How does someone become a novelist? A playwright, songwriter, or poet? One way is to earn an MFA, a graduate degree in creative writing. Another is to just write, with or without a degree. The literary arts organization Wordcrafters in Eugene includes people who have taken both paths to authorship. “We grow writers” is their motto, and their programs support everyone with a story to tell, regardless of education level or literary background.  

Located on Charnelton Street in Eugene’s Market District, Wordcrafters occupies a suite with a large main room that staff member and instructor Jeaux Bartlett calls “a studio,” which lets you know right off how they feel about what happens there. It’s not just a meeting room, it’s a place where literature is written — where art is made. 

Wordcrafters doesn’t discriminate against genres. Its approximately 20 freelance instructors lead classes, workshops, and retreats that range from children’s fantasy to mystery writing, from poetry to memoir.

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Established as a nonprofit in 2013, the group started when co-founders Liz Cratty and Juanita Metzler “drank a lot of coffee and planned their first conference,” according to its website. Executive Director Daryll Lynne Evans has been with them since practically the beginning and helped with their first conference.   

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In the decade since, Wordcrafters has held six writing conferences (put on hold during the pandemic) and an array of more than 700 classes, events, and retreats in locations ranging from the studio to schools to remote locations, such as an upcoming workshop in Blue River. It has a six-member board and employs four part-time staff. Funded by donations, programming, grants, and a growing membership — currently 142 — the group welcomes volunteers, and its instructors are an eclectic bunch. 

Bartlett teaches a class employing writing as a tool for working through grief and adversity. Bartlett’s official title is Giving and Connection Catalyst. What is a Connection Catalyst? It’s what you get, Bartlett said, when you leave it to a writer to come up with a title. The job entails fundraising, marketing, connecting with people, donations, working on artist residencies, and assisting with programming and technology. Also, they designed the organization’s T-shirts emblazoned with “word nerd.”  

Bartlett also came up with the Write-In, a weekly 2½-hour program for folks to come to the studio and write. Bartlett is working on a fictionalized version of their life, and admitted they created the Write-In to ensure they would write for at least 2½ hours a week. 

The Write-In is probably the simplest of Wordcrafters’ programming. It has no instruction, reading, or feedback. People just come to write. When I went to the studio for the Tuesday morning event, I found about 10 people working on their own. The place was furnished with a couch, chairs, and tables, but no computers. Everyone brought their own technology and made themselves comfortable. 

Admission to the Write-In is included in the annual Wordcrafters membership fee of $60; nonmembers pay $5. Trena Cleland, a member as of a few months ago, set up her workstation to resemble a computer desk, sitting at a table with her laptop on a basket turned upside down so that it was at her eye level. A personal historian, Cleland spent her time at the Write-In working on a client’s memoir. Why did she come to the Market District to work when she could have done the same thing in the comfort of her own home? 

Cleland said she liked the “enforced nature” of the Write-In, having writing “be mandatory” while she was there. Marietta Hedges had a similar response. A professional actor and previous acting professor, she said she was new to Eugene and had only been a Wordcrafters member for a few weeks. Her project was writing a book on acting, and her reason for attending was that she liked being forced to write. 

“Forced in a good way,” she said. 

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A nonwriter might find it odd that writers feel they need to be forced to write. But the basic act of sitting down to write is one that even the most prolific writers struggle with. In his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King says that he works in a room with no window, and if there is a window, he pulls down the shades so as not to be distracted. 

That’s the idea behind the Write-In, giving writers a space to “pull down the shades” and do nothing but write.  

“We’re all storytellers to some degree, even if we don’t know it,” said member Bill Cameron, author of the Skin Kadash detective series. Anyone can start writing at any time, he said, and Wordcrafters helps people who want to begin. Cameron said everyone has a story to tell, but only people who write become authors, a truth reflected by a condensed quote from William Faulkner prominently displayed on the studio wall: “Don’t be a writer: Be writing.” 

Cameron is an instructor, too. He teaches “world-building” in Adventures in Writing Summer Camp, a studio program for middle-grade children that introduces them to different storytelling genres each day. Cameron shows the young writers how to create a believable room, map, or an entire universe. 

Speaking about the Write-In, he added a different perspective on why writers prefer to work in the studio rather than at home. So much of writing is done in isolation, he said, “It’s a solo act.” So, people find value in connecting, even by just “sitting in a room writing.” 

Wordcrafters also has plenty of interactive gatherings. Ghost Story Weekend, for instance, is a retreat that takes place far from the studio. Participants spend four days at Harbick’s Country Inn on the McKenzie River in Blue River, writing and sharing a ghost story. The announcement for this event promises “camaraderie with fellow writers,” as they receive instruction on how to write a short story, personal time with the instructor, then read their story and get feedback from others.

Back at the studio, staff member and teacher Jorah LaFleur hosts a monthly event that is all about sharing, where people read what they have written. LaFleur ran Eugene Poetry Slam for 13 years before she began hosting the Wordcrafters Word Open Mic. 

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Just as they welcome all genres, Wordcrafters offers something for all ages. Besides the summer camp, Wordcrafters offers Writers in Schools Residencies — 46 of them, so far —  that give low-income, at-risk students the opportunity to work with professional authors one-on-one. Each residency produces a chapbook, providing students with the experience of being a published author. 

On the other end of the age spectrum, Patricia Henley, whose novel Hummingbird House was a finalist for the National Book Award, will help women 60 and older “find their voice” in the four-day September workshop for “women of a certain age.”

Board member Miriam Gershow has an MFA from the University of Oregon and is a nationally recognized novelist. Her first book, The Local News, published in 2009, was reviewed by the New York Times and her recent collection of short stories, Survival Tips, was named a Pencraft Awards Best Book winner. Her initial interaction with Wordcrafters was as faculty at its first conference, and from the start, she was most impressed with what she identified as “the depth of Eugene’s writers.”  

She realized that academia was only one route to becoming an author. People she met through the organization arrived at writing via different paths, taking classes or workshops, attending conferences or retreats, on a schedule that fit with their otherwise busy lives.  

“The wonder of Wordcrafters,” said Gershow, “lies in its diversity.”  Writers come from all places, not just MFA programs. 

Member Carla Orcutt is also a board member with an academic background; her graduate degree is in sociology. As a social scientist, she wrote academic papers grounded in nonfiction. Literary fiction is entirely different, she said, it allows you to “walk in another person’s world.” 

She is writing a novel about a planet that has undergone major climate change. She wants to address how that sort of change would force people to behave differently. How will it require them to get along? Apocalyptic novels and films often address these questions, but Orcutt is determined not to write a story full of “doom and gloom.” Her goal is to create a world where humans find a way to manage. 

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The challenge to writing speculative fiction, she said, is to build a realistic world and create characters that are believable. She added, “That’s where Wordcrafters comes in.”  

Wordcrafters’ purpose isn’t that different from the one Orcutt has for her novel. It wants to bring people together through storytelling. On their website, Wordcrafters says storytelling cultivates “a more empathetic, creative and courageous world.”

Their goal is to create a more empathetic world, one story at a time.