AWG – Some of you will recall meeting Alex of Writers Room DC at some meetings and hearing him talk about his project to bring rental space to writers in VA.  In the letter below they pose several questions that will help them gauge interest and refine their plans as they bring their project from DC to VA.  If you are interested or have insight for them, please take a few moments to answer the questions posed.  NOTE THEY PROVIDE AN EMAIL ADDRESS WHERE THEY WOULD LIKE REPLIES SENT.  DON’T SIMPLY REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE. 

Thanks.

MK

Dear Northern Virginia Writer:

Let me first thank Michael Klein for taking the trouble to email this to every member of the Arlington Writers Group. You may have seen the same message on the bulletin board earlier, but by sending it out to each individual, we know we will get the maximum possible response.

This past fall, a few local writers opened a “writers' room” in the Tenleytown neighborhood of northwest DC, hoping to provide quiet, comfortable, and affordable space for serious writers of fiction and non-fiction. Our name is Writers Room DC.

Quite a few spaces like ours have opened around the country—there are six in New York alone, for instance. The model is catching on for reasons that will be obvious to all writers: there are absolutely no ringing phones or doorbells here; there is the motivating presence of other hard-working writers around you; there is free coffee and printing; and there are people to talk to when you need a break. On a less tangible level, many patrons say that joining a writers’ room conveys one’s seriousness about one’s writing to friends, family, and oneself.

Does it work? People are more productive here. It’s that simple. Please check our website, www.writersroomdc.com for member testimonials. (On the site you will also find photos of our Tenleytown facility, rates, press links, and other information.)

 I am writing you at this time to try to gauge interest in our establishing a similar space in northern Virginia. Basically, we want to know if a northern Virginia writers’ space would get used by local writers. If there are enough people who would benefit, we are planning to go ahead in the next few months.

So if you yourself are based in northern Virginia (or would care to forward this to have writer friends who are based in northern Virginia), we would be very grateful to hear from you via email. If you have time, could you let us have your ideas on the following? 

·      Might you be interested in joining a writers' space in northern Virginia if it could be priced at around $95 per month? Bear in mind that this would include free printing and free coffee. (For reference, $95 per month is the cost of a latte a day. Possibly interesting too, you can pay $175 per month for membership in an equivalent facility in New York, plus an initiation fee.)

·      In what neighborhood(s) would you like to see such a space located?

·      How important to you is Metro access? How important is easy parking?

·      What hours would you need a space like this, or would that vary widely?

·      If you'd be willing, we'd be very interested in whatever you'd care to tell us about your current or planned writing project, for whatever this might tell us about making such a space more useful.

Two last things. First, we would be pleased to offer anyone who makes time to answer these questions a week’s free membership in our new space. Second, if you’d be good enough to forward this letter to all your northern Virginia writer friends, and if they do the same in turn, etc., we will very quickly get a clear sense of the interest level and could open that much sooner.

Yours sincerely,

Charles Karelis

(Please address your responses to [address removed].)