Austin Bat Cave (ABC) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides children and teenagers, ages 6-18, with opportunities to develop their creative and expository writing skills. ABC is dedicated to connecting a diverse population of young leaders with a community of adult volunteers by providing one-on-one tutoring. All that ABC does is free of charge.[1].
The Austin Bat Cave offers many different avenues for students of all ages to grow as writers. The drop-in after school tutoring hours provide time for help with homework and a more laid-back environment for mentoring. The in-school tutoring focuses on absorbing grammar and increasing fluency through creative writing; students in this program generate and revise their own work as well as acting as their own editorial board to put together an anthology for the year called, “Hand and Wing”. The evening and weekend writing workshops offer students an opportunity to get together with local artists from local band Okkervil River to director Carlos Trevino to poet Jenny Brown and editor of the Texas Monthly, Jake Silverstein. During these sessions with local artists, students learn about and work on a particular aspect of a writer’s craft. This summer, ABC will host two summer camps, What is Art? which will be available for children in 9th-12th grade and Ethnography/Oral History of Clarksville which will be available for children in 5th-8th grade. Through a partnership with the Blanton Museum, ABC will offer the week-long What is Art? workshop on the nature of relating to and creating art. Children will take journeys both literally and figuratively touring the outdoor sculpture gardens, the indoor galleries and the worlds and minds of the work and artists into which they choose to delve. Ethnography/ Oral History of Clarksville will explore the first Freedomtown west of the Mississippi. ABC’s neighborhood has many stories waiting to be discovered by the budding ethnographers and oral historians of the Austin Bat Cave. Children will be tromping around Sweet Home Baptist Church and Enfield Drug, both institutional pillars of life in Clarksville, and learning the art of the interview. Children will write the stories they hear, and will also work to understand their role as historians, interpreters and how to manage their authorial presence.
This upcoming year, ABC will continue to host after-school tutoring at their site in Clarksville and their in-school programs with AVID and TAKS preparation at Austin High School. ABC will also expand to partner with the AVID program at Kealing Middle School. As well, students can look forward to a great set of workshops this fall: Writing about Music, Making a Literary Journal, Songwriting, Hip-Hop Poetry, College Essay. Its center is currently located in the Clarksville Historic Districtarea of the Austin, TX. [2].
A network of over 100 volunteers from the arts, education, and activist communities of Austin support Austin Bat Cave’s mission statement. The organization thrives as a hub for both established and emerging writers. This past spring, Austin Bat Cave kicked off their Volunteer Reading Series [come up with a title for the series] hosting two evening readings and this upcoming fall, they will expand their volunteer community development by adding a writers’ workshop for adults complete with weekly workshops and visiting writers. [3].
Despite the organization’s youth and the hard economic times, ABC has a strong donor base, which stems mostly from local Austin Businesses. These supporters include Shuld Ayers Foundation, Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation, University of Texas College of Education, Little Mule Studio, Blanton Museum of Art, and the City of Austin.[4].
