Our History
Dr. Lorraine Haataia met Cheri Cowell at the October 2007 Glorieta Christian Writers Conference in New Mexico. Cheri was a member of Word Weavers, a flourishing Christian writers group that had been meeting in Orlando, Florida, for the past decade. Cheri described the format of Word Weavers monthly meetings and Lorraine was intrigued. In November, Lorraine joined Word Weavers and began commuting from Jacksonville to Orlando for the monthly meetings the second Saturday of each month.
In the first critique session Lorraine attended, Janice Elsheimer brought a chapter of the Word Weavers book she was co-authoring with Eva Marie Everson, one of the original members of Word Weavers. Lorraine was very interested in learning more about starting a writers group and Janice was equally eager to have another set of eyes on the Word Weavers manuscript. Lorraine read the manuscript and e-mailed critique notes to Janice. The Word Weavers story further encouraged Lorraine to start a serious critique group in Jacksonville. She was so impressed with Word Weavers critique format that she wanted to experience it more often and closer to home.
With more than four hours of commute time from Jacksonville to Orlando and back each month, Lorraine had plenty of time to imagine the ideal writers group. It would include small group sessions modeled after Word Weavers, giving every member an opportunity for a thorough manuscript critique at every meeting. It would meet weekly so it would attract writers who were serious about publishing. It would incorporate Toastmasters principles of efficient meeting management, and growing effective communicators and leaders. Participants would benefit from a different speaker every week.
First Coast Christian Writers (FCCW) held its first weekly meeting at Christ's Church in Jacksonville, FL, on Thursday, January 24, 2008. Eleven people showed up, including Larry Leech, president of Word Weavers. The first meeting was called by FCCW's founder and president, Lorraine Haataia. We began by adopting Word Weavers mission statement which was "to support fellow members in finding our unique voices and to develop our writing to a publishable level."
On January 15, 2009, FCCW members rewrote the mission statement to better express what we established in our first year. Today, the mission of First Coast Christian Writers is to support its members through: improving writing skills with education and critiques, networking within the publishing industry, and holding each other accountable to achieve goals.
Lorraine Haataia served as club president from January 2008 through December 2009.
In 2021, after twelve years of weekly meetings and in the midst of a pandemic, we changed to a monthly meeting schedule.
