I jokingly refer to NLAPW as my 'scheduled culture' but it is an absolutely wonderful experience for anyone in the creative arts. Check out www.nlapw.org for membership as well as ongoing events. Learn from others while sharing your creative spirit!
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As volunteer PR chair, I'm posting -
Founded in 1897, the National League of American Pen Women is a recipient of the Literary Hall of Fame Award in recognition of its contribution to the cultural life of the United States and the George Washington Honor Medal sponsored by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge for its collaborative effort to promote an understanding and appreciation of America’s rich heritage and unique freedoms.
The League’s mission is to encourage, recognize, and promote the production of creative work of professional standard in Art, Letters, and Music and, through outreach activities, provide educational, creative, and professional support to members and non-members in these disciplines. Presently, membership consists of more than 100 branches located throughout the United States. In addition to branch membership, the League offers student, member-at-large and international affiliate (non-citizen) memberships and encourages the formation of state associations.
Membership, comprised of three comprehensive classifications, Letters, Art, and Music, offers association with other creative professional women through participation in workshops, discussion groups, and lectures related to the creative process. Writing and poetry contests, art exhibitions (both juried and judged), and music composition competitions are conducted at local branch, state, and national levels of the organization. See www.nlapw.org for details of events, contests, or membership, or, for further details of League history, visit http://www.americanpenwomen.org/history/penArtsBuilding.cfm.
As the NLAPW spokesperson, national president Jean Holmes is available to give speeches and lectures for professional organizations. For details of her availability, contact the national headquarters by email at nlapw1@verizon.net, by phone at 202-785-1997, or by mail at NLAPW, 1300 Seventeenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036-1973.
I've been a member of the National League of American Pen Women since 1985 and although I've moved around the country several times, I've always kept up my membership in my small branch in rural Mississippi. The beating heart of the League is its National Headquarters, the Pen Arts building, in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, D.C. where national records are kept and where the National Executive Board meets four times a year. But the lifeblood of the NLAPW flows through its branches and members-at-large all over the nation, from Vermont to Hawaii, Florida to California and almost everywhere in between. This is where creative women find inspiration from each other, and work together in their communities to fulfill the mission of our over-100 year old organization. The NLAPW is uncommon as a nationwide organization in welcoming professional women in three disciplines: Art, Letters and Music. We have composers, poets, novelists, choreographers, watercolorists, sculptors, painters, arrangers--the list could go on. Our diversity is our strength and our creativity our power--the power to bring art to many lives.