The time is always right for writers

Grub Street executive director Chris Castellani and development director and fellow writer Whitney Scharer.

by Sandra Miller
Back Bay Sun
When life gives you lemons, you write about lemonade.
With many adults unexpectedly finding a little more time on their hands than they expected, many are pursuing a long-put-off dream: to write a novel.
Grub Street is a highly regarded nonprofit that provides education and support for writers in offices above the piano showrooms and used bookstores on Boylston Street overlooking Boston Garden.
“I overheard someone in class say they were finally able to take it after being laid off,” said interim executive director Chris Castellani, who has definitely noticed a recent increase in participation. “I said, ‘Yikes,’ but I was also glad they could do it. People are taking more classes this year at Grub Street because many of them, after being laid off, now have the time to dedicate to writing. The fact is that in these dank economic times, we offer this affordable thing you can do that is creative and nurturing. It’s not an indulgency. This place makes people feel better by helping them write.”
“Which is great that they’re making good use of their time,” added Grub Street development director and fellow writer, Whitney Scharer.
Grub Street was born from writers dissatisfied with masters of fine arts degree programs. “Those programs are often filled with elitists focused on high literary fiction,” said Scharer.
Grub Street was founded in 1997 within the living room of Eve Bridburg, who had worked in nonprofits in San Francisco, farmed in Oregon, and managed an international bookstore in the Czech Republic before moving to Boston to attend Boston University’s creative writing program on a teaching fellowship.
Modeling it after the Loft in Minnesota, she founded Grub Street in order to create a supportive yet rigorous place to study writing beyond the halls of academia, and to bring writers together to form a community. She grew Grub Street into a nonprofit arts organization in 2001, and it’s one of about a dozen such writing groups that exist nationwide.
An active board member, Bridburg is now a literary agent. Its advisory council includes notable local authors Steve Almond, Arthur Golden, Sue Miller, Susan Orlean, and Tom Perrotta.
The actual Grub Street is a street in London once known for its hack writers.
As for this 2,700-square-foot fourth floor space, one thinks of the old joke, “What’s black and white and red all over?” The Grub Street headquarters is decorated with bright red walls and couches and doors in a space with several classrooms, a kitchen with plenty of coffee, a bookcase full of novels written by teachers and members, and a library of books to help the writers hone their craft. Even the bathroom door is literary: its chalkboard interior door engages creativity by harnessing the need to graffiti a bathroom, but these scribbles are perhaps discarded sentences such as, “In the dark I see a light,” and “Sharp as attack,” and perhaps a spurned freelancer writing, “F.U., Men’s Health.”
“We take writing very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves very seriously,” said Castellani. “We’re doing serious work but we’re not scratching our beards or being really dark. People doing romance novels sit next to a mystery writer, and they have something to give each other. We don’t discriminate against any genre.”
Grub is supported through workshops, grants, and donors, and several levels of membership fees. When Scharer started with Grub five years ago, membership was at 200. Today, it’s at 1,000, with 8,000 names in its database.
With a staff of four, and interns from Emerson College, Grub Street prides itself with being THE writer’s resource. “We do this to give back to the community,” said Castellani, author of “A Kiss from Maddalena” and “The Saint of Lost Things”. “We don’t think they pay a lot to get high-quality instruction. We aim to give MFA level workshops at community center prices. We’re less than a Harvard extension course, more than an adult education class. We don’t offer pottery or Egyptian cooking here. There’s no journalism here. It’s all creative writing.”
The teachers also get a lot of benefit from working with Grub.
“Grub is the reason I stay in Boston,” said veteran Grub teacher Jenna Blum, who is author of New York Times best-seller “Those Who Save Us.”
“It is the best, most supportive writers' community anywhere. It's a lifeline for me and for my novel students, many of whom are now on their way to being published. Vive, Grub!”
The writers are famous and soon to be famous, or just weekend writers. They are coming here on their lunch hours and weeknights and weekends. They are parents and elderly and kids. There’s a teen program, too.
They come for one-on-one consulting, writing support groups, structured classes, and just time to write within a group. It is said that writing is a lonely profession, but it doesn’t have to be.
“There’s a sense of community here,” said Scharer, who has written short stories and is working on the first draft of a multigenerational novel that begins in the 1940s. “I found a home, I’m with my people.”
Many writers enjoy writing in a group setting, even when there’s no opportunity for feedback. “It motivates you when everyone else is clicking away,” said Scharer. “Everyone’s working, and you feel really inspired. There is like this dignity. They get to be taken seriously as writers for the first time in their lives. Everyone understands the struggle of [creating] chapter 1.”
They recalled one class attendee who received a lot of feedback, not all of it positive, on his memoir. “He was like, ‘Great, bring it on,’” said Scharer. “He said Grub Street changed his life. He was just writing a memoir he was going to give to his grandkids. He’s now writing it as a serious work.”
That writer, Gerald Zeitlin, is an anesthesiologist from Chestnut Hill, who had been writing about medical history for years. “In my opinion, it is one of Boston's intellectual jewels. I have written non-fiction medical history for many years but always knew I had stories to tell,” he said.
He discovered Grub Street three years ago.
“Not only do they teach creative writing extraordinarily well, but they do it in an environment of openness and discipline wrapped in an envelope of support and friendship, if you'll excuse that weird metaphor,” he said. “Now I have a novel nearing completion.”
Workshops help writers with their writing skills, such as how to shape a story. But fellow writers also help keep each other on deadline. “Nobody cares, no one is breathing down their necks, saying ‘Finish that novel, mom, or sister,’” said Castellani. “It’s just a feeling that it matters.”
Grub is not for the dilettante, however. “We want them to be writers,” said Scharer. “We tell them, ‘You have the potential.’” As for the less serious writers? “Those people just don’t come back,” said Castellani. “The intro classes are a jumpstart into writing, and so there are short exercises to practice writing, to get feedback. Not everyone is doing a book. Some are just doing it for fun.”
There are pre-requisites to advance to higher levels of classes, and that’s where they see the dropouts. “We’d rather lose a writer than keep people in a class where they don’t fit. We have no problem telling people, ‘This is not right for you,’” said Castellani.