The Western Slope Veterans Coalition is offering a new writers workshop series open to veterans and their families.
The first workshop will be held this Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the WSVC Resource Center in Glenwood Springs and is free of charge. Additional workshops are scheduled for Feb. 1, Feb. 15 and March 1, with more dates to be determined in the future based on attendance and feedback.
The workshops will be led by experienced, published authors and journalists and are designed to provide an encouraging and creative space for vets and their families. Participants are invited to come ready to share their written work by bringing in writing samples — up to five pages long — of any kind: memoir, poetry, fiction, essays and nonfiction.
Attendees can present their works and receive helpful suggestions and positive feedback from other vets and writing professionals. Veterans who do not have prepared writing samples are still invited to attend the workshop and sit in on the creative experience.
The idea for this first-time writers workshop series was instigated by Fred Venrick, a Vietnam Veteran who has been involved with veterans in the valley now for more than 20 years.
Venrick serves on the Veterans Service Committee at the Elks Lodge in Aspen and has been instrumental in leading many of the Elks’ initiatives when it comes to supporting Western Slope veterans.
From working and coordinating with Huts for Vets and Challenge Aspen to the Colorado Veterans of Foreign Wars and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Venrick said he has a definite connection to the veteran community — especially the Vietnam group — and is committed to continuing that support in any way possible.
Venrick was one of the original veterans who helped to form the WSVC — which is a nonprofit providing outreach and resources for veterans and their families in the Roaring Fork, Eagle and Colorado River valleys.
He noted how among many other supportive endeavors, the WSVC hosts weekly coffee and donut get-togethers in Glenwood Springs, during which veterans can meet up and chat openly.
“We found as veterans — at one time who were very stoic — that talking about it really helps, and that’s been backed up by the VA and other associations with PTSD,” Venrick said.
He went on to express how the new writers workshop could potentially take that concept a step further, by allowing veterans to put down their feelings and stories onto paper and share those thoughts with a group of fellow veterans.
“We think it’s therapeutic — we’re not counting on anything — but I think, at least in my limited experience, that sometimes if you write things out, it clears the mind in so many ways,” Venrick said. “It’s just great therapy and can get you out of your angst.”
Venrick’s idea for the writers workshop had been circulating for quite some time, he said, explaining that it stemmed from his wife’s work with local writers groups over the years.
Venrick’s wife, Catherine O’Connell, is a fiction writer who has published several mystery novels and currently sits on the board of Aspen Words. Before the organization became Aspen Words, it was known as the Aspen Writers’ Foundation — for which O’Connell used to lead and moderate the foundation’s weekly writers group.
O’Connell said that during these sessions, there were a couple of veterans who would attend regularly, and she acknowledged the positive response to expressing oneself via a collective literary experience.
“On top of being creative, it can be cathartic — you know, people can bring in stream-of-consciousness writing, poems, a page of a novel, a couple pages of a novel — because there are a lot of people with stories that they’d like to share and don’t have any outlet,” O’Connell said. “So Fred, in thinking about this and hearing about it over the years, he came up with this idea to do it specifically for veterans and/or their families.”
For Wednesday’s first go at the writers workshop, O’Connell has volunteered to be one of the moderators, along with Colorado Mountain College’s Tom Busch and valley journalist Bernie Grauer — who will primarily lead the workshop, Venrick explained.
Venrick, the workshop’s creative advisor, added that Ken Williams will also be present at Wednesday’s gathering. Williams has self-published works, Venrick said, and will be there to talk about his experience in doing so.
“As we go along, we’ll probably — for people interested in self publishing or in all aspects, marketing their writing or anything to do with writing — we will have some experts there to talk about it, to guide them as far as things go,” Venrick said. “But we’re starting out with this workshop, and as we see the turnout and as we ask questions about if they’d like this, we’ll move into that area also.”
Both Venrick and O’Connell said they anticipate the new writers workshop series to be a work in progress and ultimately hope for it to be a consistent twice-a-month endeavor.
“We feel it’s gonna take time to build. You know, veterans are kind of aloof and in many ways, not as trusting,” Venrick said. “But, as it worked with Cathy’s group, we believe strongly in this, so we hope this really works out well — I don’t see why it can’t — and we’ll take it from there.”
The first vets writers workshop will take place on Wednesday evening at the WSVC Resource Center, located at 801 Colorado Ave., in Glenwood Springs. For more information, visit westernslopeveterans.org or reach out to Venrick directly at 970-925-5145.
