On the 3rd Tuesday of the month (April 19), the door opens at opens at 6:30 pm and business begins at 6:45 pm.

Come early for social time to catch up with old friends , make some new ones.

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"This is the power of gathering. It inspires us-delighfully-to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughful-in a word, more alive."

Alice Waters

Since COVID and its spawn remain part of the plot, we need your help to keep us all safe.

We ask that you provide proof of full COVID vaccination and while in the building to continue to social distance--without a mask, or with a mask--as fits your comfort level now that state and county mandates have been lifted and we lean into this new level of normal.

Members and guests, when you RSVP, you will be prompted to take a photo of your vaccination card and email it to

MembershipCWC@yahoo.com. 



You’ll only have to do it once and we will have you on our VIP List. As you arrive for the meeting, we will check you off the list.

We will also accept showing vaccination cards at the door as a last-minute emergency—though prefer not to have to do this because we don’t want to have to turn anyone away.

If you have questions, concerns, or thoughts please CONTACT US.

Lea Graham is a poet, editor and essayist. Her most recent work is as editor of a collection of essays From the Word to the Place: The Work of Michael Anania. (MadHat Press, 2021). that honors poet Michael Anania.

The author of two poetry collections From the Hotel Vernon (Salmon Press, 2019), Hough & Helix & Where & Here & You, You, You (No Tell Books, 2011), and three chapbooks, Spell to Spell (above/ground Press, 2018), This End of the World: Notes to Robert Kroetsch (Apt. 9 Press, 2016), and Calendar Girls (above/ground Press, 2006).

From the Outside In or the Inside Out:

Organizing Your Book of Poems

Are you ready to turn your group of poems into a collection? Whether by theme or intrinsic connections, Lea Graham will help you to discover connections between poems you already have. She'll talk about imagery, metaphor, repetition and key poems that might help you see and develop the book that is already there.

She'll discuss ways to see with an editor’s eye through examples of books that are organized from the inside out (Lucille Clifton’s Book of Light) and show you how she and other poets have organized their books through form, place, time and more.

Beyond order, she will help you to consider titles, the audience in your mind, and how to get the best help possible from your writing community.

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Visit the CWC Calendar of Events page for more on her presentation.

Please share the

Student Engagement Best Fiction Story

 flyer with students in grades 5-12.

Deadline April 19th

"The future depends on what we do in the present."

Mathatma Ghandi

The Importance of Student Writing

The importance of writing for students is manifold; it catapults the learning process and provides a trajectory that is limitless.

Writing is a core skill that benefits students across the curriculum, K-12 and beyond. It’s the basis of communication, history, art, and more disciplines than can be named. Writing skills are used every day in classrooms, from practicing fine motor skills early on to eventually writing full essays to display critical thinking skills or persuasive skills.

Writing is the foundation of expression we give students, to be built upon throughout their academic career.

Although specialized writing classes like composition have faded from popular pedagogy, writing requires a complex intersection of skills that are critical to a student’s life, both in the classroom and out of it.

A person can read without writing, but a person cannot write without reading.

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write."

Stephen King

"Reach for your dreams high up on the shelf, but in doing so always be true to yourself."

Catherine Pulsifer

What is the Author's Debt to Society and How Does He Repay It?

Jill Krementz

A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. I feel no obligation to deal with politics. I do feel a responsibility to society because of going into print: a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.

One important reflection is that in 1969, implicit to the very nature of print was a kind of accountability, a truth standard that engendered in White this sense of "responsibility to society." As news and opinion have shifted online, a medium much more fluid and dynamic, this notion of baked-in accountability no longer holds true and one might observe, has allowed journalistic laziness than would never have been acceptable in E.B. Whites' heyday. What standards and expectations we adopt and instill in writers and publishers today will "inform and shape life forever."

2022 National Poetry Month Poster Contest for Students

The Academy of American Poets, the originator and organizer of National Poetry Month, invites students living in the United States, U.S. Territories, or Tribal Nations who are in grades 9 through 12 to enter artwork to be considered for the National Poetry Month poster in 2022. The winner will be selected by co-judges Nikki Grimes, New York Times-bestselling author and poet, and Rafael López, New York Times-bestselling illustrator. The winning student’s artwork will be printed on 100,000+ copies of the official April 2022 poster, which will be distributed for free to classrooms, libraries, bookstores, community centers, families, and individuals nationwide, and viewed by millions of people during next year’s annual celebration. The winning student will be featured on Poets.org and in American Poets, and will receive $1,000 in cash and prizes. The runner-up will receive $250.