Mourning our loss…
Aug 24 | Posted by: timg
The Writ is dead.
It’s a sad but true eventuality. The project began as a group: a poet, an organizer, a webmistress, and a calming voice. It grew into a community. In the beginning, it was an edited online journal overseen by Sarah Dopp. With the guidance of Jeremiah Gould, it soon evolved into a thriving online workshop. Under the later leadership of Julian Esteban Torres, The Writ grew to thousands of members from all over the world. However, it faded with time. With each of the founders and members finding new paths in their lives, the writ was slowly dying. In November of 2008, I began a blog post:
Despite the best efforts of The Writ’s finest minds, The Writ’s problems have always seemed to outweigh the energy and abilities of those trying to resolve them. From the beginning of the workshop back in 2004, we have struggled with a weak infrastructure and an incomplete site. Over the years, many of us have taken on the challenge of solving this from every angle we could think of. We applied for grants. We tried to go non-profit. We tried to go for-profit. We tried to create a formal organization to gain tax exempt status. But no matter what we do, it always seems like there are more problems than solutions, and that the solutions take more time and energy than anyone who loves the site can commit.
Mine was among the most recent surges to revive the drying dream. All summer I worked on organizational structure and fund raising plans, but continued to hit road blocks. In October, I took a trip to San Francisco and confessed to The Writ’s webmistress that I too had failed, and was ready to give in.
I then went on to talk about new hope. But again, I was misguided.
Each member of The Writ both old and new hoped to resurrect the site to its former glory and each, in their own way, and not for lack of passion or talent, failed. No one wanted to pull the plug on the dying site, but no one had the medicine to fix it either. The cure was passion and cash. Both were present, but the site needed more of each than any individual could offer, and there was no group to resurrect it.
Finally, this spring, the failing infrastructure gave way and the site crashed beyond repair. Now The Writ is tenuously held in thousands of pages of raw data, which we have in spreadsheets and word documents on our home computers. It may not be feasible to send everyone copies of the work they had posted to the site, but we will do our best to return work to the individuals who ask for it.
If you want us to try to return your work, send me an email at writservice@gmail.com, and I will do all I can to get it back to you. If possible, please do this from the email address that your Writ account was associated with.
The Writ was a beautiful dream. Its time had come.
Sincerely,
Timothy Greenlaw
IPoS, TheWrit.org
Aug 25 at 01:30
I need to mourn this death. I can’t say how sad I feel about it this moment. I came on the workshop in 2005 and it helped me grow as a writer in so many ways. It was a home till the very last day before it completely crashed to unrecognizable pieces reflected as an error page. Such an ugly error page that hides all the beautiful things The Writ has been. I wrote poems for and about The Writ. I held on tiniest hope, checking in on the ugly crash site to see if there might be any sprout emerging. But to read this news today become a finalization of it’s fate. I will miss all of the talented writers and their inspirations on this green cyberfield. Adios! Farewell!
Aug 25 at 03:28
A part of me died when this eventuality became a reality. This motivated me to mourn and appreiate the past, but also look for a new begining. One where we could learn from our past, be more realistic about our capabilities, limitations, and capacities, and try again, but from a different angle.
This past week I have been working on a new site dedicated to TheWrit.org. Though I can’t offer everything that TheWrit.org may have been able to before (the Writ Workshop was what kept the community together) I can offer my expertise and abilities in other departments.
This message is to and for the Writ Community (new and old). Our community does not have to have a final tombstone that reads b.2003 to d.2009.
I am offering the following to the Writ Community as I simultaneously construct a site to feature my own work:
(1) A Quarterly Publication
(2) Features and profile pieces for the visual arts, the written word, and singer-songwriters with audio files.
The difference:
You have to submit for publication for both spaces of the site. Nevertheless, There is a lot of room to fill. I want to focus on providing a site of our best quality work.
What does this mean? That this new site will not be focused on workshopping material, but will be the site of polished pieces. Hopefully someone else with their own expertise and capabilities may be able to provide that aspect. If we put all our heads and talents together, the Writ community does not have to be mourned or die with thewrit.org website.
With this new site we won’t have the issues we had before regarding infrastructure issues that caused the site to crash, stay stagnant, and die.
That said, I hope that many of you can contribute and submit for publication consideration and profile consideration.
The new site is called Heavy Words: the creative history of pseudonym Lazaro Rojas and friends
It is currently under construction. I am looking for more Writ Members to submit and join the project before I launch the site to the public. Nevertheless, I will give the Writ community a sneak peak by sharing with you what the site currently looks like. You can follow the process until we launch. All I ask is that you don’t publicize the site until we do launch.
The site address is
http://heavywords.org/
and you can send questions, comments, and pieces for publication consideration to LazaRojas@gmail.com.
EVERYONE is welcome to submit. Two thirds of this new site can’t exist without you.
Sincerely,
A love-sick Julian who cannot let the community die
Aug 25 at 03:30
P.S. All readers will also have the ability to comment on every single page and post on HeavyWords.org
Aug 25 at 04:00
Tim, you didn’t fail. I don’t think any of us did. We didn’t fulfill a dream, but that is not failure. Failure may have been not trying.
The infrastructure was needy, and we did the best we could to keep it together. That, and keeping in mind that we all had lives, grew up, matured, fell in love, broke up, moved, found new passions, enhanced old ones. In short, we had lives that too needed our attention.
We gave it all we had when we could give what we had. That’s all we could ask for.
I want to personally thank Tim, and everyone else (you know who you are) for every bit of you that you gave.
Aug 25 at 05:43
I suspected as much, and have for a while, in fact, prior to the actual crash. The group that had anchored the Writ for the majority of its life has split, and each has found one or more new pet projects that occupy too much time. The silver lining, maybe, is that a little bit of Writ sensibility is sure to have rubbed off on anyone involved to whatever extent, and that ain’t nothing.
For any Writsters who happen to swing by NH IRL, though, there’s always beer, foosball, and a couch on which to crash at Tim and my place, and reminisce about the good old days where we had more writing than we knew what to do with.
Aug 25 at 18:51
RIP, Hallelujah, The Writ is Risen, Amen.
DAMN, that was a good run. For a writer, I’m rather short on words here.
The community. The family. The education, skills, and experience. The celebration. The exploration. The countless ways it prepared me for the work I’m doing today.
The agony of that slow death.
God, every time I tried to cut it loose another part of me screamed, “I can still save this!” (That part of me is still screaming.)
But it needed more than life support to survive — it needed new life.
I believe in the decentralized Internet. I believe in us starting our own blogs and wikis (grateful hat tip to Julian); in us connecting over Twitter, Facebook, and email; and in us building our own workshops and publications with our extended, loosely-woven-together, and by definition further-reaching networks of friends, colleagues, peers, heroes, fans, supporters, and family.
I believe The Writ is dead. And I also believe we still have plenty of work to do, and plenty of tools with which to do it.
Can I get a witness?
Love,
Sarah the Webmistress
http://twitter.com/sarahdopp
http://facebook.com/sarahdopp
http://doppjuice.com
http://genderfork.com
http://queeropenmic.com
Aug 25 at 19:02
Witnesss!
Aug 26 at 00:10
Alas, first God, then man…et tu Writ? Ay no, theWrit will never die!! No, never! Okay, I’m still in denial…I was shocked when I opened your email. But perhaps she/he will live on in little Writs that blossom across the blogosphere — call it the Writaspora, if you like. he,he. Even now, I’m hatching a plan for a literary zine devoted to migrant issues, featuring art, literature and poetry. I’m just in the dreaming stages right now, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I hope to launch it sometime in 2010 with a little help from my friends in the immigrant rights movement (yes, my life has taken an activist turn). Anyway, I think you’ve succeeded spectacularly with your mission, which was to nurture fledging writers until they could grow wings to fly off on their own. So, I say this from the heart: Gracias de todo corazon! Thank you for all your hard work and dedication. I wish you fame, fortune and publication. At the very least, you shall be famous in remainders racks of America’s second-hand bookstore. Julian, you still owe me a drink!
Aug 28 at 01:33
Wow, this site is part of what inspired me to write to begin with. To go to school for English. To not trash my poetry the moment I wrote it…
I guess I just learned what happens when you take more from something than you give to it. And for that, I’m truly sorry.
Aug 29 at 20:10
this is a sad passing. this is where i spoke to my wife when we could only effectively communicate in poetry. good luck to you all…
Sep 23 at 18:32
I’ve been a member at several online writing communitities, and when you get attached to a community it becomes apart of who you are, and as a writer. I have an online writing community that has free memberships, and would consider setting up a special group for the members here, if they wish to have a place to resume their writing, and socializing. — (No strings).
When a community builds and falls, its like any other community, a neighborhood, a home, and friendships become family.
You are all welcome to come to OSWS, the link is attached here. If you need to edit my comment, thats ok, I’m really not trying to get “business” just offering a hand in what was a great community.
Best of luck to all of you,
PS. We have lots to do at our site, come as a group and I’ll set you all up proper, special membership, just because. But, again, we have free memberships, classes, contest, and so fourth. My name is Katina by the way, and I hope that you find a new home for writing, and for long lasting friendships — online, a family can be built, in life, family is the most important element, without it, there are no words, to
write. — KMW.
Oct 01 at 00:42
I want my storeeezzz!!!!!
Dec 01 at 04:02
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu
Such a moment it was, but is not any more. Everything ends badly, or else it wouldn’t end. Culture is crap. People are pretty cool sometimes. Words are often all we got.
I’m sorry I missed the Writ summit back in ‘05. I got on the wrong bus and wound up at the mall rather than Newmarket. Really. That’s why I missed it. The next day I got on a bus to Manhattan and met the woman I spent the next three years with. These things happen.
As if anyone cares: I am alive and well and living on a hippie commune in Missouri. Really. It’s nice here.
Everything is going to be okay.
Dec 13 at 00:52
I’ve been a member & posted 2 of my poems in this site: “Wedding Vow” &”Dream maker” (now have been published in a book, title “Compassion and Consideration”). I want to put this site in my 2nd book “All about Poetry, a small hand book”. I missed this site. I’m sorry I’ve been unactive for 3 yrs, now it’s gone. Sad.But still I want to put this site in my 2nd book, in memoriam.
Mar 28 at 08:42
Tri,
Congratulations on getting your two poems published.
I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I would love to see the site in your second book. It would be a great way to keep the memory of this great community alive.
Cheers!
Julian E. Torres L.