What Cheer Writers Club

Join Dr. Lucy Spelman, founder of the local nonprofit Creature Conserve, alongside other RI environmental writers for What Cheer Writers Club's virtual Environmental Writers Round Table* on Saturday, April 25 at 1pm. Local science and environmental writers have a chance to gather online to hear about Dr. Spelman's efforts to connect scientists and creatives and to share their own projects and resources. Club Members: Free; otherwise $10 (cost of one month's membership). This event will be held virtually over Zoom.…

Now is a great time to sample local podcasts. At What Cheer Writers Club’s next virtual Member Meet Up listen in to clips from local podcasts & grow your list of to-be-listened-to shows! Hear clips from local podcasts such as: The Adventures of Elizabeth Crowne Design Me a House Still Dope Podcast Let's Chat with Chris Revill Old Roommates And more...

Join What Cheer Writers Club for Demystifying the Agent Process, a virtual panel of literary agents on Sat, May 16 at 1pm. Lara Allen, Lotts Agency; Cheryl Pientka, Nancy Yost Literary Agency; and Katie Kotchman, Don Congdon Associates, will join us online from NYC to offer insight into finding a literary agent for your work.

Podcasting 101 is currently an online class focused on providing an introduction to podcasting and offering tips for recording from home. The class will be held online via Zoom every third Thursday of the month from 6-8pm.

Podcasting 101 is currently an online class focused on providing an introduction to podcasting and offering tips for recording from home. The class will be held online via Zoom every third Thursday of the month from 6-8pm.

Podcasting 101 is currently an online class focused on providing an introduction to podcasting and offering tips for recording from home. The class will be held online via Zoom every third Thursday of the month from 6-8pm.

With so many local creatives in financial straits, What Cheer Writers Club is holding a practicum on financial relief available to writers, illustrators and podcasters negatively impacted by Covid or otherwise in need of funding for creative projects. Register now for Writer Relief: Funds & Fellowships for RI Creatives with RISCA’s Mollie Flanagan, online on Sat, Oct 3 from 1-2:30pm. Admission is free to Club Members, or by a pay-what-you-can donation.

YOU’RE INVITED to What Fear! A Virtual Masquerade, a fundraising event for What Cheer Writers Club on Friday, October 30 at 7pm. Throughout the evening in-the-moment donations unlock tricks, readings and other amusements as we celebrate two years of serving a thriving literary arts community in Rhode Island.   What: What Fear! A Virtual Masquerade is a fundraising event for What Cheer Writers Club, a nonprofit serving Rhode Island’s writers, illustrators and podcasters. Prepare for an evening of literary enchantment, with…

In support of local writers taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the Club is opening its virtual doors every Sunday in November for free & open to the public write-ins from 10am to 11am. It all kicks off on Sun, Nov 1 with a special 2-hour virtual chat and write-in, where you can meet fellow writers preparing for the month ahead.

In support of local writers taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the Club is opening its virtual doors every Sunday in November for free & open to the public write-ins from 10am to 11am. It all kicks off on Sun, Nov 1 with a special 2-hour virtual chat and write-in, where you can meet fellow writers preparing for the month ahead.

In support of local writers taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the Club is opening its virtual doors every Sunday in November for free & open to the public write-ins from 10am to 11am. It all kicks off on Sun, Nov 1 with a special 2-hour virtual chat and write-in, where you can meet fellow writers preparing for the month ahead.

In support of local writers taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the Club is opening its virtual doors every Sunday in November for free & open to the public write-ins from 10am to 11am. It all kicks off on Sun, Nov 1 with a special 2-hour virtual chat and write-in, where you can meet fellow writers preparing for the month ahead.

In support of local writers taking the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, the Club is opening its virtual doors every Sunday in November for free & open to the public write-ins from 10am to 11am. It all kicks off on Sun, Nov 1 with a special 2-hour virtual chat and write-in, where you can meet fellow writers preparing for the month ahead.

Not since 1918 has the nation and state experienced a pandemic, with its enormous loss of lives, daily life and for many, livelihoods. With much of the culture on hold, reading books has become perhaps more important than ever. Join us at 7 p.m. Thurs, Dec 10, for a discussion with five Rhode Island authors who are writing them and learn what's so very different today... and what's not.

Rhode Island writers, illustrators and podcasters of color are invited to What Cheer Writers Club’s BIPOC/POC Creatives Happy Hour online Fri, Feb 19 from 5-6pm. Come share about your creative projects, and how you are facing the unique challenges of creating and finding community as an artist of color in the age of Covid. The discussion will be moderated by Club Member LuzJennifer Martinez, founder of the Diverse Voices of RI writing group.

Support for writing projects can feel scarce, but a strong grant proposal can open new opportunities, expanding your creative practice in the process. Join What Cheer Writers Club for Grantwriting for Writers, a conversation with Assets for Artists’ Molly Rideout online Thurs, March 4 at 7pm. Learn how to think innovatively about funding opportunities, place value on your work while building out a project budget, and, ultimately, transform your current projects into engaging proposals that get funded.

Rhode Island writers, illustrators and podcasters of color are invited to What Cheer Writers Club’s B/I/POC Creatives Happy Hour online Fri, April 9 from 5-6pm. Come share about your creative projects, and how you are facing the unique challenges of creating and finding community as an artist of color in the age of Covid. The discussion will be moderated by Club Member LuzJennifer Martinez, founder of the Diverse Voices of RI writing group.

In honor of National Poetry Month, What Cheer Writers Club is hosting two virtual write-ins where Rhode Island poets can meet and write alone, but together, for a focused hour set apart for them and their work.

In honor of National Poetry Month, What Cheer Writers Club is hosting two virtual write-ins where Rhode Island poets can meet and write alone, but together, for a focused hour set apart for them and their work.

Many have turned to poetry over the past year for both expression and consolation in the face of loss. On Fri, April 23 at 5pm What Cheer Writers Club celebrates the form in honor of National Poetry Month with a virtual showcase of Rhode Island poets reading their work.

Podcasting 101 is currently an online class focused on providing an introduction to podcasting and offering tips for recording from home. In this class we will: • Explore the extremely relevant and rapidly growing medium of podcasting • Give you tips for recording from your home studio • Introduce resources to help get your idea into someone else’s earbuds

Sometimes the events of a life can feel less like a typical story and more like a constellation of disparate parts. In this workshop, we’ll explore how to work with this phenomenon and give compelling shape and structure to memoir, investigating variations in structure from the simple to the complex in works by authors such as Rebecca Solnit, Jesmyn Ward, Patti Smith, Helen MacDonald and Carmen Maria Machado. Memoir writers, including cross-genre and hybrid artists, will come away with a…

In this workshop we'll explore storytelling through the mini-comic: a simple booklet made from a single folded sheet of paper with three interior spreads. Whether you're working with images or words, the miniature layout can be a generative blank slate for many creative practices, offering a unique opportunity to experiment with sequential storytelling. We’ll ask questions like: How do you break a larger story down to three essential beats? How can you use this three-beat structure to experiment with your…

You're invited to An Introverts Ball, a What Cheer Writers Club fundraiser. This hybrid event lets you choose your level of comfortable engagement, with options to stay cozied up at home in your armchair, or drop by for some leisurely in-person and virtual entertainment. Pick up your party favors (BYO tote bag!) on Sat, Oct 30 between 12-5pm outside What Cheer Writers Club at 160 Westminster St in downtown Providence, where we’ll be hosting safe outdoor festivities, with the chance…

With a new year comes creative resolutions, but it can take community and accountability to meet our goals. On Sat, Jan 15 from 1-2:30pm, join What Cheer Writers Club online for a Submission Bee—a chance to come together to submit finished stories, essays and poems to publishing outlets. We’ll discuss various submission platforms and tools, then share our projects and publication lists. Together, we’ll submit our work to literary journals and magazines, publishers and presses. Bring a polished piece and…

Every writer needs a feedback partner, but--not unlike romantic love--the right person can be hard to find. On Sat Feb 12 at 1pm, What Cheer Writers Club offers Rhode Island writers a chance to meet their writerly match in an online Writers Roulette. At this entirely platonic event, writers will have a chance to mingle with other creatives in a breakout room roulette. Conversation prompts are provided for the introverted among us! At the end, you can let us know…

Intimate scenes can be among the most difficult to write. Whether you are an aspiring romance author or want to include a “steamy scene” in your novel, short story or memoir, this workshop gets down and dirty to get you comfortable with crafting a love scene that rings true to your characters. Bring your work in progress—or an idea of the characters you would like to bring together—so we can start drafting the naughty bits! Craft Curiosities workshops are open…

Anxiety around money and taxes are serious setbacks for any artist working toward financial stability and independence. On Wed, March 16 at 7pm, join What Cheer Writers Club online for Taxes for Artists, Freelancers and Creative Businesses, an online financial empowerment workshop for creatives with Hannah Cole, Enrolled Agent and founder of Sunlight Tax. Learn how to get organized, what you need to file taxes, and which tools and habits can help free up more time for your creative pursuits.…

Setting is often an overlooked element of story, especially in memoir and autobiographical fiction. But paying attention to place can help convey cross-cultural experiences of immigration, dislocation, social mobility, and other circumstances impacted by racism and discrimination. This workshop will consider works by Randa Jarrar, Alison Bechdel, Julia Alvarez and Lamtharn Hantrakul to discuss how they use place to break silences of war, colonialism and prejudice. After drawing maps as a way to orient ourselves to the idea of "home”…

In celebration of Earth Day and National Poetry Month, What Cheer Writers Club presents Earth in Verse, an online showcase of nature writing from Rhode Island poets and writers. On Fri, April 22 at 7pm, local creatives read poems, essays and hybrid work inspired by or in conversation with the natural world.

Punctuation works differently in poetry than in the mundane world of work emails and everyday prose. Why do you need to learn about it? Because it’s a great tool for control, texture and mood-tweaking! This isn’t a “rules” course—we’ll be looking at the effect of stops and pauses in the work of master poets such as Louise Gluck, Anne Carson and Brigit Pegeen Kelly, as well as other usual suspects and new arrivals, and chatting about the feel of various…