Since leaving my full-time position at the Dramatists Guild, I've been doing more and more of my freelance teaching online. And it's got me thinking about the ways in which meeting a group of folks for a class or a creative collaboration in video conference as opposed to in person brings new challenges but also unique advantages to the creative work. At first, of course, I chose to offer workshops online via Zoom out of necessity. In order to make myself available to a greater world of artists seeking my help, I needed to cast the net beyond my own zip code. Organizing writing workshops through Zoom has allowed me to reach more writers living in a wide variety of cities and towns across the country. I knew there would be a trade-off, of course. Meeting online is not the same as meeting in person. But the added value of gathering creative folk from all corners to co-mingle and learn from their shared experience seemed like a worthy tradeoff.
What I failed to understand at first, was just how many additional benefits the online forum could bring to this undertaking. Not only in building a sense of community among workshop participants but just as vividly, in the qualitative improvement I've observed in the writing of most workshop members. Why might this be the case?
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