From Staff Reports
The High Desert Branch of the California Writers Club, a local division of writers who taught high school students creative writing and then connected them to High Desert senior citizens to write their memoirs, announced that the Central Board of the organization has approved funding to help complete another such project for 2015.
Bob Isbill, state representative for the HDCWC and Project Director for the Dorothy C. Blakely Memoir Project for the Class of 2014, reported that the century-old non-profit organization of professional writers approved his request to continue its financial assistance to help support the local scholarship program.
The DCB Memoir Project collaborated with the Academy for Academic Excellence in Apple Valley to have its author-members teach memoir writing to 34 Advance Placement students. The stories, whose lengths consisted of 3,000 to 4,000 words, were then submitted to the HDCWC critique-readers, who suggested ways to improve the works. Students then had an opportunity to revise their stories and re-submit them for scholarship competition and inclusion in an anthology published by the HDCWC.
The resulting product was an anthology titled, “Let It Be Recorded… A Collection of Memoirs,” which is available online at www.hdcwc.com and also at amazon.com. The club gave a copy of the book to each participating student, who also became a published author upon graduation.
The HDCWC presented scholarships to the top four student authors, and all participating students earned an academic grade for the project.
The High Desert Branch is one of 19 chapters in California whose total membership exceeds 1,800 writers, making the CWC the largest professional writers club west of the Mississippi. The HDCWC meets on the second Saturday of each month at the Newton T. Bass Apple Valley Library, 14901 Dale Evans Parkway from 10 a.m. to noon. The public is welcome to attend. Visit www.hdcwc.com for further information.