As most of you know, this is the time of year we have our annual pot luck gathering to celebrate 12 months of Gateless Writing Salons.

We meet in the wilds of West-West for a potluck of delicious vittles and some sweet community around what we have created together through writing.

Even if you only come to write once in a while or if you haven't lightened the door in a while, this is a time to bask in some writerly community.

And this year is unique in its offering.

This year, we are very lucky to have a special "showing" of new work by award-winning playwright Lauren Feldman.  The very talented Lauren Feldman (writing retreat participant and Tuesday night writer) has been awarded support from her work by the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for Arts.

She has chosen Gateless Writers to showcase her work in progress.  The play she is working on is the training, passions, questions, and experiences of a group of student circus artists, and knowing Lauren, we will be creatively wowed and thoroughly inspired.

Right now Lauren is in the rough draft stage (perfect for us!), about to undergo revisions through readings, feedback, and development. Once the script has been polished into a rehearsal-ready draft, she'll be sending it out to theaters nationally and abroad for production. (This is not new for Lauren, please see her full, very impressive bio here: http://www.laurenfeldman.com/about/)

In an unbelievably beautiful act of both faith and generosity, Lauren has chosen our group of esteemed and aspiring writers to do a reading from her play-in-progress (about 30 minutes). She has then asked for feedback from us based on the Gateless Writing methodology.

This is a celebration of how we move in the world as writers and after our feedback on the reading, there will be a discussion on living and working as writers. How do we both dive deeply into our work and also find financial support for those endeavors? What challenges are we facing as writers? How can we find the current that buoys the work rather than trying to fight the tides of change as they hit the creative world? What are our choices and outlets?   And any other burning questions that may wake you up in the middle of the night.