The Redbud Writing Project brings the transformative power of creative writing to adults in North Carolina's Research Triangle region. Since 2019, we have offered classes in fiction, memoir, poetry, and more to thousands of students. We employ approximately ten instructors, all of them professional writers who hold graduate degrees in creative writing, to teach our courses at bookstores and community spaces across the Triangle. We follow a philosophy of rigor and care in our classes: students receive actionable, concrete feedback the likes of which they would receive in a graduate-level course.

Some of our classes are tuition-based, meaning that students pay to participate, while others are free to the community: we believe strongly that creative writing should be accessible to everyone, not just those who can afford it. We've offered free classes to survivors of domestic violence and assault; BIPOC writers; people writing about their reproductive justice experiences; and more. For example, in spring 2022, we offered a free two-hour memoir course to low-income, BIPOC seniors at the Durham Center for Senior Life. The students were thrilled at the opportunity to learn about memoir and start the process of setting down their life story; they felt this was especially important because Durham is changing so rapidly and stories of the people who grew up in the city will soon be lost.

In these cost-free classes, as well as in our tuition-based classes, we've noted the transformative healing power of creative writing: our students regularly speak to the catharsis of finding a space where they can center their own narrative and gain access to an artistic community.