The Room to Write

Have you heard about the podcast featuring local veterans? Kilroy was Hear is a locally produced podcast inspired by two prolific storytellers: Airforce Veteran Jim Cotter and Army Veteran and former Wakefield Police Officer Sam Stella who recorded the first episode one year ago in Wakefield Community Access Television Studios (WCAT) . The Room to Write recently presented a donation of $500 to WCAT Studios. The check was presented to Executive Director, Ian McDermott, in support of WCAT’s collaborative storytelling project with Wakefield Veterans Services Office. In the Fall of 2024, Cotter and Stella sat down in WCAT’s podcast studio to reflect on everything from military service to careers and life after service. Sharing their stories aloud, through podcast with a fellow veteran, fostered comradery in a format that was accessible to those visually impaired audience members. Something very special   happened in the studio that day with two veterans simply sitting down for a ...

“Seniors to Seniors” is a cross-generational event that brings high school seniors and seniors in our community together.   Join us on Wednesday, March 5th for an opportunity to share your personal story through a one-on-one interview with a senior Wakefield High School student.   After the interviews, students will write stories about their interviewees, and these stories will be published in the Wakefield Daily Item. No writing experience is necessary, so if you'd love to be able to pass down some stories but would like somebody else to do the writing--this is a great opportunity to let the younger generation do the writing! During the interview session, lunch will be provided for all participants by The Savings Bank on Wednesday, March 5th, from 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. The event will be held at the Wakefield Senior Center, 30 Converse Street, in the dining room. Registration is required  by 12:00pm on Tuesday, March 4th. Senior citizens interested in participating...

It's summer--so we're taking it easy here at The Room to Write, but even during our down time a few things manage to get done.  One much-anticipated website restoration milestone is the return of our podcast page where those who would like to tune into our Journey of a Story author interview series with only their ears can now find most of our 30+ interviews on three podcast platforms: Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , & Spotify .  If you would like to give them a listen and learn all about the writing, publication and book making process click here for our podcast page and take your pick of platforms.  Betsy Ellor A great big thanks to our wonderfully talented and series collaborators at Wakefield Community Access Television studios along with the IT wizardry of George Getty who helped us get everything up onto podcast platforms and integrated onto our website. The three most recent interviews, which were conducted in the May/June timeframe coincidentally all inv...

There's something about spring and, in particular, the month of May that makes everybody buzz about seeking new ways to grow, not only in the garden but in their spiritual life, family life, professional life, and--hopefully--their creative life.  Sometimes our creative lives take a back seat to all the other lives we maintain. If you're hoping to grow in your creative life, a wonderful and free resource is available to you thanks to a collaboration and sponsorship from Wakefield Community Access Television (WCAT) studios titled The Journey of a Story interview series.  No matter what genre you write in and regardless of the age your target audience is, some things remain constant in writing and we have uncovered some really helpful insights that can save you a lot of time and frustration when it comes to the publication process. In The Room to Write's interview series , The Journey of a Story , we focus on the writing and publication process rather than the content of e...

Since a picture says a thousand words, I'm going to let the photos from this past year do most of the talking for this blog--which I am just getting to the "presses" by the skin of my teeth. The fact that I am writing this entry on the very last day of the very last month of this year sums up how this year felt: FAST! Every month swept in with plenty to do and plan to do during the next month, which usually had arrived already. It's hard to believe that The Room to Write had only just emerged out of a pandemic-encouraged-self-imposed 1-year sabbatical on September 1st of 2021. Since then, we have covered a lot of ground and more than made up for lost time.  We brought the wonderful and talented Linda Malcolm onboard to focus on our efforts to support seniors and veterans in the north of Boston community. That focus resulted in the building of some great relationships and programs from as nearby as Wakefield's Senior Center to as far away as Hamilton's Patton H...

On November 16th the Wakefield Senior Center was brimming with enthusiasm and conversation between two generations that don't always have an opportunity to connect and get to know each other in impactful ways. After several years on hiatus, Seniors to Seniors had made a welcome comeback! “Seniors to Seniors” is a cross-generational event that brings high school seniors and older adults in our community together to get to know each other.  The twenty adults and students who participated in the event had an opportunity to get to know each other over lunch. Each adult got to share some of their lifetime's supply of stories during an interview with the Wakefield High School student senior they were paired up with.   The event was so well received by both the adults and the students involved. Aside from the need to spread tables further apart in the future to make it easier to hear, the feedback was nothing but positivity. Adult participants really enjoyed the opportunity to ...

The Journey of a Story went "on the road" to meet children's picture book author Valerie Bolling in Connecticut to discuss her journey to publication. Valerie explains the need for a Submission Package, shares the value of setting incremental goals, and the perspective that sometimes poor cell service is good for the creative process. Her writing journey begins with love and is grounded in community, giving way to her debut picture book Let's Dance , her recently released Together We Ride and more planned publications to come. Learn more about Valerie and her books Let's Dance , Together We Ride , and all the wonderful projects she's working on by clicking here ! Watch her video interview below:) Thank you so much to Wakefield Community Access Studios for making The Journey of a Story series possible and for Valerie Bolling for trying something new with us by conducting her interview remotely.

It's always a pleasure to step into the WCAT (Wakefield Community Access Television) Studios tucked behind the high school where visitors are surprised to see such a professional and impressive space dedicated to film and audio media.   During my most recent visit to the studios I interviewed local writer, illustrator and animator Sarah Lynne Reul .  Sarah is one of only a few illustrators I have interviewed in the space and so I was eager to learn more about how she creates the characters readers see in her many published books for children, including:  The Breaking News, Allie All Along, Nerp!, Farm the Farm, Pet the Pets and her Fall 2022 release of Bubbie & Rivka's Best Challah Ever (So Far!) . We talked about how all of us often start out liking to draw as children, but how as we get older we draw less and less until we're convinced we don't like to draw or that we can't draw well. Sarah's offers viewers inspiring advice about how much practice plays a...