The Indiana Writers Center is pleased to offer INwords: a publishing intiative featuring original works generated by programs as the Indiana Writers Center. We are currently offering the following titles, available for purchase in our store.
A Commotion in Your Heart: Notes on Writing and Life
 | A Commotion in Your Heart: Notes on Writing and Life “is a memoir about the writing life,” Shoup said. Told in vignettes that focus on moments of understanding about what writing is, and is not, the book charts Shoup’s journey from her childhood dream of becoming an author through the ups and downs of publishing, “as well as the joys of teaching aspiring writers of all ages,” she said. “Some writers just write. That’s enough for them. But over time I became obsessed with the process of writing stories as I was with the stories themselves. Those moments of intuition never fail to excite me. It’s tempting to say that they feel like pieces of a puzzle clicking into place—they do feel that way—but it’s a puzzle that can never be solved. How can you expect to understand how the human mind works when creating a story, when all you have is a human mind to understand it with? It’s impossible, of course. But writers are people who keep trying anyway.” “A Commotion in Your Heart should be on every writer’s bookshelf, next to Bird by Bird, Writing Down the Bones and Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings. Reading it is like having a writing partner who hands you tools but also knows exactly what you’re going through at every stage of the process and inspires you with her tenacity, wisdom and humor.” Price- $15.00 *The profits of the book sales go to the IWC to further our mission. |
Only Witness
| Jim Powell is the founder of the Indiana Writers Center, a nonprofit organization that has supported Indiana writers for forty years. Among the characters you’ll find in his collection of nineteen stories are a young woman who’s under the thrall of a former Nazi, a man who’s shepherding his elderly mother through Alzheimer’s Disease, a child used as a pawn by his mother, and a writer who connects with an old friend who will never change. The settings range from Indianapolis to Vienna, Krakow, Puerto Vallarta, and beyond—but no matter its setting, each story is filtered through the lens of a writer who knows who he is and where he’s from. Powell’s stories are intense, even disturbing at times. But they are always true. Each one reflects the wisdom and generosity of a life lived, a witness to the vast complexity of the human condition. “Jim Powell’s book of stories, Only Witness, bears insightful and lyrical witness to the everyday comedy and tragedy of our time, with an admirably authentic Hoosier flavor. Powell joins the great tradition of Nicholson, Tarkington and Vonnegut.” —Dan Wakefield, author of Going All the Way Price- $15.00 |
Not Like the Rest of Us: An Anthology of Contemporary Indiana Writers
| Not Like the Rest of Us: An Anthology of Contemporary Indiana Writers features seventy-eight notable Indiana poets, fiction writers and essayists, including Marianne Boruch, Jared Carter, Mari Evans, Karen Joy Fowler, Helen Frost, John Green, Philip Gulley, Patricia Henley, Susan Neville, Scott Russell Sanders, and Dan Wakefield. The most experienced writers here are in their nineties, the youngest in their twenties. Some are best-selling authors, some widely known in literary circles, some just beginning. Many were born and raised in Indiana, others found their way here and stayed. Edited by Barbara Shoup & Rachel Sahaidachny Read the article in the Indianapolis Star. An officially endorsed Indiana Bicentennial Legacy Project, the book extends the appreciation of Indiana’s rich literary heritage into the 21st century, celebrating authors who are bringing honor to the Hoosier state in our own time. Special Web Price- $15.00 |
Joy Comes in the Morning
| Facing fears of the past and exploring dreams of the future, women from the Julian Center shelter for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault reclaim their lives through writing. Edited by Rachel Sahaidachny |
Memory Workshop
| Maybe you want to preserve the stories of your life for your family; maybe you want to write them solely for yourself–to better understand what made you who you are, perhaps to help heal a hurt that won’t let go. Maybe you feel you have a story to tell that the wider world needs to know. Memory Workshop invites you to enter the satisfying process of getting those stories told. It offers practical insights about how writing works and a series of writing exercises to help you identify the moments in your life worth telling and find the voice to bring them to life on the page. |
Dream Workshop
| Dream Workshop offers you the opportunity to explore and reflect on your own lifetime of dreams. We hope its questions and quotes inspire you and that its writing prompts trigger memories that bring insights and-better yet-fuel future dreaming. |
Where Mercy and Truth Meet: Homeless Women of Wheeler Speak
| In the summer of 2015, Indiana Writers Center staff and volunteers met with homeless women at the Wheeler Mission Community Center for Women and Children to help them write about their lives. The stories they wrote are honest and raw, full of struggle, heartbreak, and hope. “It’s all there. Their beauty, their strength, their power, their pain…all of it. Such a gorgeous well-rounded view of what it means to survive and sometimes thrive in a life filled with traumatic events. The book honors these beautiful survivors. Thank you for seeing these phenomenal women for who they really are and allowing them to share their stories.” Read a wonderful article about Where Mercy and Truth Meet by Dan Carpenter. |
Finding the Words: Stories and Poems by Women Veterans
| Ten women veterans from a WWII Marine to an Army gunner in Iraq, share personal stories of what it’s like to be a woman in the U.S. Military. With courage, honesty, wit, and wisdom, they find the words. Edited by Shari Wagner |
Flying Island
 | Flying Island is the Online Literary Journal of the Indiana Writers Center accepting submissions on a rolling basis from Midwest residents and those with significant ties to the Midwest. For submissions info, visit the journal online here. Flying Island Online began in January of 2014 and is edited by David Hassler, JL Kato and Julianna Thibodeaux. A collection of the best online writing contributions in Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction was published in March of 2015. |
Monday Coffee & Other Stories
 | Mothers of children with special needs feel guilt, sadness, and joy simultaneously, which is hard to understand. The mothers in this anthology don’t seek pity; instead, they illustrate a complexity of emotions that start with diagnosis, explore care in both early and later years, and invite us to witness the aftermath of too-early deaths of their children. Weaving together essays, poems, and graphics by mothers of children with a wide range of disabilities, Jones and Whiteacre have edited a collection that highlights the challenges and joys of motherhood, exposing both fears and guilty pleasures as mothers explore their relationships with their children, partners, families, caregivers, educators, and the medical community. |
I Remember: Indianapolis Youth Write about Their Lives 2019
| Funded by the Summer Youth Program Fund, the Indiana Writers Center’s “Building a Rainbow” creative writing program serves a diverse group of young people in Indianapolis, improving their writing and literacy skills through a series of creative writing exercises that teach them how to write the stories of their own lives. Working one-on-one, Writers Center instructors, student teachers, and volunteers help the young writers get their words on the page and also encourage them to reflect upon the experiences they’ve written about, considering how what they’ve learned can help them make their dreams come true. I Remember is a collection of writings completed during the Indiana Writers Center summer youth writing programs. |
I Remember: Indianapolis Youth Write about Their Lives 2018
| Funded by the Summer Youth Program Fund, the Indiana Writers Center’s “Building a Rainbow” creative writing program serves a diverse group of young people in Indianapolis, improving their writing and literacy skills through a series of creative writing exercises that teach them how to write the stories of their own lives. Working one-on-one, Writers Center instructors, student teachers, and volunteers help the young writers get their words on the page and also encourage them to reflect upon the experiences they’ve written about, considering how what they’ve learned can help them make their dreams come true. I Remember is a collection of writings completed during the Indiana Writers Center summer youth writing programs. |
I Remember: Indianapolis Youth Write about Their Lives 2016
 | Funded by the Summer Youth Program Fund, the Indiana Writers Center’s “Building a Rainbow” creative writing program serves a diverse group of young people in Indianapolis, improving their writing and literacy skills through a series of creative writing exercises that teach them how to write the stories of their own lives. Working one-on-one, Writers Center instructors, student teachers, and volunteers help the young writers get their words on the page and also encourage them to reflect upon the experiences they’ve written about, considering how what they’ve learned can help them make their dreams come true. I Remember is a collection of writings completed during the Indiana Writers Center summer youth writing programs. |
Writing Murder: A Basic Guide to Writing Mystery Fiction
 | Jeanne Dams, Phil Dunlap, Michael Allan Dymmoch, Kit Ehrman, Terrence Faherty, S. M. Harding, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Dana Kaye, William Kent Krueger, Beverle Graves Myers, Tony Perona, Mary Saums, Sharon Short, Barbara Shoup and Mark Richard Zubro: These acclaimed Midwestern authors have contributed essays on the basics of writing mystery novels, sharing insights on fiction elements including setting, characters, dialogue, plot and research. In addition, authors offer insight on the genre, how to build suspense, point of view, the circle of openings/endings and marketing the manuscript. |
Returning: Stories from the Indianapolis Senior Center
 | In this engaging collection, nine seniors return to signi?cant moments in their lives, presenting stories that range from hilarious, to thoughtful, to hauntingly poetic. Discover why one writer takes his name from a railroad line and how another tries to change beauty pageant history. Find out what happens when Uncle Bob, his wife and thirteen children arrive uninvited and stay overnight. Spend spring break with four co-eds who travel to Florida, inspired by the 1960 movie, Where the Boys Are. Learn what it is like to serve in the Vietnam War or as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia. Grieve with a mother as she copes with the loss of her nine-year-old son. Cheer for the girl who takes on the playground bully. Enjoy “his” and “her” versions of how two of the writers meet and fall in love. Returning represents the work of a memoir class taught by Shari Wagner and sponsored by the Indiana Writers Center and the Indianapolis Senior Center. Wagner’s introduction describes the assignments she gave to her class and offers suggestions for writing your own life stories. |
Sitting at the Feet of Our Elders: Flanner House Speaks
 | There is an African proverb that reminds us, When an old man dies, a library burns down. Henry Butler, a Flanner House Elder, shared this proverb on the first day of our project when asked, why do we need to write down our memories? The Flanner House seniors and elders are rich with stories–stories that come from the gut and from the heart. Sitting at the Feet of our Elders: Flanner House Speaks is a project of the Indiana Writers Center and Flanner House Indianapolis and has been generously funded by the Central Indiana Community Foundation’s James Proctor Fund for Aged Men and Women in Marion County. |
I Remember: Indianapolis Youth Write About Their Lives
 | I Remember: Indianapolis Youth Write About Their Lives is a collection of writing by students in the Indiana Writers Center’s 2013 summer learning program, “Building a Rainbow.” The program serves a diverse group of young people in Indianapolis, improving their writing and literacy skills through a series of creative writing exercises that teach them how to write the stories of their own lives. Working one-on-one, Writers Center instructors, student teachers, and volunteers help the young writers get their words on the page and also encourage them to reflect upon the experiences they’ve written about, considering how what they’ve learned can help them make their dreams come true. “I Remember” also includes the writing prompts used with children, making it an excellent resource for teachers and parents. |
Edited by Darolyn Jones, Mark Latta, Barbara Shoup, Julianna Thibodeaux and Shari Wagner.
I Remember: Indianapolis Youth Write about Their Lives 2014
 | Funded by the Summer Youth Program Fund, the Indiana Writers Center’s “Building a Rainbow” creative writing program serves a diverse group of young people in Indianapolis, improving their writing and literacy skills through a series of creative writing exercises that teach them how to write the stories of their own lives. Working one-on-one, Writers Center instructors, student teachers, and volunteers help the young writers get their words on the page and also encourage them to reflect upon the experiences they’ve written about, considering how what they’ve learned can help them make their dreams come true. “I Remember” is a collection of writings completed during the Indiana Writers Center summer youth writing programs, along with observations about teaching and the prompts used to elicit the writing. |
I Remember: Indianapolis Youth Write about Their Lives 2015
 | Funded by the Summer Youth Program Fund, the Indiana Writers Center’s “Building a Rainbow” creative writing program serves a diverse group of young people in Indianapolis, improving their writing and literacy skills through a series of creative writing exercises that teach them how to write the stories of their own lives. Working one-on-one, Writers Center instructors, student teachers, and volunteers help the young writers get their words on the page and also encourage them to reflect upon the experiences they’ve written about, considering how what they’ve learned can help them make their dreams come true. I Remember is a collection of writings completed during the Indiana Writers Center summer youth writing programs. |
I Remember: Creative Writing by Indianapolis Youth
 | I Remember: Creative Writing by Indianapolis Youth is bursting with lively writing from the students attending the St. Florian Leadership Camp, La Plaza’s Leadership institute for Latino Youth (LILY), and the Concord Neighborhood Center Summer Day Camp. Their stories and poems will take you from a chair in a beauty shop to a beach in Mexica; from Grandma’s kitchen to the Taj Mahal. You’ll plunge downward in a rollercoaster, paddle a canoe up a creek, and join in a Puerto Rican folk dance. You’ll meet the people they love. Edited by Darolyn Jones, Mark Latta, Barbara Shoup, Julianna Thibodeaux and Shari Wagner. |