On April 11th at 6PM, the University Writing Program (UWP) will host a cocktail reception on the Mount Vernon Campus to introduce the next stage of its Veterans Writing Initiative: a veterans’ writing and filmmaking summer seminar exploring the transition between military and civilian life.
Working with two non-profits, the Patton Veterans Project and I WAS THERE Film Workshops (in which veterans make short films about their experiences), The Veterans Writing Project and the UWP will offer an all-expenses paid week-long summer seminar in June for a select group of veteran and active-military participants.
UWP Executive Director and Associate Professor Derek Malone-France launched this initiative with two principal goals: To establish GWU as a center of academic thought on best practices for engaging and empowering veterans in the writing classroom, and to provide veterans with the skills and confidence they need, not only to succeed in the writing classroom, but also to create a body of literature and short films that tell their stories as only they can.
Benjamin Patton, founder of the Patton Veterans Project, is the son of Joanne Holbrook Patton (Mt. Vernon Seminary, 1948) and the late Major General George Smith Patton IV. He is the youngest grandson of WWII’s General George S. Patton, Jr. His I WAS THERE films workshops are held at military bases and veterans facilities around the country and emphasize the value of film and narrative as a healing tool for Post-Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury. Ben is also the author of “Growing Up Patton” (Berkley-Caliber 2012). For more information on his work, visit iwastherefilms.org.
Event Details
4/11/2013
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Mount Vernon Campus, West Hall B108
2100 Foxhall Road, NW
Register today!
The Veterans Writing Project, founded by veteran Ron Capps, provides no-cost writing seminars for veterans and their family members. The VWP also publishes the literary journal O-Dark-Thirty and will begin publishing books by veterans this year under its own imprint, BCG Books. All VWP instructors are also part of the National Endowment for the Arts program Operation Homecoming, which places writing instructors in therapeutic settings at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
For for information, visit http://veteranswriting.org
