Community Agreements
By participating in the Salt Tooth Writers (STW), you agree with and commit to the following practices. If you are in violation of these agreements at any time, you will be held accountable, either within the workshop itself, or privately via e-mail. At the hosts’ discretion, you may be asked to seek an alternative community should the format of STW not be suitable to your expressed needs.
1. STW is a vulnerability and authenticity triathlon. Modeled similarly to a Peer Support Network and following the modality of the STRENGTHS model, this is a space for those who dare to show up and be seen. STW is trauma-informed and community-oriented.
2. This is not a critique workshop. You will begin a body of work each time you participate. Where it goes beyond the 10 minutes you’ve written is entirely up to you. If you would like more one-on-one feedback or editing services, please post a collaboration request on the FB group or in the STW website forum to discuss among your peers. Never assume that your peers are willing to collaborate for free, though you may privately discuss any terms that suit your mutual endeavors. Additionally, you may contact Frances Story on Patreon for an editing quote or additional resources.
3. FEEDBACK. Positive feedback only. If you offer feedback at all, be specific. What moved you within the writing? What impacted you about the delivery? Refrain from blanket or comparative statements, lectures, and monologuing. We are all equal here.
a. Establish rapport before offering feedback. Your first FOUR workshops, you are allowed to write and read, but you are NOT permitted to give feedback. This is a guardrail to protect both newcomers and seasoned members. You will establish trustworthiness by being vulnerable (sharing your work) and simultaneously learn how to offer feedback by witnessing feedback offerings in action.
b. WWKC bills itself as “aggressively vulnerable,” because people are joining with the full weight of their human experience in tow. Therefore, any comment or feedback we offer should be governed by a sense of respect and restraint based with how we have come to know the writer and the writer has allowed themself to be known. When you offer feedback without mutual understanding, that feedback can only be about you and not about the readers’ writing.
4. Absolutely NO QUESTIONS & NO ADVICE. During the sharing portion of STW, under no circumstances is any participant permitted to ask the author further questions about the context of their work or life. What is available to the community to know about the author and their writing is what the author has read aloud.
a. STW community members are encouraged to develop relationships with one another within the framework of the workshop, learning about each other through the shared writing. Consensual expansion of those relationships through the Facebook Group or website forum is encouraged.
b. While it may reflect some of the intimacy and bonding of a mental health setting (group therapy), STW is a peer-based community support network, not a professional mental health environment. Frances Story is not a mental health professional nor does she claim to be.
5. No offerings. No invitations. There is no hierarchy of knowledge, life skills, or insight at STW. We are all equals. We all come equipped with inconceivable amounts of survival solutions to endure life’s challenges. Save it for interpersonal relationships. You are welcome to build consensual relationships through the STW FB page or within class, in which the boundaries of the personal relationship can be negotiated between individuals.
6. Absolutely NO OUTSIDE MATERIAL. In honoring the vulnerable space and limited time we have to share our first drafts, no outside material may be brought into class to share at any time. No prefaces or conclusions to the first draft writing are offered. Writers should read only what they’ve written during voluntary sharing time.
7. This is a BRAVE space, not a SAFE space. You are free to share with your peers any writing you create during your time in the STW workshop. Censorship will occur at Frances Story’s discretion. Otherwise, you are free to act as you so choose, but you will be held accountable for your work by your peers. Be brave by being authentic but do not confuse that with safety to demean, degrade or otherwise harm others.
8. Don’t be an asshole. The first infraction against the STW Agreements results in an emailed warning. The second infraction results in a ban. In rare cases, being an asshole will result in an automatic removal and ban from STW. There are no refunds issued for those banned due to their own bad behavior. Salt Tooth Writers DBA The Writing Workshop KC reserves the right to decline and/or cancel the membership of any person at any time.
a. Anonymous membership is not permitted. We foster community not commodity.
b. Sometimes, Salt Tooth Writers / WWKC as a collective cannot provide for the specific needs of an individual, be it personal or professional. Not everything is for everybody. If you do not find your place here, we firmly believe your right place is out there somewhere.