Eulogy

This will be the last post on this blog. As many of you already know, Indiana Writers’ Consortium went out of business on December 31, 2018. IWC has been a productive member of the Northwest Indiana writing community since 2008, but its activities have declined steadily since 2015 due to a lack of volunteer and financial support. Membership also dropped significantly, going from 69 members in 2015 to 34 members in 2018.

By closing its doors now, IWC exits the scene with no debts and an excellent reputation. We are proud of all we have accomplished over the years. The list includes:

• Annual networking picnic (2009–2013);
• Writing blog (begun in 2009 and posting weekly since October 2012);
• Annual banquet with featured speakers (2009–2013, replaced by the conference);
• PoPP (Power of Poetry Project) contest in local elementary schools (five school years from 2010/2011 through 2014/2015);
• Creative writing session at Purdue University Calumet as part of its “One Book/One University” program (2013);
• Eat and Exchange spring series of moderated discussions about various writing topics (2013–2016, 1 session in 2017);
• Partnership with the Westchester Public Library to provide children’s writing activities at the European Market in Chesterton (2013–2014);
• Turn the Knob writing workshops in partnership with Books, Bands, and Brushes for Education (2014);
• Downtown Hammond Art Walk activities (2014–2015);
• Literary Pub Crawl (2014–2015);
• Community Writing Center tutoring and workshops (2014–2016);
• Steel Pen Creative Writers’ Conference (2014–2018);
• Paper Fields Creative Writing Workshops (2015);
• Stream Line Literary Reading Series (2015–2016);
• Writing workshop in partnership with Gabis Arboretum/Purdue University Northwest (2018); and
• Editing services (2018).

We leave you with a sampling of pictures from the last ten years.