Creative Writing Institute – Tutored writing classes that will take your talent to the next level.

Creative Writing Institute has an amazing story lurking behind the scenes. We seek the woman who inspired our creation. The woman whose name we don't know. The woman we have never met and cannot find. The woman who doesn't even know we exist.

This is the second writing school I have founded. The first one was a raving success, but this one started out to be a project for the underprivileged. As I was building the site in 2008, I discovered an article about a Texas lady who developed cancer at the pinnacle of her career. As her body wasted away, friends and coworkers became uncomfortable in her presence and at length, only immediate family remained. Bald, sick, suicidal, and dying, she decided to do something she had always wanted to do - write.

At first, just a couple of times a week. Then short stories that painted new worlds into existence. Before long, she realized how much she looked forward to writing every day, and she wrote daily. As she did so, her mind released the stress of her illness. She didn't know she had stumbled across a scientific method wherein many have found total healing.

Combined with medical treatment, she not only experienced a full and miraculous recovery, but she also returned to the hospital where she was once a patient and went from room to room, sharing her story with other cancer patients. With her encouragement, they wrote stories, too. She picked them up every week, made little comments on them and returned them to the writer. The article concluded by saying that this woman had only one wish in life - that she could take a writing course someday.

I didn't sleep any night that week for thinking of her and what a difference one person could make in life. It made me want to do the same. I decided to find her and offer her a free writing course, but I couldn't relocate the article. After searching 2-3 months, I realized that if I had found her, I would have donated a class and gone on with my life but by not finding her I felt called to carry her torch. Facts flew to my mind like a jigsaw puzzle coming together all at once:

The new writing school could be a non-profit organization that would scholarship thousands of cancer patients, but why stop there?
Creative Writing Institute could offer new life to people with all manner of disabilities. We could encourage and educate sick children. We could strengthen family units.
We could train the unemployed
We could give senior citizens new purpose in life
Paying students and donors could support the scholarship program

The possibilities were endless! The whole plan hinged on one thing - me. So I answered the call. I'm not sure why I chose cancer patients. Maybe because of the Mystery Lady. Maybe because my father and brother died horrible cancer deaths. Now my 93-year old mother has breast cancer. My own future is none too secure. Thus, Creative Writing Institute was born October 5, 2008. Now we're a legal 501(c)3 non-profit charity that is also piloting a writing program for the blind. How exciting!

Who is the Mystery Lady? Where is she? In Dallas or Austin, Tx., I think. Someday I'll find her. She must know she has founded a writing school for cancer patients. She must know that her courage and sacrifice will touch thousands of lives. And when we find her, we will make her an honorary founding member.

1. Donate $200 to sponsor a cancer patient in a writing course. If you can't afford that, send any size gift and we'll be most appreciate. You can do that here: http://www.creativewritinginstitute.com/donate.php

2. Volunteer work (gathering writing articles, social networking, secretarial duties, developing the reference room, or help with contests, marketing, fund-raising and research)