Schneider, Pat. "Introduction: A Writer is Someone Who Writes." Writing Alone and With Others. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

"When we write, we create, and when we offer our creation to one another, we close the wound of loneliness and may participate in healing the broken world. Our words, our truth, our imagining, our dreaming, may be the best gifts we have to give" (xix).

"In the 1940s, literature was written by upper-class men, expressing their views of the human experience. I wanted desperately to sound like them so I could make art, too.

But that understanding of art was a lie. Art is not just the province of the privileged. Art belongs to the people. It belongs to those who 'stand here ironing,' t othose who clean city streets, to those who work in front of computer screens, as well as to those who read in the ivy halls. Almost all of us can tell a story to a best friend or lover so powerfully thta we move the other person to sorrow or to laughter, to deep feeling, to what literary critics call 'denouement' " (xx).

"Art is the creative expression of the human spirit, and it cannot -- it must not, for the sake of the human community -- to limited to those few who achieve critical acclaim or financial reward" (xxi).

This speaks well of not only the need to collaborate when we write, but also to support all of the voices and points of view that accompany writing. I think it's difficult to write because we want to much for our work to be "accepted" -- by our friends, by critics, by a reading populace -- and so instead of writing a message in which we truly believe, we work to the satisfaction of others. This is why being a workshop leader can be so difficult -- we can guide in craft, but we must be careful not to impose our own predilections upon budding writers, who still might be struggling to find their voice.

"Genius often emerges where there is intimate support for it ... where there is no intimate support, there is often the driving force of suffering, creating an intense personal isolation, a kind of solitude, out of which the voice of genius arises. Each of us has genius, but we need support, and we can give it to one another as friends or in honest and supportive workshop settings" (xxi).

I've been involved in many types of workshops -- some helpful and fun, some with disinterested leaders, some with people who wanted me to write like they do, and some who thought being cruel would make me aspire to write "better." Only the first type of workshop works with me -- the others just make me doubt my writing, or want to give up altogether.