Five More Years!

Dear Members, 

This is your board chair writing on behalf of the whole board with some good news. If you were able to attend our Sneak Previews fundraiser, you’ve already heard. If you weren’t, you can catch the livestream replay on our Facebook page. It was a magical, inspirational evening. 

As you know, we have been at a crossroads this winter, figuring out whether we could fundraise enough to sustainably move forward. There was a serious risk we would close our doors when our lease ended in July. I’m delighted to say that we made it! 

One of our newest members, David Kloiber, has offered us space in a building he owns downtown. This is a beneficial, charitable arrangement that will allow us to grow the Lexington Writer’s Room in all ways. We’re signing a FIVE year lease and we move in this summer. We’re not going anywhere, and I assure you we are dreaming big, and we can’t wait to show you the new space. 

We will be on the second floor above Frank & Dino’s restaurant, located at the corner of Mill and Short Streets. We’ll have free parking a short walk away, and lots of paid and some free street parking nearby, plus assorted garages in the area. 

Here is what we love most about the new location:

• It’s much larger than our current space–about three times the square footage!

• The layout allows for a division of quiet and collaborative rooms. We will be designating multiple rooms as quiet spaces because we have heard from you how important quiet work rooms are to you.

• The space has…wait for it…a library. A real, actual library that can hold thousands of books. And we plan to stock it.

• Did I mention it’s above a cool bar? And it’s walking distance to so many restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.

• We have a generous donor who is allocating FREE parking spots for our members a few blocks away. And there are lots of other parking options nearby, many of which are free on evenings and weekends.

• And, most importantly, we are able to keep the LWR going without raising our membership rate. The board unanimously decided that providing a low cost creative space is paramount to our mission. We’ve made all decisions with this mission in mind.

We will continue to support your writing journeys, and this means we’ll be able to do it better than ever. More details to come, as they say. But, for now, we are so grateful to our entire community. Lexington has shown up to support us, as always, and we appreciate it more than I can say. 

Also, I’d like to add a huge thanks to our all-volunteer board and to Pam, our community manager, for working so, so hard to make all this possible. In the meantime, keep on coming to our current space and writing all the words. We’ll be announcing the next write-in date soon.

With much gratitude,

Gwenda Bond and the LWR Board

New Wish Lists

We're thankful for the support we've received from people who heard news about the fire that forced us to move from our beloved location on Second Street. We lost most of our contents ("contents" seems inadequate to describe our special workspace) but know we can and will re-create an inspiring space for our writer members.

We've created two wish lists to help you help us move into our new location at 343 E. High Street (the old Common Grounds Coffee Shop). Please share this post with pals who might be doing some spring cleaning or are in the furniture business. :-)

You'll find our goods donation wish list here and our Amazon wishlist here.

If you have something you think might be a good fit for our new space, let us know by emailing us at info@lexwritersroom.org. Please also send a picture of the item(s) so we can determine if the piece will fit into our space. Many standard desks will be larger than we can accommodate in our coworking space, for example. Here some pictures of our space (before the fire) to give you a sense for our set up. We have lots of desks and desk chairs, and comfortable chairs and side tables sprinkled throughout. And plants!

Whether you're able to donate or help by sharing this with others, THANK YOU!!!

We Have New Space!

We are absolutely delighted to announce that the Lexington Writer's Room (LWR) has signed a lease agreement to move to the former Common Grounds Coffee Shop location at 343 East High Street, following the recent fire that devastated our location at the corner of Upper and Second Streets.

“We are so grateful to our local community and to the larger writing world for its support during this difficult time,” said co-founder and LWR Board Chair Lisa Haneberg. “We remain as committed as ever to our mission of supporting local writers with workspace, space for events, and a robust writing community. We are doubly thrilled to be able to move into such a beloved building—one where many of us have written in the past.”

The LWR is a nonprofit organization that exists to create an inclusive, collaborative, and supportive environment where local writers produce more work and expand their readership. To build a sustainable career, writers need a productive workspace, accountability partners, collaborators, professional connections, and support. The LWR subsidizes the cost of membership to keep it affordable, as well as providing additional support to underrepresented writers in financial need. It has received grant funding from the Kentucky Humanities and Kentucky Arts Councils, among others.

Founded at the beginning of the pandemic, the LWR has managed to thrive in the past year, going from 13 original member writers to 54 now, and developing close partnerships with the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and its Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative.

The LWR also extends its thanks to all who have reached out with support and donations. So far, more than $12,000 has been raised to support the nonprofit’s recovery and move costs. The organization will be working diligently to replace the items lost in the fire and reopen in its new space in the coming months.

“It has been so heartening to see people step up with financial support for our mission,” said Gwenda Bond, co-founder and board member. “Our needs continue, so we invite everyone to keep spreading the word as we work toward moving into our new space. Kentucky has a special literary tradition and we plan to be part of it for a long time to come.”