NEWS & CITY LIFE
N o npr o fi t | By Hugh Minor
Room for Creativity Providence’s growing writers club moves to the Valley to make space for expanded programming
For much of April, What Cheer Writers Club staff and volunteers were busy packing and moving books and furniture from their offices in downtown Providence to their new Valley neighborhood headquarters at 400 Harris Avenue. A community-based nonprofit, What Cheer Writers Club was founded in 2018 to support local creatives, especially writers, illustrators, and podcasters, through their coworking space, available to members at a discounted price. Since, they have grown a network of more than 400 members and seek to connect the local literary community through tailored programming, workshops, and gatherings. “The new location is a better fit for us,”
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says operations director Jillian Winters. “Our neighbors are community partners who we already work with, like Queer.Archive.Work/Binch Press Studio and the Steel Yard, so we’ll have even more opportunities to collaborate.” According to a member survey, the biggest barrier to participation at their former space was parking downtown. Responding to the call, in fall 2019, the staff and board of directors decided to look for a bigger, more accessible space with plenty of parking. In addition to checking those boxes, program director Jodie Vinson shares, “we love that we found a big open space that we could design to fit the needs of our
members as we’ve grown to understand them over the past five years.” By July 2022, they had signed a lease, were shortly after approved for architectural developments and, finally, construction. The What Cheer team is planning for a soft opening on May 15 and a grand opening June 24. “Our goal has always been to create both quiet spaces where writers can work independently as well as community areas where people can come together and support one another in the creative process,” said Winters. Like many organizations, the team at What Cheer responded to the COVID-19 crisis by going virtual with many of their programs
Photos courtesy of What Cheer Writers Club
Program director Jodie Vinson in the new What Cheer Writers Club space