The Project
The Military Memoirs Writing Project equips veterans, service members, and other military affiliated patrons with writing strategies to productively process their experiences through a series of workshops. Participants are then invited to submit material to be published in this Open Access (OA) e-book.
The program consists of two segments with the first centered on composing the material and the second consisting of proofing and publishing. Based on an existing collaborative writing workshops for graduate students conducted by the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Edmon Low Library and OSU Writing Center, the project provides an intentionally communal writing space to write and reflect about service and family member experiences.
Designed for a wide range of military-affiliated persons, the program emphasizes the dependents’ and family members’ perspective in addition to the soldiers. Guidance is provided on free writing, writing through trauma, fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, revision, self-reflection, and feedback. Writing consultants, some with service or writing through trauma experience, guide the writers while adapting to their feedback. Workshop focus on craft and genre, strengthening every writer’s toolbox, while expanding their access to tools, including revision, proofing, and publishing.
Participants develop skills of self-reflection through the building of writing fundamentals, which could potentially translate into learned coping mechanisms. Methods of processing experience through the craft of writing and the stages of constructing a collaborative publication are explored. Participants leave more confident in their writing, revising, proofing, peer review, and publishing capabilities, thus empowering their confidence and ability to share their stories.
Long term, in alignment with OSU’s land-grant mission, we believe the project further unites the local, and possibly regional, military-affiliated population, while developing a process for cultivating, collecting, and sharing veteran, service men and women, and family member stories that could be reproduced at many institutions.
