Girls Write Now Community Members,
We Need You!
Volunteer to become a Community Studio Facilitator!
Ready to engage in a meaningful way with your community and our newest Girls Write Now class?
As Girls Write Now’s programming expands, we are offering volunteer opportunities exclusively to our community members to facilitate monthly genre-specific Community Studios. Community Studio facilitation is a perfect opportunity for returning mentor and mentee pairs and our alumni who are familiar with the Girls Write Now mission and have experienced the community first hand to re-engage in an impactful way.
Girls Write Now is excited to collaborate with members across regions and time zones, in a new initiative to foster connection among mentees and their mentors while providing a space for community members to engage in creative discussion, share their work, write, and build community.
What are Community Studios?
Community Studios are intimate groups of Girls Write Now Mentees, Mentors, and Alum who gather each month to focus on specific writing genres, media, topics, or other creative interests. Mentors and mentees are required to attend at least one studio per month. Mentees are offered the flexibility to sign up for the studio of their choice each month based on their varying goals, interests, and schedules. At Girls Write Now, Community Studios are the anchor of the community as they bridge our diverse programming and develop an internal network of supportive relationships.
What do Community Studio Facilitators do?
Community Studio Facilitators are the eyes and ears of the community. Through their facilitation, Community Studio Facilitators play an integral role in reminding mentees that they have a network of community members, including fellow mentees, who champion their work and support their growth by helping them understand their talent and remember their worth.
As an Community Studio Facilitator, you will:
- Dedicate 2-4 hours a month to facilitate a Community Studio (same weekday/same time slot each month)
- Facilitate conversation surrounding your Creative Topic
- Design the Community Studio Agenda monthly, engage attendees in conversation, choose writing prompts and curate an hour of creativity and community building.
We ask that Community Studio Facilitators are available 1 per month for a total of 1.5 hours: to facilitate Community Studios and meet with our Girls Write Now staff for additional support and community updates. Girls Write Now will provide required training videos in late October/early November 2023. Facilitators will draft a brief agenda to prepare for each of their Community Studios and complete a brief post-debrief, detailing how your Community Studio went, to be sent to their GWN staff lead.
What happens in a Community Studio?
Here is a sample of what a 60-minute Community Studio agenda looks like:
15 min: Community — Opening lines and Heartwarmer, or any other community-building activity
10 min: Temperature Checks — Check-ins and brief shares from each participant
30 min: Activity (choose one of the following)
- Feedback, critique, or workshopping
- Writing and creation time
- Foster community through Community Conversations on topics related to writing, publishing, current events in the industry, etc
5 min: Closing Activity — Questions and announcements
What type of Community Studios are there?
As a Community Studio Facilitator, you will have the opportunity to lead 35 community members each month in a topic proposed and pre-assigned to you. Some topics of consideration include:
Nonfiction
Workshop and discuss a mentee’s nonfiction work. Explore historical, biographical, or instructional writing, offer commentary or humor, or ponder philosophical questions and more!
Poetry
Offer the chance to workshop & discuss a mentee’s poetry. Discuss literary work and the special intensity given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm and/or rhyme scheme.
Editorial
Workshop & discuss mentee’s editorial work. Explore how to reach the various goals to educate, entertain, or inform different audiences. This typically includes opinions, standpoints, and viewpoints.
Journalism
Explore various journalistic works and the collection, preparation, and distribution of news and news-related commentary. Go beyond just standard materials such as pamphlets, newsletters, newspapers, magazines and explore media in blogs, websites, webcasts, podcasts, and e-mail.
Social Media & Vlogging
Discuss and give feedback on mentee’s social media, blogs, and vlogs strategies. Explore interacting, creating, sharing, and exchanging information in virtual communities and networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
Wellness
Co-lead with a Girls Write Now staff member and several Guest Experts to explore the 7 components of Wellness: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, Social, Environmental and Financial.
Fiction
Discuss a mentee’s fiction work. Explore imagination and storytelling skills through genre fiction and literary fiction.
Digital Media
Offer feedback on mentee’s digital media pieces. Encourage mentees to delve into the world of digital media by exploring artists work and creating their own. Digital media includes: Photography, Videography, Animation, Illustration, Web design, Podcasting, Digital art-making, Graphic Design, etc)
Entrepreneurship
Dive into the process of starting, developing, and scaling a business, involving innovation, creativity, and the ability to adapt to changing market conditions. Studios will explore activities around idea generation, business planning, securing funding, marketing, and managing operations.
Performance
Offer feedback on mentee’s performance (live or recorded) and/or writing —may it be a poem, play, speech, dance, song, or another performable form.
Editing
Discuss and workshop mentee’s pieces regarding editing aspects, such as improving the accuracy of language, fludity, organizational and structural elements, and the overall readability of a text.
Affinity Groups
Rotating monthly among various groups and identities of our diverse and extensive community, Affinity groups are organized and designed to support community members of color, gender-expansive and LGBTQIA + to create connection, find support, and foster inspiration. Alum facilitators must be skilled in creating safe, structured spaces for connection and conversation, encouraging generative and meaningful conversation, while also keeping things fun and welcoming.
I’m excited about the opportunity but this is new to me. What if I need help with planning?
We completely understand! We were there once, too. However, like anything within Girls Write Now, you are never alone in achieving your goals and we’re here to support you in this new endeavor.
Girls Write Now staff are available to help brainstorm ideas, answer questions, or offer feedback when needed. Don’t doubt yourself! As a former Girls Write Now mentee or mentor, you know firsthand the type of workshops and conversations that our community enjoys and this time, we’re putting you in the driver’s seat!
Looking to go into community programming, youth development or education? Community Studios are a great way to boost your already stunning resume!
When do Community Studios meet?
Facilitator Volunteers are needed to lead 1 of the 20 time blocks below.
1 day a month, we are looking for 20 Volunteers. You will facilitate 1 Community Studio, with a chance to fill out your debrief. The following days/times are as follows:
- Monday: 5:00pm – 8:00pm ET
- Monday: 6:30pm -9:30pm ET
- Tuesday: 6:00pm – 9:00pm ET
- Tuesday: 7:30pm – 10:30pm ET | 4:30pm-7:30pm PT (West Coast Volunteer preferred)
- Wednesday: 6:00pm – 9:00pm ET
- Wednesday: 7:30pm – 10:30pm ET | 4:30pm-7:30pm PT (West Coast Volunteer preferred)
- Thursday: 5:00pm – 8:00pm ET
- Thursday: 6:30pm – 9:30pm ET
- Friday: 5:00pm -8:00pm ET
- Friday: 6:30- 9:30pm ET | 3:30pm-7:30pm PT (West Coast Volunteer preferred)