SASE: THE WRITE PLACE:

SASE: The Write Place was founded by writer Carolyn Holbrook-Montgomery and a group of other writers in the fall of 1993 in response to a perceived need for a writers' organization that was affordable, accessible, and easy-to-find for writers of diverse cultural and social backgrounds. SASE (originally styled S.A.S.E.) offered classes, workshops, readings, and mentorship programs, in an effort to provide a stimulating environment for writers at all levels of development, with a particular focus on youth and racial and cultural minorities. It worked with writers in all genres, from fiction to autobiography to documentation.

The organization was founded in response to requests by writers for an alternative to the Loft, another Twin Cities-based literary organization. It was the rebirth of the former Whittier Writers' Workshop (originally Whittier Park Writers Workshop), which was founded in 1981. SASE merged with Intermedia Arts Minnesota in 2006.

Carolyn Holbrook-Montgomery served as program director at the Loft for five years prior to establishing SASE. She was also founder-director of the Whittier Park Writers Workshop.

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These are primarily the records of SASE executive director Carolyn Holbrook-Montgomery. The collection documents the internal working of the organization and various literary and writing programs with which it was involved. Materials include administrative subject files, grant files, photographs, media files, and program files. There is correspondence and memoranda, board minutes, contracts, financial information, newspaper clippings, project reports, and some posters and flyers. Audio-visual materials include snapshot photographs, optical disks, and a video recording.

There is information about SASE's work with young writers and poets, fund raising, poetry readings and "slams" (competitions), and about programs it offered at Minneapolis and St. Paul high schools and at the Dakota and Ramsey County juvenile detention centers. Correspondents include Holbrook-Montgomery, officials of the Jerome Foundation and other funding agencies, school personnel, various Twin Cities arts and cultural organizations, Minnesota state agencies, program participants, and others.

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These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. SASE: The Write Place Organization Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 16,110.

Location of Master Files:

Digital master of the videocassette is maintained on the Society's secure digital collections storage servers and is managed and preserved in accordance with archival best practices.

The original videocassette was disposed after the material was digitally reformatted into an mov file.

Processing Information:

Processed by: David B. Peterson, February 2007.

Digitization and encoding by April Rodriguez, September 3, 2021.

Digital video transferred from the master videocassette by the Minnesota Historical Society for preservation purposes (September, 2021).

Digitization was made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on November 4, 2008.

Catalog ID number: 990063288260104294

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Location

Internet

Heart in the Write Place, 2000. 1 master video file (2 minutes, 22 seconds): MOV (540 MB) and 1 user video file: MP4 (23 MB).

Promotional video of various poets reading their work.

Digital video

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SASE newsletters Intersections and SASE About Town are in the Minnesota Historical Society serials collection.

Records of Intermedia Arts Minnesota are in the Minnesota Historical Society manuscripts collection.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

African Americans -- Minnesota.

American literature -- Minnesota.

American poetry -- Minnesota.

Authors.

Authors -- Societies, etc.

Authors, American -- Minnesota.

Authors as teachers.

Authorship.

High school students' writings.

Hmong Americans -- Minnesota.

Literature.

Minority authors -- Minnesota.

Nonprofit organizations -- Minnesota.

Poetry -- Study and teaching -- Minnesota.

Poets.

Problem youth -- Minnesota.

Teenagers' writings, American -- Minnesota.

Writing centers -- Minnesota.

Persons:

Connolly, Carol.

Holbrook-Montgomery, Carolyn.

Organizations:

Hmong American Institute for Literature (St. Paul, Minn.).

Jerome Foundation.

Types of Documents:

Grants.

Optical disks.

Photographs.

Video recordings (physical artifacts).

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