Iowa musician to lead songwriting workshop

WASHINGTON — The Washington Public Library will change pace at its writers workshop Saturday, Oct. 22, hosting Iowa-born Musician Carol Montag for a songwriting workshop.

Assistant Librarian LeAnn Kunz said it was a first for the group, which has traditionally focused on a variety of more conventional writing forms.

“I’m always trying to put some variety into our writers workshops because people write in so many different ways,” she said. “I wanted to expand a little bit and have other people come. People writing song lyrics is very much an art, and it’s a different kind of writing, and I’m encouraging our regular people who attend (to) come and just try it, to see what it’s like.”

Kunz said Montag’s teachings could expand the horizons of other writers, even if they weren’t musically focused.

“We cover every genre of writing, because we want everybody to feel welcome,” she said. “It’s not just the people who write novels coming to this group. My philosophy is that you can learn something about writing from anybody that tells you their craft.”

For her part, Carol Montag said such workshops offered insight for songwriters like herself.

“I’m interested in being with other singer/songwriters, and other writers,” she said. “We have to have some kind of a community, whether that’s in Washington, Iowa or Cedar Rapids or San Francisco. It doesn’t really matter where, what matters is you’re able to bounce ideas off each other, share songs and things that you care about.”

While it’s a drastically different craft, Montag said the lessons from folk songwriting like her own were applicable to other genres and other types of writing entirely.

“There’s all different types of writers and all different types of interests in why people write, but they all feel some way that they want to record their thoughts,” she said. “I think all writers are interested in what other people are doing, as far as their writing goes. It’s good to meet other people from different parts of the state or the country who are writers, and found out what they’ve been doing.”

Montag will lead the Washington Writers’ Workshop Saturday, Oct. 22, from 10 a.m. to noon. She also will perform a free concert there at 2 p.m. the same day.

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