Category: In The Media

The Swift Youth Writers Workshop is back!

In partnership with the Ames Public Library, our Swift Youth Writers Workshops offer kids an escape into creative writing and the opportunity to connect with other youth writers.

Regardless of genre, for five days writers will come together in a safe space to read an inspirational piece of writing and write together to timed-writing prompts. At the end of each session, writers will be invited to read aloud to the group to receive positive feedback.These FREE sessions will be held at the Ames Public Library.

Learn more here

We are honored to be the recipient of the Veronika Ruedenberg Cultural Entrepreneur Award this year, recognizing our founder, Ana McCracken, for starting the Ames Writers Collective in 2021.

This award is meant for a community-minded pioneer who has shown the vision and courage to break ground for some new institution for the enrichment of Ames’ cultural life, creating something where there was nothing.

Veronika Ruedenberg was an inspiration to many. She supported individual creative efforts in those who wanted to try something new, regardless of how unusual or difficult. She was open-minded and encouraged this in others. Her good intuition, her unflinching good will, her selfless enthusiasm and her confidence in other people, made her an effective cultural pioneer and the institutions she built up grew and prospered long after she was gone. She was living proof of the joy in the creative journey, rather than the safety of the bandwagon.

Many thanks to a board member for accepting the award while Ana was out of the country!

Words Meet Art, an outreach program of the Ames Writers Collective, is a literary arts event demonstrating through words how art, used as a writing prompt, can invoke feelings, trigger memories, and inspire conversations across divides and demographics. For inspiration, writers will interact with the Harriet Bart exhibition at the Christian Petersen Art Museum to compose and publicly read poems, flash fiction or creative nonfiction, and/or perform monologues or music.

For this first session of Words Meet Art, participants will receive a guided tour of Harriet Bart: Material Alchemy to educate and inspire creativity led by Sydney Marshall, Curator, University Museums, Iowa State University. An introduction to “writing to writing prompts” will follow, with writing sessions to connect writers to the exhibition. This session will be led by Ana McCracken, founder of the Ames Writers Collective, and/or an Iowa State University MFA in Creative Writing and Environment Program candidate. There are two options for attending Part 1: March 30 from 6pm to 8:30pm , and April 1 from 10am to 12:30pm.

Participants may bring their own drink and snacks for breaks. Refreshments are not provided. These events are free, but registration is required.

Words Meet Art, Part 1 – March 30
Words Meet Art, Part 1 – April 1

Then, on April 2 from 2pm to 4pm writers will come together for Words Meet Art, Part 2.

The writers who participated in Words Meet Art Part 1 will present their flash fiction, poems, creative nonfiction, a monologue, and/or perform music in response to the exhibition Harriet Bart: Material Alchemy in the Christian Petersen Art Museum.

Registration is not required to attend Part 2/the reading. Writers participating in the reading will sign up during Part 1.

Ana spoke with KHOI’s Community Bookshelf. Community Book Shelf features primarily books, short stories, and poetry by local authors, read sometimes by the authors, sometimes by local narrators.

Listen to the full interview:




Our Founder, Ana McCracken, was one of three interviewed on Iowa Public Radio’s Talk of Iowa show recently.

The show, hosted by Charity Nebbe, explored the new options available for non-academic writers in Iowa.

First up is Julie Gammack, columnist and producer of Okoboji Writers’ Retreat. Then our own Ana McCracken speaks, and finally, Andrea Wilson, certified narrative therapist, founder and executive director of Iowa Writers’ House.

All three are focused on building supportive communities for aspiring writers who are not involved in a university program or other academic-based writer’s setting.

Listen to the show, here!

Ana McCracken, Ames Writers Collective’s founder, read a short piece as part of the Page Street writers at this year’s Litquake in San Francisco.

The topic was “Welcome to Enlightenment.”

Listen to Ana’s reading here:




Litquake is San Francisco’s annual literary festival. Originally a single-day event, it now has a two-week run in mid-October, as well as year-round programs and workshops.

Litquake consists of readings, discussions, film screenings, and themed events held at hundreds of Bay Area venues, in an attempt to bring as many disparate types of literary art to as many people as possible. The festival now features over 100 events and around 600 authors, and draws over 21,000 attendees annually. In 2021, 96% of all events were free and open to the public.

Litquake’s diverse live programs are created with the aim of inspiring critical engagement with the key issues of the day, bringing people together around the common humanity encapsulated in literature, and perpetuating a sense of literary community, as well as a vibrant forum for Bay Area writing. They work to produce events that are accessible to all. Read more about Litquake here. Learn more about Page Street here.

In July we held the first Ames Writers Collective Swift Youth Writing Workshop, and it was a huge success!

It was fun, and challenging, and all of us learned so much from writing together.

Our writers were twelve kids ranging from 7th grade to 12th grade, and they wrote for five days to writing prompts. After each writing session the kids were gently encouraged to read their writing to the group. It took a bit for the kids to feel comfortable reading aloud, but in the end everyone read their freshly written pieces. Some of what the kids had to say:

“I did share my writing because I felt comfortable and knew I wouldn’t be judged.”

“I learnt by sharing with the group that I’m more confident than I thought.”

One thing that is truly awesome is that there was a nice mix of ages. The youth librarian suggested the age range and it worked exactly as he said it would. The success of this workshop demonstrates that we’re all filled with stories that want to be told. And stories cross divides.

The Swift Youth Writers Workshop was made possible by a Rotary Club of Ames Community Grant. The workshop was held in partnership with the Ames Public Library, which provided the Rotary Room and lunches from the summer lunch program for the group. A big thank you to the Rotary Club of Ames and the Ames Public Library, and a big shout out to Jessi Brock for co-facilitating with me!

Video – Writing Circle Wednesdays

If you are going through cancer treatment, or have completed treatment within the last two years, why would you want to be part of a weekly writing circle? What if you don’t think of yourself as a writer?

Writing Circle attendees can answer those questions better than we can! In this video, attendees explain how their weekly group is more than the sum of its parts, how it helps, and how much it means to them.

Our Cancer Writing Circle, held in partnership with the William R. Bliss Cancer Resource Center, offers those receiving treatment for cancer or those who have completed treatment within the last two years a safe space to connect, express themselves, and to feel heard. During sessions, participants write together from writing prompts, which inspire stories from their lives. Writers are gently invited to read their “fresh” writing, and each writer receives positive feedback from the group.

On the air, Mary Richards and Ana discuss how Ana became a writer, her hybrid-memoir classes at OLLI-ISU, the launch of the Ames Writers Collective and its outreach programs—Writing Circle Wednesdays offering cancer support, Open Write Tuesdays, and the Swift Youth Writers Workshop.