Writing Space Fever
Last month, the Chicago Reader ran an article about two writing spaces opening in Chicago. More noteworthy was the fact that both writing spaces were opening simultaneously, on the same block and without knowledge of their competition. What's more, both spaces were started by two women writers. Sound familiar? (Ahem, Paragraph was started by two women writers.) Julie Saltzman and Susan McLaughlin Clark, a soccer mom who lives in Evanston, opened Uptown Writers' Space in September. Meanwhile, Pat Cronin and Amy Davis, another Evanston soccer mom, were finishing up the renovations of a similar space called The Writers Workspace right down the block. Both pairs of women said they heard rumors of another space opening, but figured people were talking of their own endeavor. What are the chances that two sets of women writers would be opening the same business on the same block at the same time, and that one of the women from each partnership was a soccer mom from Evanston?
The facts are uncanny, but the timing may not be as much of a coincidence as it seems. All four women got the idea when they read about Paragraph in The New York Times last year, and it took a year in planning to get the businesses off the ground. Which is about the same amount of time we spent baking the idea for Paragraph and getting it off the ground. Definitely the sincerest form of flattery (though we wish the design of The Writers Workspace's site was a little less flattering). We hope there's plenty of room for two spaces on the same block run by women writers. Cheers to the windy city.
