Local writers scribbled, typed, mused and scratched at last Monday’s “Shut Up & Write” gathering in the back of the Emporium. The weekly opportunity to quiet down and get words on the page was organized by local poet Artie Isaac, pictured at right. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
‘Shut Up & Write!’ at the Emporium
- Published: May 17, 2025
By Wil Hoffman
When it comes to tapping in with the creative muses, some call it an exercise, some a challenge, and some a job. Sometimes all that is required is the right environment.
That’s what local poet, Artie Isaac, had in mind when he introduced the Yellow Springs community to “Shut Up & Write!”
Fliers can be found all around the village advertising “Shut Up & Write!” They elucidate best what is to be expected upon arrival: “Every Monday, at 4 p.m., we introduce ourselves and declare what we intend to write. From journals to sonnets, letters to emails, any intention counts. Then we ring a little bell and, well, cease talking and type (or scribble). Soon enough, the first-timers look up, surprised by all their writing. Then they realize that only 20 minutes have passed. So, back to the writing (it’s surprising how productive only one hour can be). After an hour, the bell rings, and we bid each other a warm farewell. It is not our practice to share and critique.”
More or less an inclusive club, this society has chapters all across the nation, including one in nearby Montgomery County. Seeing a lack of one in Greene County encouraged Isaac to start his own, eventually co-founding this group with former Yellow Springs News Editor Diane Chiddister.
“I liked the idea of wanting to help writers see themselves as writers,” Isaac said. “But I was new in town, and thought it would be helpful to start with someone who already has this community around them.”
Each chapter maintains a presence and communicates with other chapters via online forum meetup.com. This was originally how Isaac was able to get involved.
Spending most of his professional career in advertising and as an adjunct instructor, Isaac originally began writing in high school. He said writing is one of the three things he learned that has served him throughout his life, with the other two being improvisation and cheerleading.
Though he said he “mainly prefer[s] correspondence,” Isaac’s writing spans a number of forms. In 2020, he published “Poems In Seclusion,” and in 2021, “Cheerleading: A Little Encouragement,” a collection of essays, poems and meditations that he described as being geared toward “people who turn 50.” He also teaches a monthly session at the Senior Center on writing ethical wills — or, as he said, “a way to memorialize ethics and values for an individual’s family members, neighbors and descendants.”
When he’s leading the group at Shut Up & Write, Isaac said he can typically be found working on his poetry.
“When I think of the first thing I’ve published, which was most meaningful to me, what comes to mind is a book of poetry for dogs called “Throw Me a Bone,” he said, adding that the poetry collection was published in 2019 — the same year he moved to Yellow Springs from Columbus, and the same year he started trying his hand at poetry and helped found Shut Up & Write.
He told the News that “Throw Me a Bone” grew out of both the writing group and a course on “Creativity and Personal Mastery” he was taking at the time, in which he was given an assignment on “mindfulness.”
“It required us to take two mundane tasks — one that we enjoy and one that we don’t necessarily like — and to engage with them,” Isaac said. “Not to get them over with, but to engage with them.”
Initially, Isaac said, the mundane tasks he chose were washing dishes and walking the dog, though he added that he couldn’t remember which of the tasks he liked and which he didn’t. Nevertheless, he took his dog for a walk one day, and the dog stopped to sniff a magnolia leaf.
“We were talking about how [the magnolia leaf] was — well, I was talking, and she was busy sniffing — when it suddenly occurred to me that, all my life, there have been maybe 15 to 20 things that I regularly say to dogs,” Isaac said. “Later that day I was attending Shut Up & Write and thought I might write down a title for each of those conversations. I actually found that it wasn’t 15 to 20, it was more like 40! That list became a table of contents for the book.”
Beyond getting to work on his own pieces, Isaac explained a kind of social symbiosis that has kept him coming back as shepherd of Shut up and Write, saying that it can be “surprisingly helpful” for writers to take time for their craft while in the presence of others doing the same thing.
“There is the altruistic intent and delight in watching other people write — but it can also be self-serving,” he said. “I need it for myself for two reasons: The first is that I need a dedicated hour of writing, but also I need to know that there will be an hour of writing in the next week. Just knowing there’s an hour coming sparks a list of prompts to be maintained. Because I know that it will be explored eventually.”
As the name of the group suggests, its members spend an hour writing in relative silence. Besides the period of quiet while the writers are hard at work, there are moments of enkindled chatter both before and after the hour is complete, when Isaac rings a small bell to stir everyone into and out of their flow state.
Isaac said he worries that the name of the organization — with its inherent directive to “shut up” — implies an element of exclusivity. On the contrary, Isaac said he hopes to encourage other writers to join, particularly because the group is free to join and exists purely for the subjective experience of each writer.
“I’m not crazy about the name,” he said. “It’s a good interior monologue, but it sounds like we expect the other people at this wonderful coffee shop to ‘shut up’ — but we don’t. Nobody ever says ‘shut up.’ It’s not exactly our spirit.”
*The author is a Springfield resident and graduate of Ohio University who also reports for The Hub Springfield.
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