Owl Towne Writers in April because I was just sitting around the house doing my own thing and writing,” Mr. White said.

Owl Towne’s membership now numbers 30 aspiring writers, who include bloggers, writers for Christian magazines and health periodicals, university professors, poets and fiction writers.

“For me, writing was therapy and a means to prove I still had full mental capacity following my stroke. I was looking for things to keep me active and help my rehabilitation,” Mr. White said. “Several members in our group also have health issues, and they find therapy and peace in writing and heal and grow from it.”

Owl Towne is one of 10 collectives open to all writers within the area. Their memberships offer encouragement to aspiring writers, the opportunity to learn from published peers and a social group that is open to freely sharing and accepting advice.

“Writers guilds are growing fast, both in number of groups and in membership of each group,” said Ray Zimmerman, a former president of the Chattanooga Writers Guild.

“The Chattanooga Writers Guild is open to any writer and any genre interest, and we offer a broad range of small writing groups that meet monthly to critique the members’ work,” said CWG president Jennifer Hoff.

“CWG has greatly impacted my writing because it provides me with an outlet to share my work, as well as a network of other writers to seek advice and guidance on my work,” she said. “The CWG was instrumental in helping me land my first article assignments, as I met other writers and made connections that I would not have been able to make elsewhere.”

Pris Shartle, who co-owns Grapevine stores with her husband, first visited a CWG meeting as a published author to present a reading from her work. Joining not long afterward, she was soon a board member.

“It has been a great experience surrounding myself with such talented writers and hearing from people who speak at our meetings, learning from their experiences,” she said.

Tongeia Farmer says she considers the 30 members of Rhyme N Chatt poetry guild her family. Membership offered her the chance to have her work heard and critiqued, ultimately motivating a self-published book of poetry.

“The opportunity to share my thoughts, my soul with others and not feel like they didn’t want to hear it is what I’ve gained from attending,” she said.

At a recent Owl Towne meeting, topics ranged from coping with writer’s block to how to get your work seen and posting work for critique on Web sites such as ezine.com. Members discussed the daily discipline of blogging and offered encouragement to those despairing over ever being published (“Stephen King had seven novels rejected before ‘Carrie’ was published,” one member reminded others).

“Our members range from the unpublished to those who have books published. And we all learn from each other,” Mr. White said.