The Room to Write

Stop by to meet and learn about some of the local authors in the area. A personalized, signed copy of a book makes a wonderful and unique gift for the holidays and birthdays. With thirteen different authors, there will be a great mix of genres and books geared towards all age groups! Be sure to be present at 2pm when there will be refreshments available and each author will have an opportunity to introduce themselves and their books so you'll get to know a little bit about each. Thank you to Karen Stern at the Wakefield Public Library for making this program possible as well as Whitelam Books for connecting authors and readers even beyond the walls of their bookstore in Reading. 

Our Seniors and Veterans Programming year wraps up on Tuesday, May 21st with an Open Mic Session at the Wakefield Senior Center at 1:30pm and that is the last of what has been a fulfilling year for those who attended either the Wakefield Senior Center or the Stoneham Senior Center on any given Tuesday since programming began in September 2023.  We run our programming like an academic year with a break in the summer for our all-volunteer team of coordinators and facilitators, but we are already looking forward to the variety of programs we will be offering starting in the fall. There are too many things to include in this one blog post, but let's recap the last month or so.  April 9th: Guest speaker: Nancy Reily, owner of Lady with a Pen , talked about the art of calligraphy and design. In addition to teaching classes and giving lectures, Nancy ran an invitation and calligraphy shop in Wakefield for twenty years.  After her talk, participants had a chance to try their hand...

Wow--April sure did keep us busy in all the best ways! We were invited to collaborate with the Arts Collaborative of Wakefield for their April Art Exhibit and Sale at the Albion Cultural Exchange and we committed fully to the collaboration! The theme of the exhibit and sale was "Tell Me a Story" and so we participated in three ways with an added bonus Writers and Illustrators Meet & Greet to boot!  1. An exhibit pairing 13 written pieces with 13 pieces of art. 2. Local Author Table featuring authors living all around us. 3. 3 Family Friendly Storytime Art Hours featuring 6 local authors. Writers who participated in the Artist/Writer collaborative exhibit were: Marilyn Lamkin, Cate Daniels, Susan Jepson, Sally Chetwynd, Eddie Brophy, Jennifer Revill, Kerri Leonard, Linda Malcolm, Sara Desmond, Eileen Worthley, PJ Carmichael, Janie Smith, & Alice Getty. You can see an example of their work on our North of Boston Writers Network blog with more to follow:  Shoes by Alice...

On Saturday, November 18th from 1-4pm the Wakefield Public Library hosted the 2nd annual Local Author Fair in collaboration with The Room to Write and Whitelam Bookstore .  A huge shout out to Karen Stern, librarian extraordinaire, for making this event happen. 15 authors from Wakefield and surrounding towns came together to make their books available to the public.  This was a great opportunity for readers to find a locally written book and meet the writer behind the book cover. Another aspect of this fair that gets less attention is the fact that the authors get to meet each other. Part of our mission at The Room to Write is connecting writers, authors and creative minds with each other. Community is such an important part of creativity.  The Wakefield Library's Local Author Fair is a uniquely important event in that it allows both independently published and traditionally published authors to be able to gather together and make their books available to the public at o...

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...

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...

At long last we are excited to resume our Journey of a Story interview series in its unmasked format. We sat down with Joy Nelkin Wieder , author of The Passover Mouse , and got to follow Joy on her journey from spark of an idea back in 2002 all the way to this moment twenty years later when she is able to start to get out in-person in the community to share her picture book just before Passover begins April 15th.  Joy said it best when she said, "Don't give up!" Keep writing and that story you tucked away in a drawer for a decade might be just what somebody is looking for ten, twenty, thirty years later.