What we are and our identity:

Central Phoenix Writing Workshop – East Valley Writing Workshop – West Valley Critique Group

**Please click here if you would like to know how to start a new meeting in our groups**

The writing workshops and groups under my sponsorship are a group of community based writing organizations. Our purpose is to stimulate writing literacy, interest, and excellence through meetings, friendships, and peer critique.

- We serve open style critique groups as our mainstay, with the addition of tailored meetings for more involved or specific purposes.

- Our strength is among the community we derive from, and the empowerment of individuals to step up with our mutual support.

- Our secondary goals are to support community based efforts to provide opportunities and connections to help our individual members achieve personal and commercial success.

Respect does not come from being right. It comes from being wise. We’re not here to tell people the “right way” to do things. We’re here to guide people to the best ways to do things. Most of us are smart and knowledgeable. But our respect comes when we value the knowledge of others above our own.

Documents and Resources – We will be adding links to documents in the future, such as a general moderator's guide, new member flyer, and frequently asked questions.

We also have several Facebook discussion groups, such as the Phoenix area marketing and publishing forum, and the Central Phoenix Writing Workshop Facebook group.

A general website is also forthcoming.

Our Roles:

The Organizer - My job as Organizer is to pay the meetup fees, respond to direct email/website inquiries, foster a strong peer environment among the leadership, help support the groups as needed, and occasionally execute executive functions of the group.

Moderators – The role of our moderators is to provide positive community leadership. They should help organize the meetings, affirmatively and firmly set a tone where all members are heard, acknowledged, and understood. Opinions are to be rated on merit and the author’s personal intent, rather than the person giving the opinion. A moderator’s job also includes making sure that critique is tailored to the author’s personal needs and experience, and that no one person dominates the critique session at the expense of others.

Moderators have the additional duty to help communicate projects and information that may help members of the writing group as a whole or projects that are sponsored by specific members.

Your rewards for being moderators are involvement in a community that you are passionate about, not paying meetup dues or dealing with overbearing management oversight, and connections that will help foster strong friendships and opportunities.

Members – Your role as a member is to participate and grow as members, authors, and friends. We manage by culture. When we as individuals foster and stand by the principles laid out here, we create an atmosphere that encourages others to become part of our community and actively support open minded exchange and participation in projects of our own and each other.