The MTSU Writer's Loft graduated their third class this Saturday at the downtown Murfreesboro branch of the Nashville library.
The Writer's Loft program was created at MTSU in the fall of 2003. The program consists of three sessions, which are required for graduation from the Writer's Loft program. The sessions include public readings, lectures and one-on-one writer and professional interaction said Lance Ikard, director of professional development and personal enrichment.
"At some point in your life, you become more interested in quality than quantity," said Roy Burkhead, founder of the Writer Loft program. "By participating in this program you start to feel like a part of your community through your work."
"The idea is that we feel like a community," Burkhead said. "We do not graduate many students at a time because some of our members might take a session off, but they still come to our free lectures or events that promote any other member's works. No one ever stops being a part of our community. We are all very centered around the philosophy of being a writer support group."
Most of the alumni of the program earn their living other ways than writing, said Ikard. The alumni list includes a few lawyers, a dentists, a retired engineer and a landscape designer.
"The common thread shared by all these different people is that they all want to commit to becoming better writers," Ikard said.
The Loft program provides three sessions a year: fall, spring and summer. The cost is $1,000 a session, $3,000 total. Participants do not have to commit to back-to-back sessions, they may take them at their leisure, said Ikard.
"The price is in fact, very reasonable in exchange for valuable direct interaction with professional mentors," Burkhead said. "The opportunities are endless with possible publications, available venues for works and of course networking."
The writers are paired with mentors to cater to their specific genres, like novels or scripts. Each month a writer exchanges up to 25 pages with their mentor for review and criticism, Ikard said.
"One of the mentors we are very excited about having is River Jordan," Ikard said. "River is a local author in Nashville and one of the lectures she does for us is on the publishing process and helping the writers establish goals for their works."
The program was originally designed to have a group of 50 students or smaller to allow for a better student-teacher ratio, Burkhead said.
Loft writers share their work through the Writer's Loft magazine anthology, The Trunk, Ikard said. The publication features the works of mentors, students and alumni and is published once a year.
"To become the best possible writer, one must keep learning and building up networks, which is why the publication and the mentors are so important," said Burkhead. "Our mentors and alumni especially provide a really good literary network that most writers cannot obtain."
"Theoretically, our writers will come to us with nothing," Burkhead said. "And they will leave with the first draft of a novel, a portfolio of poems or even the first act of a play. The biggest monster of writing is the first blank 250 pages and the program is here to help confront those challenges."
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