By Eileen Toomey
RED BANK – For years, Project Write Now (PWN), a nonprofit offering fee-based writing classes and community outreach, was located in an old industrial building near the Red Bank train station on the West Side of the borough. Exposed brick walls, high ceilings, a large chalkboard filled with ideas, along with book-cluttered desks and a smattering of computers, indicated a creative space. The refrigerator was filled with water bottles and snacks. During the day, adult classes met in the small classroom with the long farm table, later to be filled with teen writing groups and kids’ camps after school: It was a beehive of activity.
Then in March 2020, along with the rest of the country – and much of the world – PWN closed its doors.
Greg Phelan, co-founder and board chair of PWN, said, thanks to Zoom, they were able to continue with classes immediately. “We pivoted quickly. Most people understood the technology and embraced it. That helped those first days.”
But it didn’t just help those already familiar with the programs. Chuck Waldron, a writer from Port St. Lucie, Florida, has been attending the Tuesday morning class remotely. He found PWN through a computer search. “I had no idea where Red Bank, New Jersey was,” Waldron said. “Now I have a writing community that goes far beyond the pandemic.”
In January, just months before the shutdown, Phelan spearheaded a new program through Project Write Now called book inc., a collective dedicated to helping authors write and publish memoirs and novels. At book inc., Memoir and Novel Incubators are year-long writing programs designed to support writers from their initial story ideas to manuscript completion. Incubators are ideal for writers who have not successfully finished full-length projects on their own. The objective is a completed 50,000-word manuscript in a year.
“I’ve gone to tons of workshops, got an MFA, and a novel writing fellowship, too,” Phelan said. “They were all great ways to improve my craft, but something was missing – a community of writers who can support each other for the long haul because books aren’t done in a semester; they take time. Our goal has been to build this community in book inc.”
In 2022, book inc. expanded to include a book revision lab. With practical feedback, encouragement and support from a group of dedicated writers, members found they no longer had to go through the process alone.
New to book inc. this year is the Book Submission Lab, a six-month program designed for writers ready to submit their work for publication. With a focus on community, the Book Submission Lab provides feedback, support and guidance for writers ready to take on the challenging process of getting their work out in the world.
After making his initial connections in class, Waldron joined one of the first Novel Incubators. “I came out of that year with a manuscript and 11 other writing friends,” he said. “I’m extending that to a six-month long manuscript revision group. The fun continues and I keep adding friends – not only in Red Bank, but Savannah, South Carolina, California and New York City. It’s a dream come true for this writer in Florida.”
Since book inc. launched three years ago, members have drafted 31 novels and memoirs from idea to completion. They’ve completed 135 revisions and have read and given feedback on one another’s manuscripts 332 times.
Currently, the programs have 51 participants from all over the United States, from Oregon to Rhode Island, North Dakota to Florida. Ages range from early 20s to mid-80s. Writers come from diverse backgrounds and life experiences, with everyone having the desire to write and publish.
Recently, Liz Jannuzzi, operations and communications manager at PWN, completed her memoir thanks in part to help from the community of writers in her group. “I stopped listening to my self-doubts and signed up for the next program, Book Revision Lab. Revising a full-length manuscript can be a daunting task,” Jannuzzi said. “I’m sure I would have given up by now if I didn’t have a community to hold me accountable.”
Since that day in March 2020 when PWN shut its doors, so much has changed, but the human desire for connection has not. Thanks to the addition of so many new voices, PWN, as a whole, has more than doubled in size.
In 2021, the organization launched a podcast, PWN’s Debut Review, with two of its instructors – Courtney Harler in Las Vegas and Ray Brunt in New Jersey – interviewing writers from all over. They also built a global teen writing community in January 2022, even creating a PWN program in India featuring writing clubs for children, teachers and adults, too.
Now, along with a few other nonprofits, Project Write Now shares office and classroom space at the Women’s Club in downtown Red Bank. The building is an old Victorian with plenty of personality. On Thursday, a few classes even meet in person. Through some trying years, PWN has managed to broaden its scope and keep its physical presence in the community.
Tuition for the nonprofit’s year-long incubator is $1,500; Book Revision and Book Submission programs are $750 each. Those funds help support the community outreach programs for underserved teens. For more information, visit projectwritenow.org.
The article originally appeared in the March 23 – 29, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
