Hello,
My name is Sean Aaron Bowers. I am a Portland native, full-time student, full-time retail worker, and most-of-the-time writer. I have just recently been accepted to the Tin House Summer Writers' Workshop. However, I was not awarded the scholarship I needed to afford the tuition. So I am starting this fundraising campaign in hopes of raising the money needed to attend this prestigious workshop.
I have been a writer my whole life, or at least as far back as I can remember. Throughout my youth, through incarceration and homelessness, I spent many nights in a cell or under a street light trying to write my way to redemption. After getting sober and getting off the streets in 2008, I eventually retuned to my hometown of Portland Oregon to chase my passion of poetry and literature. By the end of 2012, my first collection of poetry We Were Warriors (used bold in place of italics) was published by University of Hell Press. I quickly learned that my writing could become a vehicle for the millions of voices of forgotten and wasted youth I had spent my youth surrounded by. So many people wasitng away in American gutters were being forgotten and ignored, and I was sure that maybe I could give a voice to the voiceless.
So applying to Tin House Writers' Workshop is the next big step in further developing my voice and hopefully perfecting my craft to reach yet even more people. The poetry faculty this year, just like every year, are impeccable masters of their craft and the oppurtunity to work with them would be a once in a lifetime oppurtunity. I am also hoping it might give me a bit more insight into the elusive art of teaching the craft of writing, and better skills at workshopping, so that I may later use it my future career as a poetry professor.
Tuition, plus room & board for the workshop is $1,800. Now granted, I do live in Portland, and therefore do not neccessarily need the room and board. But I believe I would benefit much more greatly from the week if I hasd the oppurtunity to fully immerse myself in the workshop and the community, without taking the extra three hours of travel time every day to and from Reed College to North Portland. To be immersed in a community of writing and fostering the best in ourselves and each other, is a major aspect ofthe week and not something to leave behind, if possible.
A $600 deposit will be invoiced to me upon reservation confirmation, I then have till June 9th to fullfill the rest of the payment.
Everybody who donates will recieve a thank you in my upcoming book from University of Hell Press, unless specified that you want to remain anonymous.
Thank yoh so very much for your support