A Communal Pen: A Writing Workshop celebrating Memories, Stories, and Traditions of Place in Conjunction with the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street’s Traveling exhibit, Crossroads: Change in Rural America, will be held on June 8th at the Dillon County Library from 10:00 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. It is limited to 25 participants To register, visit the Dillon County Theatre website, www.dilloncountytheatre.com.
What are the memories, stories and traditions that make our community home? What landmarks, customs, sights and sounds connect us with family, friends and neighbors, while highlighting our unique experience and identity? Sometimes, you’ve just got to write it down.
In the Communal Pen workshop, we will write to celebrate and explore our connections to place and community. Often, it is in our written words that memory lives. The writing process can itself help us to awaken and preserve thoughts and traditions, offering insight, understanding and respect to present and future generations. This three-hour writing workshop draws inspiration from the Smithsonian exhibit Crossroads: Change in Rural America as a springboard for igniting our own stories, giving voice to our shared and individual experience of place.

Communal Pen is free and open to the public. Space is limited; registration will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Walk-in registration is welcome, as space permits.
No previous experience necessary!
We invite participants to view the exhibit before the workshop, and to pay special attention to those images and ideas that are most relatable you. On the day of the workshop, please bring a photo and/ or object that has special meaning for you. This item will be used during a writing exercise.
The Communal Pen writing workshop is offered by the South Carolina Arts Commission, in partnership with the South
Carolina Humanities Council, in conjunction with the traveling Smithsonian exhibition, Crossroads: Change in Rural
America. Crossroads is presented through the Museum on Main Street (MoMS) program as part of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. MoMS provides access to the Smithsonian for small-town America through museum exhibitions, research, educational resources, and programming. Communal Pen is developed through the SC Arts Commission’s place-based initiative, the Art of Community: Rural SC, a new framework for engagement, learning,  and action in rural communities. The writing workshops are coordinated through the SCAC’s Folklife & Traditional Arts and Community Arts Development programs, with generous support from the SC Humanities Council.