Personal and Professional Support: Finding Inspiration Through Your Community

Background/Literature Review

A review of the literature on finding inspiration through writing in the community reaffirms that writing is a social act, and that individuals from various walks of life, from prison inmates to recent immigrants, benefit from community writing endeavors. Writing has a marked impact on local environments, whether through articles in journals, grant applications, or other locally-focused writing practices. While some proponents of writing may misuse the tool for non-communitarian aims, most writing in the community contributes to the wellbeing of individuals and groups. While there are different modes of writing for different times, different people and different places, writing is an act that contributes profoundly to social connectedness, and writing communities support meaningful growth through what one researcher called “cultural rhetorical ecologies,” or intersections between community, culture, and writing.