WHO  WE  ARE
The Writers’ Hood is a creative-writing school and community collective that focuses on artists' sustainability through educational, financial, and professional services.

We believe stories are laboratories for understanding the human condition. Through our approach to creative human inquiry, writers study people, their behavior, relationships, memories, contradictions, cultures, choices, and consequences, and use the craft of storytelling to investigate what those experiences mean.

Our courses, workshops, lectures, readings, professional development opportunities, and community programs help writers become stronger storytellers while building the knowledge, relationships, and resources necessary to sustain a creative life.

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But we don’t believe sustaining artists is enough. We want artists to help sustain the arts. That’s why community is part of our pedagogy. The Writer’s Hood creates opportunities for writers to connect, collaborate, share resources, develop leadership skills, and actively participate in the artistic ecosystems that enable creative work.

 

We are a writing school.
A laboratory for human inquiry.
A creative community.
And an incubator for the next generation of arts leaders.

OUR  PHILOSOPHY
We believe that humans created stories because this is how we connected to our origins and how we came to identify ourselves. It is through story that we begin to understand our nature, how things in the world came  to be, the reasons why certain systems exist, the historical values our societies created and left behind, the virtues that stand through the tests of time, and the emotional truths that form the tapestry of humanity as a whole. Therefore, as storytellers, it is our responsibility to keep this tradition of origin, archive and creative documentation as ethically and truthfully as possible. This is not to say we aren’t allowed to have our own opinions of the world and of our humanity– that's actually the point. If we are going to form our own opinions, how do we make sure we are doing so in an ethical way that brings humanity more together instead of dividing us apart?
 

THE  WRITER'S  HOOD  PEDAGOGICAL  PROCESS
Pedagogically, we approach storytelling through a process of  human inquiry. It's the foundational belief that stories are laboratories for understanding the human condition. Writers study human beings; their behavior, relationships, memories, contradictions, cultures, choices, and consequences and use dramatic craft to make meaning from what they observe. At its core, the pedagogy asks: What does it mean to be human, and how do we dramatize what we discover?
 

THE  WRITER'S  HOOD  METHOD

The practical pedagogy follows a related progression:

Observe → Understand → Investigate → Structure → Communicate → Question 

 

It must also mean: teach artists how to sustain artistic ecosystems. To become artist-citizens and arts leaders. We have too many business oriented/minded people running our arts organizations which by example has proven to dilute artistic endeavors to create more commercialized, easily digestible work that just isn't sustainable anymore. We need to put the artist back into those leadership spaces, and at the same time, make sure those artists understand the tools for success as well.
 

THE   ADMENTEE   LEADERSHIP   PIPELINE

The Admentee Program is a natural extension of the pedagogy rather than a separate internship program.

 

The developing pathway is:

Writer → Community Member → Admentee → Program Leader → Mentor

Admentees can develop practical experience in areas such as:

• Administrative execution

• Artistic community engagement

• Social-media/content strategy

• Grants and funds management

• Programming and facilitation

 

The invitation is: Come become part of the next generation of arts leaders.

This turns community labor into something visible, teachable, transferable, and professionally meaningful instead of the invisible labor upon which arts organizations traditionally depend. Altogether, The Writer’s Hood is: a writing school, a laboratory for human inquiry, a creative community,

and an incubator for future arts leadership.