WriteNOW!
Email us to join the writeNOW! group
The Humanities Center welcomes you to our writing enhancement program, writeNOW!
This program offers aids for faculty and graduate students to work on their research projects—from writing accountability groups to undisturbed space in a quiet environment in a community of scholars. We know that especially now, with teaching, classes, and other obligations, you might feel overwhelmed by the blank page.
Our answer: writeNOW!
writeNOW! Writing Support Working Group
As writers who navigate overstuffed schedules at work and at home, sometimes what we need is to be accountable to a community each week about the progress we have made on our writing. This is the logic behind “writing accountability groups.” Such groups support participants by identifying the beliefs and behaviors that hold members back from productivity. Nobody reads or comments on anyone else’s writing in this type of group, nor is this a virtual analog to the UTHC’s Write-on-Site program, where we write together in silence. Instead the focus is on the writing process and moving projects forward so they can get into the hands of readers (who are not group members) who can give substantive feedback because they have subject matter expertise. This structure works well when the primary needs of participants are accountability, peer support, and community.*
The UTHC will host writing support/accountability groups starting in summer 2020. Our rules will be fairly simple:
- Members commit to writing on their own time and maintaining a writing schedule.
- Members agree to meet once a week.
- The group meets for exactly one hour and each person briefly discusses the following:
- My goals for last week were _______.
- I did/did not meet them.
- If I didn’t meet them, it’s because _______.
- My writing goals for next week are _______.
- The group as a whole discusses how the next week will improve: what will motivate us, what we need to guard against, how we will support one another.
If you would like to join a UTHC writing support group, reserve a spot by emailing us at humanitiesctr@utk.edu.
writeNOW! Write-on-Site
This fall, beginning on September 1, the UT Humanities Center will open its large seminar room Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm to UT research faculty who wish to devote time to their writing in an atmosphere of sublime silence. We will practice social distancing and have good airflow in the room; those wishing to attend must have approval to come to campus and follow procedures set by administration for attending live campus meetings.
If you are interested in attending our Write-on-Site sessions, contact us at humanitiesctr@utk.edu. Reservations are required.
*See Kerry Ann Rockquemore, “Shut Up and Write,” Inside Higher Education (June 14, 2010). Thanks to Jennifer Ho for this reading recommendation.
UT ranks tenth in the country among all universities, public and private, in the number of NEH fellowships received between 2004 and 2022.
Graduate students chosen to spend a year in the UTHC working on their dissertations graduate, on average, 1.5 years sooner, publish their first book sooner, and receive better job offers than other students in the humanities.
Faculty who spend a year at the University of Tennessee win NEH and other awards and publish award-winning books and research projects more quickly.