By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — While sorting lights and darks in their building's laundry room a couple of years ago, writers Sarah Durham and Kathleen Crisci realized they had each independently embarked on starting an uptown writing group.
So they decided to combine their efforts, brought on two other established writers — Suzanne Parker and Lori Soderland, also residents of their building at the corner of West 190th St. and Ft. Washington Avenue — and in short order, the group Uptown Writers was born.
“We realized that it would be better to join forces and teach together,” Durham, 44, said. “This is all the product of laundry room and street discussions.”
Now in its second year, the group is a self-described “hub" for poets, essayists, novelists, short story writers and screenwriters of all levels.
Seminars are held in eight-week blocks in the fall and spring, where participants can work on creative nonfiction, fiction and, for the first time this fall, poetry. At the end of the semester, students read their work to the public at a community event.
Many of the students had been writing for awhile, but wanted a place closer to home to practice the craft.
“A mother came up to me one day and said she wanted to take a writing course, but didn’t want to trek downtown,” Durham said. “I realized people were interested at that moment and began posting fliers and called it 'Uptown Writers.'"
Durham said the group’s vision of Uptown Writers is broad; there is talk of teaching neighborhood kids and seniors for free and eventually a literary press and journal as well.
“From the beginning I had a feeling that this could be something bigger,” Durham said.
“Pretty much every person in our workshop has had great writing, but I suppose that’s what happens when you get a lot of New Yorkers together.”
