When It All Burns Down
A very sad post about the Lexington Writer's Room and how you can help
I think I need to write this just to have it all in one place. Those of you who’ve been subscribers for awhile know about the labor of love that is the nonprofit Lexington Writer’s Room — a co-working and event space and community that I started with our dear friend Lisa Haneberg (then bringing Alison Kerr on the board).
You’ve watched as we launched and held our open house right before the pandemic shut everything down and then made co-working not the greatest idea. You’ve watched as we relaunched in our new space, as vaccines had us all looking up, into a 200-plus-year-old building with all the charm and character we wanted, which allowed us to expand and truly begin to make it into the place we all dreamed about. To get to a point where I could help other writers, in an immediate way, like this, is honestly a dream I didn’t know I had until we met Lisa and embarked on trying this crazy scheme to see if it would work.
We made a place filled with light and plants and art and quirks. Quiet and rooms where you could talk all you want. A home for writers to work and celebrate and meet and cross-pollinate and have a supportive community that helped them do their best work and figure out what to do after that. That’s truly what the aim is: to help people do their best work, to create a space where work will exist that might not otherwise.
This year has seen that vision thrive. Due to a generous fundraiser we were able to do courtesy of Subterranean Press and other donations and a series of grants, we were able to begin to bounce back from the pandemic. We have 54 members as of this writing, and a wonderful partnership with the Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative and its home Carnegie Center. Our members include several bestsellers, and people working on their first books. Poets, journalists, memoirists, novelists of all kinds…
And then today…
I woke up to the news that the building we are housed in was on fire and had been for hours. I got dressed and walked down the street, because we live nearby. The fire was finally under control, there were still dozens of firefighters present. And I was there again a few minutes ago, when only a skeleton crew remained.
Donate to the Lexington Writer’s Room.
My parents and my childhood home were the victims of arson when I was in college, so I’ve been around a fire and its aftermath. I really have never seen anything like this. I’m talking all out of order, I know. I’m processing. Still.
I haven’t been inside. I have looked inside.
I just.
I’ve talked to some reporters, because that used to be my old job. And because I love the Lexington Writer’s Room with all my heart. This place, this community, is so special. There are few like it in the country. We’re a nonprofit, because most writers don’t have money, but they deserve space and time and support.
I have a book launch in a week, but one of the best I’ve ever had was in this space.
With my dear John Scalzi, and in a space we will probably never see again. Certainly not as it was. We haven’t been inside yet, but I’m positive everything in there is lost. Signed books from friends, all our quirky art, all our things. And a lot of history.
This was our dream space. But dreams are a renewable resource, difficult as this is.
As I’ve said to many reporters today, things can be replaced or gone on without. People can’t be. We are all still here. No one was hurt. Not writers, not the people from the house next door, who thankfully weren’t there, and not any firefighters. We writers know about worst-case scenarios and we know about beating the odds.
We will rebuild. We will reopen, but it looks like it will almost certainly be somewhere else, due to the sheer extent of the destruction. We have insurance on most of our contents, but if you have the funds to toss toward this great love of mine and all of ours’, this place we’ve made to lift writers up and support them, we could use it as we manage this awful spell and transition… Or even if you can only signal boost. I promise you, it will be money and support well spent.
Donate to the Lexington Writer’s Room.
Now I’m going to do what I haven’t all day. Cry.
And what I’ve been doing since 7 a.m. Planning what to do next.
My absolute hugest thanks to everyone who has already donated and shared and sent kind messages offering to help. To our business friends who have already declared us their charity of the month for May (Nate’s Coffee!) and Subterranean Press who have already pledged to help when the time is right. To my beloved St. Martin’s Press for sharing today. THANK YOU.
To our member writers: You are what makes this place great, the most special, irreplaceable part of it. We’re going to be thinking and planning and making decisions with you in mind over the coming days and weeks. We love you.
p.s.
Oh wow, heartbreaking. I remember you talking about this place with such love in your voice. You’re right, it is so special, this place you made for people to write in, read in, be together in. An uncountable number of hours must have gone into planning, designing, opening, maintaining this place of love and community. I’m so sorry to hear about this loss.
I’m so sorry.