Indiegogo

38567

One City One Prompt

Deepening Community One Line at a Time

What is the Transformative Language Arts Network?


The Transformative Language Arts Network (TLAN) is a national not-for-profit organization founded in 2006 to support individuals and organizations in promoting the written and spoken word as a tool for personal and community transformation. Watch an inspiring video about our organization, featuring the music of Kelly Hunt and further explaining our three main goals:


  1. Developing the field of Transformative Language Arts (TLA) 

  2. Networking people who are already working in this field, particularly through artist residencies, publications, education, and community programs 

  3. Providing right livelihood resources to help writers and artists in this emerging field make a living from their calling and work in service to their communities


The Network organizes the Power of Words conference; has published The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader, the first study of TLA in theory and practice; distributes resources on TLA and Right Livelihood; and this spring were launching on-line classes, with offerings on writing and healing, poetry, ecology and art, and support for poets, writers, storytellers, and performers who want to develop skills that help them move toward make a living through arts-based community projects. This spring we want to get materials ready for a summer launch of our next endeavor: the One City One Prompt Project.


What is One City, One Prompt?

One City, One Prompt is a series of hosted writing, performance, and community-building events across the country.  Through One City, One Prompt, communities can come together to create writing, stories and other arts, and through the process of writing and speaking together, cultivate greater civility, deeper dialogue, and sense of purpose. Each community, working with writers, storytellers and performers with extensive facilitation experience, will write on one theme of importance to that community.

Each experience is unique but collectively threads ideas towards a shared understanding of our greater national community, allowing participants, through the power of poetry, to begin to bridge partisan political views and engage in a civil discourse on community values. These events will culminate through an extensive, interactive website that will share participants' writing, experience, and each participating city's communal discoveries about itself through a variety of media, including the written word, audio recordings, photography and film.



What We Need and What You Can Get

We are seeking funds to help us fully launch this project, including to create a One City, One Prompt organizing manual for facilitators, distribute support materials that will be used for the events, support local and national marketing, provide technical support for community facilitators and technical services to create and maintain the online component of this project. All the community facilitators have already agreed to volunteer their time, and all community events will be open and free to the public. We're just looking for the funds to get the other pieces in place. We currently have grant proposals out and are awaiting response, however we also thought we would reach out directly to see how people responded.


Folks donating will receive our gratitude and number of other gifts as our way of connecting with you and saying thanks. These include membership to the Network, advertising in our newsletter, sponsor pages on our site, and copies of the TLA Reader.    


Other Ways You Can Help

Visit the Transformative Language Arts website website and pass it along to all those you know who are engaged in writing, storytelling, performance and any artist committed to personal growth and social transformation. 

Team on This Campaign: