Kind Fools, a program of Community Canvases, presents WRITE ON! (an intuitive writing workshop)

Upcoming workshops

Our story

WRITE ON! is a writing workshop created by Robert-Harry Rovin. Through participating weekly from 2016 through 2019, Kind Fools founder Hy Carrel learned to think of himself as a writer and even a poet. It is our pleasure to be able to offer this writing workshop to the Buffalo community and virtually.

What is WRITE ON! ?

WRITE ON! is a process of accessing what is your truth in this moment, and expressing it. First, we establish a trusting container by sitting in a circle and giving each person an opportunity to “show up” and check-in. Second, we participate in a body awareness meditation, to pay attention and listen to what is true for each part of ourselves in this moment. Third, we listen to an inspiring poem. Fourth, we free-write, getting out of our heads and trusting that we will know what needs to be written in this moment.

A key feature of WRITE ON! is how we respond to each others’ writing. After our second free-write, we have a break. Then we are each invited to read one of our two writings. After reading, people are invited to respond if they wish. We ask that each response be purely encouraging and only positive. There are other opportunities for feedback and criticsm, and we set the intention that WRITE ON! is a “safe space” of purely positive and authentic responses to what others trust us by sharing.

Description

  • check-in circle
  • body awareness meditation
  • 1st free write
  • check-in
  • 2nd free write
  • break
  • share your writing and receive only positive reflections

Do you want to get involved? Do you have questions? Please reach out via our contact form or by emailing our lead facilitator Hy Carrel at hy@kindfools.org

Prior workshops

  • Feb 21, 2023 workshop info available here and write up here
  • March 7, 2023 workshop at Hostel Buffalo-Niagara info available here write up here
  • March 14, 2023 workshop info available here and write up here
  • Thank you to Fitz Books and Waffles for hosting our March 16th in-person workshop.
  • Thank you to MHA WNY for hosting our March 30th workshop.
  • Thank you to everyone who joined our April 4th virtual workshop. Write up here
  • Thank you to everyone who joined our April 11th workshop at Sol Rise Farm and Cultural Arts Center.
  • Thank you to Indigo House for hosting our May 2nd workshopfor hosting our May 2nd workshop.
  • In our Monday May 8th virtual workshop on Zoom we held space for each other and expressed our truths.
  • In our Thursday May 11th workshop, we wrote in the children’s section at Buffalo’s Central Library as a partner in Mental Health Awareness Day Flash Mob, celebrating life, health and healing in all its beauty.
  • Our Thursday May 18th workshop at CAO Rafi Greene Masten Resource Center brought together community members from near and far to share.
  • We wrote together at Sol Rise on Tuesday, June 6th. Thank you to everyone who braved the smoke to join us.
  • Thank you to CAO Rafi Greene Masten Resource Center for hosting us again on Thursdays June 15th and July 20th.
  • Thank you to Burning Books for hosting our Tuesday July 25th workshop.
  • Sol Rise hosted our 16th workshop on August 8th.
  • The Healing Grounds Co-op hosted our August 22nd workshop.
  • Thank you to Fitz Books and Waffles for hosting our September 7th workshop outside on the beautiful patio with delicious waffles.
  • The Healing Grounds Co-op hosted our September 26th workshop inside their beautiful café space.
  • Thank you for a beautiful gathering on Zoom on October 10th
  • We returned to CAO’s Masten Resource Center on October 26, 2023 for our first hybrid gathering. People came to the space for WRITE ON, people in the space were drawn to the circle to write and share with us, and people unable to make it to the space joined us online.
  • 8 1/2 months after our first Kind Fools’ WRITE ON, we returned to Sol Rise on November 7, 2023 for a workshop with familiar faces and new faces.
  • Our first WRITE ON workshop in Tonawanda was November 21at at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Thank you to everyone who braved the dark cold rain to write with us.
  • Thank you to Indigo House for hosing our December 7th WRITE ON on the West Side.
  • It was an honor to host an abbreviated WRITE ON workshop on December 8th with 30 gentlemen in Buffalo City Mission’s transitional housing program.
  • Thank you to a couple Faithful Fools from Chicago for joining our Buffalo group on Zoom for our December 19, 2023 workshop featuring Dogfish by Mary Oliver.
  • On Thursday, January 11, 2024, so many pillars of our community gathered at CAO Masten Resource Center for the first WRITE ON of 2024.
  • On Tuesday, January 16th, people braved the cold to join us at Indigo House and on Zoom for an evening of writing, inspired by words from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermon, Where Do We Go From Here?
  • On Thursday February 8th, we packed Big Big Table with our words and wrote inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s foreword to Critical Path and by each other.
  • We celebrated Valentine’s Day 2024 writing together about love over Zoom with creative souls from across Buffalo, Syracuse and Toronto too.
  • On Monday Feb 19th, we gathered at Inspiration Point for our first “Woven Event.” This single workshop flowed from sharing like in Recovery Stories into writing like in WRITE ON! and then concluding with sharing like in Ground & Sky Poetry Series. Info
  • On Thursday, March 7th, 2024, a few people gathered to write about time, change, spaced time, and feelings, ideas & stories at CAO Masten Resource Center.
  • Our first workshop at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo (UUCB) was on March 12, 2024. We wrote inspired by Hamlet’s “To Be, Or Not To Be.”
  • Thank you Indigo House for hosting 18 of us on March 28, 2024 to write our hearts out on topics of time, stopping, and confronting our past with the support of our present artistic insight and the support of this community, inspired by Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy.
  • The day after the Totality, we gathered on Zoom to write on this universal experience..
  • Our first “Heavy” Reflections-themed WRITE ON workshop brought 16 people to CAO’s Masten Resource Center on May 2, 2024. The shares, inspired by the penultimate page of Kiese Laymon’s memoir Heavy, were raw and offered with such confidence.
  • On Monday, May 6, 2024 our “Heavy” Reflections cohort participated in a Once Trees Book Club discussion of “Heavy” at CAO’s Masten Resource Center
  • On Thursday, May 9, 2024 our Heavy Reflections groups returned to CAO’s Masten Resource Center to write and to be filmed by Just Buffalo Literary Center as part of their Civil Writes Project
  • On Monday, May 20, 2024 The Woven Event met at Roswell Park’s Community Outreach & Engagement Center at 907 Michigan Ave.
  • On Tuesday, May 21, 2024 Rise of WNY hosted our WRITE ON intuitive writing group inspired by “Heavy”
  • On Tuesday, June 11, 2024 WRITE ON met at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, inviting people from across Buffalo to write, inspired by a poem by Meister Eckhart.
  • Tuesday, June 18, 2024 WRITE ON at Indigo House
  • Thursday, July 11, 2024 WRITE ON at CAO’s Masten Resource Center
  • Wednesday, July 17, 2024 WRITE ON - Home at Raha Coffee House, writing in Arabic, Pashto, Portuguese and English
  • Tuesday, July 23, 2024 WRITE ON at Rise of WNY at 1643 Hertel Ave
  • Tuesday, July 30, 2024 WRITE ON in Burmese, Chinese, Malay and English at Fitz Books & Waffles
  • Friday, August 9, 2024 WRITE ON at YouthBuild
  • Tuesday, August 13, 2024 WRITE ON in Spanish and English at Fitz Books & Waffles
  • Tuesday, August 20, 2024 WRITE ON at Big Big Table
  • Tuesday, August 27, 2024 WRITE ON in French and English at Fitz Books & Waffles Details
  • Tuesday, September 24, 2024 WRITE ON at the BURC
  • Tuesday, October 1, 2024 WRITE ON at the Women’s Empowerment group at the BURC
  • Thursday, October 3rd WRITE ON at Rise of WNY
  • Tuesday, October 15th WRITE ON at Indigo House
  • Saturday, October 19th WRITE ON!: Imagining 1412 Jefferson Avenue - a collaboration with the Justice for Geraldine and Martin Campaign
  • Friday, August 9, 2024 WRITE ON at YouthBuild
  • Tuesday, November 12th WRITE ON at Rise of WNY with the support of facilitator Zaria Black
  • Thursday, November 14, 2024 Buffalo City Mission’s Cornerstone Manor hosted WRITE ON for 19 brave women in their transitional housing program.
  • Friday, November 15, 2024 Buffalo City Mission invited us to lead WRITE ON with men at their Alfiero Center of Hope and Promise transitional housing program.
  • Saturday, November 16th we offered a modified form of WRITE ON called The Colors of Truth at GSNC Details
  • Tuesday, November 26th WRITE ON at UUCB addressed indigenous perspectives on Thanksgiving and ways that gratitude shows up in each of our lives.

How did you enjoy your WRITE ON! workshop? Please complete our survey.