Milspeak Foundation Inc

MilSpeak Foundation (501c3) exists to raise awareness about creative works by military people to a more visible and influential position in American culture, and seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for creative works by military people by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging creativity among military people. MilSpeak Foundation aspires to make creative works by military people directly relevant to the public. MilSpeak Foundation introduces military people to stress management through participation in the Arts, publishes eBooks by military people (MilSpeak Books) and a digital literary magazine (MilSpeak Memo), preserves in art and literature a history of the everyday in military life, and fosters communication and understanding between military and civilian cultures.

MilSpeak Foundation began as a creative writing workshop for military people. MilSpeak Foundation provides programs at no cost to participants. Staffed by volunteers, the foundation has operated for three years with a microscopic budget (about a thousand dollars a year) to accomplish important work with military people.

Fourteen MilSpeak Creative Writing Seminars (MCWS) have been held to date at Marine Corps Air Station, Beaufort, South Carolina. MCWS participants learn to write a true story about their military experience, and, in the process learn to communicate the inside story to the outside world in a positive way. MCWS facilitators are volunteers, and military people who are also writers and/or educators. Participants are invited to share their writing with other military people by publishing their work at the foundation’s website Writers Gallery, and by publishing in MilSpeak Memo.

Through the Foundation's Sied Books program, more than 2000 downloads of MilSpeak Books titles and the anthology MilSpeak: Warriors, Veterans, Family and Friends Writing the Military Experience have been gifted to deployed military members, wounded warriors, disabled veterans, and their family members. The MilSpeak anthology is a handbook for military people who want to write and contains the memoirs written by participants of the first eight MCWSs.  

MilSpeak Books, the foundation's nonprofit publisher, has produced 12 creative works written by military people. MilSpeak Books publishes only creative works by military people and was founded in recognition that the significant contribution of military people to American literature is often overlooked. MilSpeak Books also serves, as does MilSpeak Memo (the foundation's literary magazine) to preserve through writing and art the history of the everyday of military life, to offer military people a venue for their writing and art, and to provide a means for military people to share and to promote their writing and art at no cost to them. Seven volumes of MilSpeak Memo have been published since January 2009. Memo is available free online to all readers at the foundation website.

MilSpeak Foundation strives to keep its programs free to military people because participating in the arts and reading or experiencing the works of military people can be life altering and life saving. Just knowing that another military person has successfully navigated the Odyssean obstacles of military life can build enough hope for someone who wants to give up to continue. Sometimes solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems are found in the writing and art these military freely share with each other, and in conversations generated by sharing in the Arts. Most importantly MilSpeak Foundation is maturing into an organization that creates community among military people in the arts, and thus provides support, mentorship, and networking for a community whose contributions to American Arts are often overlooked and undervalued.

Other MilSpeak Foundation programs await funding or are already launched. Please visit the website to learn more. Your donation will help to keep MilSpeak Foundation programs free and to help the organization continue to grow.