New community writing center teaching slam poetry

By Anna Tuckett

The Cache Valley Community Writing Center is focusing on performance poetry this month.

Kate Lange, a national slam poetry competition qualifier, taught a workshop for the writing center's Slam September.

Lange's workshop focused on how different styles of poetry are performed.

"For a lot of people performance is the scary part," Lange said. "Everybody has feelings that they're willing to write down, but not everyone is willing to yell about them."

Rachel Telfer, who coordinates the workshops and helps advertise for the writing center, said the first workshops the writing center held were about poetry.

“We’re just experimenting as we go, trying to figure out what people want, what people need,” Telfer said. 

The writing center has professional tutors available after workshops.

“They have specific workshops where you go and talk about like screenplay writing, but after they have tutors who will help you with whatever you’re working on,” Lange said. “The community writing center is a great resource for basically all writers.”

The writing center focuses on helping community members improve their creative writing skills in areas like screenwriting, poetry and novel writing.

“Our goal as a community writing center is to create a community of writers who can feel comfortable and open,” Telfer said “Some people are afraid to share their writing.”

Workshops and tutoring sessions are held every Wednesday.

“We use the Logan Library and we’re so grateful for them for helping us out,” Telfer said.