City Writers Group

CITY WRITERS GROUP

Click to view and download Work book

Writing Group Open to All Departments

Made possible with generous funding from the Nathan Cummings Foundation with project funding from  Maine Community Fund, Maine Humanities Council, Center for Cultural Exchange and evaluation funding from the Kellogg Foundation/Americans for the Arts/Animating Democracy.

The City Writers Group was a project in which any city employee, regardless of their department, could participate. The monthly meetings included employees from Parking, Dispatch, Treasury, Survey, Engineering, Housing, Fire, Police, Corporation Counsel, General Assistance and the Library. Two hours allowed for time to check-in, write, read and share positive comments. Every other meeting the group wrote about their work with the City; topics like ‘first day’, ‘worst day’ and ‘mentors’. The year-end anniversary of the Writers Group was celebrated by creating a chapbook of stories, essays and poems and a City Hall exhibit of the same work. Although the group is just beginning to explore some of the ways writing by city workers might be able to improve municipal government, at the end of every meeting participants would talk about how much closer they felt to each other and that they were leaving with new thoughts, insights and appreciation of their co-workers and the value of working in public service.