By James Coats
FROM: Riverside Press-Enterprise

If someone asked me what I thought I would be doing six years after graduating from Cal State San Bernardino with my MBA, I would have answered: Helping business owners improve their bottom line, identify ways to engage more effectively with customers, or reviewing new business plans as a business consultant.

Instead, I find myself helping writers improve their metaphors, identify their narrative arc, and helping them organize their manuscript. How did I go from business consulting to teaching artists? Workshops.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, I, like many other people stuck at home looking for connection, needed an outlet to express myself. At the same time, access to organizations that had traditionally been closed off because I don’t live in a large city went virtual. This became my renaissance and I could not get enough open mics, book clubs, and writing workshops. Not long after the social justice uprising later that year, I recognized a need to discuss the triggering chaos of world events at that time, so I created a workshop dedicated to writing about social justice topics.

Called “Be The Change,” it was a place for anyone—but mostly writers—to express their emotions about the things we were all witnessing. Read Rest of Article Here