Community Arts Learning Grant
Community Arts Learning Grant
Bridging the Gap: A writing workshop to improve storytelling skills about military life.
Adam Guggemos: graphic designer, art events promoter; Michelle Ronning: jewelry designer and maker; Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Moira Villiard: visual artist, Cultural Programming Coordinator at American Indian Community Housing Organization; Jeanne Doty: Retired Associate Professor UMD Music, pianist; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, and former Children's Theatre employee; Tammy Mattonen: visual artists, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Kayla Schubert: Native American craft artist, writer, employee at MacRostie Art Center.
Moira Villiard: visual artist and Cultural Program Coordinator at American Indian Community Housing Organization; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Kayla Schubert: Native American craft artist, writer, employee at MacRostie Art Center; Adam Guggemos: graphic designer, art events promoter; Kathy Neff: musician, Director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota-Duluth; Richard Hansen: Executive Director, Duluth Superior Film Festival; David Dobbs: visual artist, Education Coordinator at MacRostie Art Center; Christine Marcotte: writer and community historian, retired socialworker.
ACHF Arts Access ACHF Arts Education ACHF Cultural Heritage
Bridging the Gap is a writing workshop for both civilian and veteran writers designed to improve their skills in telling stories about military life. The long-term goal is to publish truthful, well-written stories about all facets of military life. This will help narrow the divide between civilians and service members (the “civilian-military gap"ť). This can be accomplished by publishing stories about the whole spectrum of military life: from home as a family member to combat and everything in between. Writers will be offered classes that support these goals: - Improving Writing Skills - Learning How to Get Published - Building Networks - Increasing Motivation. There are fifteen hours of lessons. A separate 2-hour event open to the public (Public Reading / Moderated Panel Discussion) is scheduled for the evening of the first day. Outcomes will be measured with pre- and post-workshop surveys. Fourteen of those hours will be devoted to Improving Writing Skills. One hour will be about Learning How to Get Published. The entire weekend will be spent Building Networks. Success will be a completed roster of contact information. Increasing Motivation will occur throughout the workshop, but especially during the public event. The Director of Bridging the Gap will maintain a record of workshop writers that get published.
5 of the 8 attending writers completed Workshop Surveys about Bridging the Gap. 100% answered yes to the following question: "Do you think the workshop improved your skills as a writer?" 100% also answered yes to this question: "Should this workshop happen again?" The four main short term objectives were: To teach classes in the craft of writing, motivation, networking, and lessons in how to get published. The survey self-reports success in the writing craft objective. Networking happened by default between the writers and lessons in how to get published were taught. Increased motivation was not measured, but I'm hopeful that these writers are more motivated to write. - The long term objective was to help these writers get truthful, well-written stories about military life published so they can narrow the divide between civilians and servicemembers. I don't know of any published works that are a result of Bridging the Gap, but I'm hopeful there will be.
Other,local or private