Amateur Writing Group’s New Director Pitches Its Story

Carrie Spitler is not a professional writer. She majored in political science in college, and has worked as a fund raiser for her entire professional life. She often spends her free time cooking or riding her bicycle.

But that’s okay with the organization that just hired her to be its new executive director. Ms. Spitler, who is 32, now heads the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, an organization whose raison d’être is based on the idea that you do not have to be professionally trained, or even fully committed, to write. You just have to have a story to tell.

The group offers free weekly writing workshops to amateur writers at 10 locations in Chicago and publishes a quarterly collection of their best work, called The Journal of Ordinary Thought.

The charity, which has a $200,000 budget and a staff of four, says its mission is to promote the idea that every person is a philosopher. Unlike some arts groups that focus on mainstream performances and writing, the Neighborhood Writing Alliance is devoted to the work of amateurs, including some who might be considered illiterate or for whom English is a second language.

The organization hopes that promoting the work of its writers will help lead to social change. But it also encourages writing on a wide array of topics about everyday life. For instance, a poem in the summer issue, called “Compulsion,” by Susan House, captures the frustrations of an obsessive but failed dieter, something that many people can relate to:

Members of the charity’s board said they hired Ms. Spitler because she has a proven track record as an administrator. Though the group has received support from local foundations such as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Mayer & Morris Kaplan Foundation, Ms. Spitler thinks that the organization has the potential to raise a lot more money and bring its workshops to new neighborhoods, and even start new programs.

While director of development at the last place she worked, Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago, an organization that serves people with disabilities, she helped to double the organization’s operating budget in three years to $3-million.

Though hired primarily for her managerial acumen, Ms. Spitler has always devoured books. And lately she has even fallen prey to her group’s own mission of inspiring ordinary people to become writers. After hearing a reading her group organized at a local library in September, Ms. Spitler went home and began working on her own short story.

Do you think of writing as a form of therapy or just a fun activity?

I think it’s a little bit of both. Our goal is to write about personal experiences. We think of it as a community-building activity, and do not emphasize that writing can be therapeutic. But it does sometimes work out that way when people find common personal experiences and share them. Still, even in the most serious written work we get, there’s always a twist of humor somewhere.

Does your group believe that encouraging writers will help deal with broad social problems?

When the group started in 1991, Chicago was undergoing a huge public-housing transformation. The organization hoped that writing would bring attention to it. Now, though, we find that many different topics get discussed in the writing groups. As soon as one person shares something, someone else shares their own similar experience.

Why should publishing a journal be the role of a tax-exempt charity?

Not everyone has access to traditional publishing venues, and this lack of access is not necessarily based on the quality of the writing or the story. And we are not just publishers. We hope to also share personal experiences, find common themes, identify systemic issues, and become involved in the issues facing our community. Art making in Chicago neighborhoods empowers individuals, brings people together, generates discussion, and instills ownership. The magazine stands as a concrete example of the intellectual and artistic strength of the community and its residents, and brings to light concerns of the residents in their own voices. As we say, we believe in the power of the written word.

Do you think schools prepare writers effectively?

It’s mixed. College professors attend our classes alongside people who don’t have a high-school education. Our policy is: “Don’t worry about spelling. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation.” Work is collected every week and typed up. At that point, some of the errors will be caught and edits will be made. We’ll fix the basics, but are careful not to change the writer’s voice.

How do you get ordinary people excited about writing?

It’s a great outlet for parents to do things for themselves. They can write about anything that they want to do. If you want to write and are a little shy about it, we can help. Am I seeking people out on the street who I don’t know? Probably not. Attendance has not been too big of an issue.

Who thought of your egalitarian approach to writing –that everyone has a story to tell?

It was Hal Adams, our founder and a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He started writing with homeless kids and noticed that some of the mothers were also eager to write. Hal refers to the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, who thought people with power maintain dominion over ordinary people through the control of ideas as much as through the exertion or threat of force. Also, he notes the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who thought ordinary people limit themselves by rejecting ideas that grow from personal experience and instead adopt ideas from the class that rules them. Finally, Caribbean revolutionary C.L.R. James, who thought the artistic expressions of ordinary people contain truths essential for social change. Hence, the Journal of Ordinary Thought and “every person is a philosopher.”

Do you have any new program ideas?

One of my first ideas would be to incorporate music into a program. Some of our writers are progressing in the area of performing their work. They read at open-microphone events. But before we decide on anything, I need to keep talking to the staff and the board, and of course, find out what the writers want to do.

ABOUT CARRIE SPITLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD WRITING ALLIANCE

Education: Received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Central Michigan University in 1992.

Previous employment: Was director of development at Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago, an organization that provides services to disabled people. Before she was promoted to that position in 1997, she oversaw special fund-raising events for the group. She has also served as a project manager for the Sive Group, a company in Chicago that provides strategic planning and fund-raising advice to nonprofit clients.

Charitable interests: Sits on the board of directors of Intuit: the Center for Intuitive & Outsider Art, a group in Chicago that promotes artists who do not have formal training and who are motivated by influences outside the mainstream art world.

When she arrived in Chicago: After she graduated from college, she volunteered for Carol Moseley-Braun’s successful 1992 campaign for the U.S. Senate.

What she likes to read: James Joyce — the last night-school class she took was devoted entirely to his novel Ulysses. Her bedside table currently features the work of Jeanette Winterson, an English novelist.