Our Story
The Ames Writers Collective (a nonprofit 501(c)(3)) was conceived while founder, Ana McCracken, studied for her MFA at Iowa State University. Prior to enrolling at Iowa State as a “late-in-life” memoir candidate, McCracken considered herself a non-traditional student of writing. To support the twenty-plus years she spent writing her memoir, she studied memoirs of favorite authors and attended their writing workshops and retreats, while also attending continuing education writing programs. Always longing for a writing community, McCracken received a certificate from the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) in order to lead her own generative writing workshops—for both writers seeking community and for cancer support groups.
When McCracken was invited to teach at OLLI—ISU during her second year as an Iowa State MFA candidate, she welcomed the opportunity. Most of her classes are based in the AWA method, which believes that everyone is a writer, everyone has a strong and unique voice, we are all born with creative genius, and writing as an art form belongs to all people.
While teaching at OLLI, McCracken realized that her “Over 50+” writers craved opportunities to write in community like she had. Thus was born the Ames Writers Collective.Since its inception in the fall of 2021, the Ames Writers Collective has
provided outreach writing programs to cancer patients and survivors, adolescent and Over 50+ writers. For writers wishing to write in community, the Ames Writers Collective offers Tuesday Open Writes.
Programming also includes partnerships with the Octagon Art Gallery and Iowa State University Museums, Words Meet Art, where writers use art as writing prompts and read their stories or poems publicly. The Author Spotlight series co-hosted with KHOI Community Radio features local and visiting authors. And, the pop-up Swift Literary Festival features local and regional authors and their books.
