It Was a Dark and Plotless Night…

The trees outside were blowing and the sky was threatening to open up for the first time in months. It was a perfect night for a Grimm Brothers-style fairy tale, and Elizabeth Von Beringberg was treating ten members of the Minneapolis Writers’ Workshop to her version of exactly that. Gathered around a table in a Zuhrah Shrine Center in South Minneapolis, the group listened closely and scribbled madly on formal comment sheets as she read through intricate descriptions of castles, countesses, and cobblestone streets.

Peggie Carlson, the evening’s mediator, called time. The hands shot up. Von Beringberg listened as historical fiction writer after poet after novelist volunteered their comments and suggestions. Although each complimented the incredibly descriptive work, all suggested significant changes to the story’s format and language. Minnesota Nice wasn’t exactly checked at the door, but the constructive criticism was unfiltered. At first, the soft-spoken Von Beringberg attempted to explain away the critiques, but she had not uttered more than a sentence when Carlson kindly hushed her. “I know you’re new to the group, and I know it’s hard,” the children’s book author and memoir writer told her. “But you have to be quiet and not respond. We’d be defending all night otherwise.”

Publication has been the members’ aim since the workshop first began, back in the Depression era. Thought to be the oldest meeting of its kind in the country, it was originally started with Works Progress Administration funds; state WPA director Hubert Humphrey approved monies for two “Writing to Sell” classes at the downtown library. Students soon requested that one of these classes be changed into a workshop format and voilà! The Minnesota Writers’ Workshop was formed.

The group hasn’t received federal funds since 1939, and the location has shifted more than a few times in the last sixty-odd years (most of the moves came after a long run at the 620 Club on Hennepin Avenue), but the premise remains the same: Support writers of all kinds and help them write and edit their way to publication. It seems to work. Back in 1971, the last time anyone counted, workshop members had 400 published books.

On this fall evening, the reading and critiquing continued into Mary Boyd’s anticlimactic end to a romance novel; through Charlotte Sullivan’s hilarious poem about the loss of her feminist principles when her husband looks under the hood of her car; to Kate Kane’s funny but rushed memoir of her father. Then, exactly two hours after it began, Carlson brought the gavel down and the workshop adjourned for the several thousandth time in its existence. A call was made to head to the bar (the Shriners have one in-house!), but some things have changed, and most people passed on the invite, gathered their manuscripts, and rushed out into the restless night.—Katie Quirk