That magical moment when you put pen to paper and are then surprised about what appears. The way the words and the characters on the page suddenly take on a life of their own. Writing lets you discover things about yourself, focuses the mind and helps you organize your thoughts. It doesn’t matter if no one reads what you write – it’s not about that yet, not at this stage at least. This part is about the writing. The audience comes later. And you don’t have to write for an audience in order to write.
Anything can become your inspiration: whatever you read, see, hear, encounter, notice and experience. You may do fiction or journalistic writing, with a deadline or without. You may work on a screenplay or a stage play, write personal diary entries or love letters. No matter if you write postcards to a pen pal or a non-fiction book, if you work on a short story on weekends on an old typewriter or compose a daily journal entry with a fountain pen as part of your morning ritual; be it lists, long novels or lyrical poems… writing is a powerful way to express yourself.
That’s what we mean by WRITING:
Writing isn’t just about famous authors writing their next bestselling novel. While authors are featured in the READING section, all the stuff that happens in the background before people can enjoy a writer’s work is covered under WRITING. This means the many ways one can seek out community as a writer. It also showcases the people and organizations involved in accompanying books on their long journey from idea to manuscript to published work: the publishing houses and editors, the children’s book illustrators and book publicists and even the type foundries who all – each in their own way – help bring books to life. WRITING deals with all kinds of writing, including prose, poetry, non-fiction or the personal notes you leave on the kitchen table for your loved ones. For YW, WRITING also means celebrating handwriting and writing instruments for the satisfying tactile sensation they provide, for example when writing with fountain pens and inks, pencils or ballpoint pens or when using a typewriter.
We are building an arts & letters directory
We want to help you find useful tools and resources for your writing life. We want you to discover communities and programs which connect you to fellow writers. We want to showcase publishers and the amazing work done by all the people who help bring books to life. We want to give you ideas for events and classes to attend. And we want to help you find writing instruments that best suit your writing routine and style.
While our directory is only just getting started, this is what we have planned for the theme of WRITING:
How to add your organization to the Young W directory
Are you a publisher, pen shop, writing group, typewriter repair service or any other organization which fits into one of the categories above? Check out the Get Involved page for details about how to get your organization added to the directory.
We sell fountain pens, ink and books on creative writing.
