Thanks for visiting my NYWC Write-a-Thon Page!

This is the seventh year I will be hosting and writing at our NYWC Write-A-Thon!  For the first time it is in Brooklyn, in Fort Greene.  I am really excited about this!

Chances are you know about our work already, or you wouldn't be at this page.  But did you know that  2012 is our Tenth Anniversary?  We celebrated by doing what we do 7 days a week, all over New York City: provide free creative writing workshops.  I led one on the Number 7 train and the NY Times came along and wrote this piece about it!  

Ten years feels like a long time, but it also feels like just the beginning of this work. Our mission is to get disenfranchised people heard through the art of creative writing.  Now that we have spent ten years helping thousands of formerly voiceless people create new work, I feel especially driven to build an audience for the amazing individuals that come to us each week.  

Our workshop members are the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, the homeless, the disabled, war veterans, immigrants, seniors, LGBT youth and adults, cancer survivors, and many many others who wouldn't otherwise have access to the power of creative writing. It is more critical than ever to have their real voices as part of the public conversation, and I am committed to spendinghowever long it takes to make this happen more and more.  Your Write-A-Thon donations will play a huge part in our ability to keep our work growing.  

One other thing you may not know is that I have been working on my second novel for the past 3 years.  I am approaching the end of a rough draft, and I am hoping to make a lot of progress at this year's Write-A-Thon.  So if I have helped you in any way with your writing, or if you believe in what NYWC does, I hope you will donate and inspire me to get some writing done.  

I have committed to raising $5,000 personally (and $30,000 as an organization) as part of this year's Write-A-Thon. If we are able to meet these goals, I will able to take some time away from fundraising for NYWC and work on my book. I will also feel so beholden to you all that I will have to finish the novel. So I ask not only for your donation, big or small, but to hold me accountable and ask me that most annoying of questions to any writer: "How is your writing going?" That is, ask me that if  you click donate.  In return, I will give everyone who donates this year a copy of my novel when it is published. Hold me to it!

Thanks!  

Aaron

P.S. Please consider joining me at the NYWC Write-A-Thon (click here to register/make your page), and please spread the word to anyone who might want to attend or make a donation!