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Ben Jackson is the Owner and Executive Director of The Writing Salon, a creative writing school dedicated to supporting adults in their storytelling journey. With an extensive background in teaching composition, literature, and creative writing, he has contributed to various educational institutions, including the University of San Francisco. Ben’s poetry has been featured in prominent journals and magazines, earning him several accolades and fellowships. After taking over The Writing Salon in 2016, he has focused on expanding the school’s community-oriented approach to foster a supportive environment for aspiring writers.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [03:33] Ben Jackson discusses the inspiring 25-year journey of The Writing Salon
  • [04:40] How Ben transitioned from a student to the owner and executive director
  • [09:41] The challenges and rewards of building a dedicated staff for a creative institution
  • [23:09] The transformative journey of becoming a published author
  • [25:10] Ben shares the influences and teachings of his father
  • [32:18] How The Writing Salon pivoted during COVID-19 and ensured continuity for its students
  • [34:55] Unique offerings of The Writing Salon, including the renowned Round Robin class
  • [43:05] What determines The Writing Salon’s pricing model?
  • [48:02] The diverse range of classes and learning formats provided by The Writing Salon
  • [52:13] The Writing Salon’s strategy for advertising in a competitive market
  • [59:43] Tips for culture building in a company

In this episode…

In a rapidly evolving world, fostering a vibrant community of storytellers requires passion and adaptability. The challenges of unforeseen circumstances, such as a global pandemic, have necessitated innovative approaches to nurture supportive environments for writers. So, how can we cultivate a resilient and engaged literary community that thrives on connection and collaboration?

Literature and creative writing expert Ben Jackson delves into the story behind The Writing Salon’s inception and its 25-year legacy. He highlights the importance of building a supportive team and how they’ve adapted to the ever-changing landscape of adult education. From individual anecdotes of student success to the strategies that have fostered growth, Ben provides insight into the art of nurturing a creative writing community. By offering various classes and fostering one-on-one mentorships, The Writing Salon stays true to its mission of encouraging the storytelling passion within each writer.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Ben Jackson, Owner and Executive Director of The Writing Salon, about the enriching experience of writing and fostering creative communities. Ben discusses the inspiring 25-year journey of The Writing Salon, how it pivoted during COVID-19 and ensured continuity for its students, and how it advertises itself in the competitive market.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Special Mention(s):

Related episode(s):

Quotable moments: 

  • “The writing salon is a creative writing school for adults, a place where people can tell their stories and get support from a welcoming community.”
  • “Writing can happen alone, but what writers benefit from most is when they have an opportunity to share and get feedback.”
  • “There’s a certain institutional knowledge associated with being able to mark out the most optimal schedule for classes across genres.”
  • “We cherish our teachers; they’ve been the strength of our community, feeling a sense of commitment both ways.”
  • “It’s intoxicating to have that kind of personal relationship with an acclaimed author. People take it over and over again.”

Action Steps: 

  1. Engage in daily writing practices: Incorporating a structured daily writing routine can significantly enhance your writing skills over time. 
  2. Seek community and accountability: Joining a writing community can provide essential support and accountability, which are crucial for sustained creative growth. 
  3. Invest in continuing education and workshops: This step is effective in expanding your knowledge base and refining your craft.
  4. Explore personal storytelling: Use personal experiences as a foundation for storytelling to create authentic and compelling narratives. 
  5. Utilize mentorship opportunities: Seek mentorship from experienced writers to gain valuable feedback and guidance tailored to your writing goals.

Sponsor for this episode

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Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22 

Dr Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today, is no different. I have a good friend, Ben Jackson. You can check him out that he runs The Writing Salon. You can check him out writingsalons.com. Ben, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast, people should check out. Some fan favorites, I had the co-founder of Pixar on, the founder of Atari on, the co-founder of RXBar on — P90x. This one has been one of the hardest interviews to get, and this is, this is out of all the ones I’ve done, but I’ve been looking forward to this the most. Okay, so this is a long time coming, so I appreciate you coming on. You can check out more episodes on inspiredinsider.com. You know this episode is actually brought to you by Rise25. And at Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast.

We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast, and we do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution. So Ben, we call ourselves kind of magic elves that run in the background and make it look easy for the host so they can create amazing content, create amazing relationships, and, most importantly, run their business. For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships, and I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I’ve found no better way, over the past decade, to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should. If you have questions, you can go to rise25.com or email us at [email protected].

I am excited to introduce Ben Jackson. He’s the owner and executive director of The Writing Salon. And The Writing Salon is a creative writing school for adults, and is really a place where people can tell their stories and their stories that they’ve always wanted to tell and get out into the universe, and this is all while receiving support and guidance from a welcoming community. Because, Ben you and I know like sometimes it’s hard to sit down and write or do something every single day or on a consistent basis, accountability is key for these things, and welcoming accountability is better. They just actually celebrated its 25th anniversary. And Ben’s taught composition, Literature and Creative Writing at a wide range of educational institutions and retreat centers, including the University of San Francisco, The Writing Salon, and it’s the E Salon Institute. His poetry has actually appeared in multiple journals and magazines, like New England Review, Southern Review, Poetry Daily. And he’s also earned numerous awards and fellowships from the tour house, foundation, Warren Wilson College, Vermont Studio Center and Ben, thanks for joining me.

Ben Jackson 3:14 

Thanks so much, Jeremy.

Jeremy Weisz 3:15 

I’m excited, just start off, and there’s a video piece to this. So if you’re listening to the audio. I’m going to pull up The Writing Salon website as we’re talking but just tell people a little bit more about The Writing Salon and what you do, because there’s a lot of different interesting pieces to what you do and offer.

Ben Jackson 3:33 

Sure love to thanks for that warm introduction, Jeremy, and looking forward to talking about The Writing Salon. So The Writing Salon, as you mentioned, 25th anniversary. We just actually had a 25th anniversary event four weeks ago. Is a blast. So we started in 1999 in San Francisco, in the home of Jane Underwood, the founder and director of The Writing Salon. She was an amazing woman. She passed away in 2016 when she passed away, I took over as director and owner. I had been teaching at The Writing Salon since 2012 so when she passed, our community was kind of in a frenzy. We’re like, what’s going to happen next? What are we going to do? And turns out, when I talked to her partner after her passing, he was like, Hey, she wanted you to take this on. And so I learned after that that I was going to be owner and director of The Writing Salon. So that’s a little bit of my story.

Jeremy Weisz 4:36 

Has passed. How did you originally find The Writing Salon?

Ben Jackson 4:40 

I found it through a woman named Robin Rom who is a teacher at Warren Wilson College where I was a student. I met her at a writing residency in Wyoming Brush Creek, one of those that you mentioned, and we had a great time. And she’s like, hey, you should teach her The Writing Salon, check it out in San Francisco. So I didn’t go to The Writing Salon. I got my mom a gift card to take classes there, because my mom lives in San Francisco. So it’s like, Hey, Mom, before I even go there, I just want to see what happens here. Enjoy a class. And so she had an awesome time, and she was the guinea pig. She was part of the entryway. So, but The Writing Salon, a little bit more about it. If we look back, it’s in 1999 I mean, it started from a home.

So it’s always been about building community from the most intimate environment. Jane Underwood, the founder, would run classes out of her kitchen. But there are stories about her, possibly running classes out of her bedroom, out of her basement. She was just trying to make it happen. She said she started it on a wing, a prayer, and a shoestring. And, you know, it grew gradually over the years from San Francisco, we got a Berkeley location. So you’re looking at it now, if you covered that 2002 with a timeline, we’ve got that Berkeley location. And so from there, we just expanded in by word of mouth a lot. People were loving our classes and wanted more. So our community really grew over the years. And we also had this, Jane had set up this flyering system throughout San Francisco, these very colorful, like, neon flyers, and they were everywhere. And so a lot of people knew about our school without even kind of recognize it. They’re like, oh, is that the that’s the school

Jeremy Weisz 6:37 

It’s like, true guerrilla marketing, the flyers are everywhere.

Ben Jackson 6:41 

Yeah. So, Jane had set up an amazing and very intimate community of folks up through to 2012 and I target 2012 because around that time she had, she had cancer, and her cancer started to develop even, worse, and it really impacted her ability to commit fully to the school, although I would say that she never skipped a beat. Remarkably, she was a warrior through to the end. But when I came on in 2012 we would have conversations at times, and I’d say, hey, you know, what do you need a hand with anything like, I’m curious about this stuff. I’ve always wanted to know more. And so she was interested in, kind of letting me and sharing with me some of the ideas behind how to run a school.

Jeremy Weisz 7:41 

It sounds like you, you know, you took the initiative and that was one of the reasons she thought, listen, Ben would be a good fit to carry the torch.

Ben Jackson 7:52 

It’s amazing, though it still came as quite a surprise to me when it happened, because Jane ran it alone. So this is one thing that’s been remarkable about the school, is that Jane ran it alone from 1999 to 2016. And then when I took it on in 2016 I faced a particular challenge in that I didn’t find that I would Excel or that the school would excel if I was doing it alone. I needed a community around me, and I think that was probably one of the best decisions I made shortly after coming on, was to build a team around me that I could trust. One of them was actually my wife, Ada, who was our design director and designed this website for us, which was absolutely needed, and probably one of the reasons why we saw a spike in earnings in that year, 2017 we had to do some work to kind of date. We needed to get current. We needed to find a way to meet our like modern needs, and our website was pretty clunky.

Jeremy Weisz 9:05 

Ben, talk about building a team, right? Because that’s super important. I do want to go through kind of the evolution of the services, right? Because COVID killed, or not killed, but tried to kill a lot of in-person stuff, and it did for a while. So I want to hear kind of you, I know you pivoted, which probably made The Writing Salon even stronger. But before we get to that part, just talk about building a team and why was it important for you, and how did you go about doing that?

Ben Jackson 9:41 

It’s the most important and probably some of the hardest work that I had to do with The Writing Salon. I want to mention that a team had already been built with our cast of teachers in the community. And so we have all of our teachers are contractors, or independent contractors, not employees, and at any one time, we may have about 30 teachers in our orbit, who are kind of drawing upon or drawing from to teach classes. And so that’s the first community. They have done so much for this organization to prosper, and that’s where you came from, and that’s right, yeah. So it often comes through our teachers.

So with staffing, I mean, where did I go, eventually, with the most solid community additions that I could make was by staffing from our teachers, or teachers husbands, in the case of our most current operations manager, a long-time teacher and he too, he fiction, great writer and teacher here at The Writing Salon. His wife is a poet and works with nonprofits a lot, and was a wonderful fit for the writing salon, and so she came in within the past two years, and has been an awesome part of our community. So building that team, for me, it’s about understanding what our shared vision is, and how we can do it in a way that’s fun, efficient and realistic.

Jeremy Weisz 11:23 

What were you looking for in staffing? Like, there were certain positions you had to be like, hey, I need to put these positions in place.

Ben Jackson 11:31 

So operations manager, there was no question about it, that I needed one because I had run operations from 2016 to about 2018 and I recognized that there wasn’t much I could do in terms of growth if I were involved in the day-to-day operations. I just I couldn’t do the envisioning that was necessary. And so that was key number one. And we’ve had several operations managers. I mean, I didn’t strike it perfectly the first few, it was hard. There’s a lot of turnover without kind of position too. It’s very admin-driven. We don’t have a lot of resources at The Writing Salon, so we’re often paying below market. And we’re in a really competitive market here in the Bay Area, where the cost of living is expensive.

So we, I had to find a very passionate individual who cared about writing, so all of our operations managers have cared about writing, cared about our community, or came from within our community, and who also had the capacity to understand how to do administrative work, which doesn’t come naturally to necessarily, to those who haven’t had a history of doing it, like teachers don’t have a lot of admin work. Their admin’s different. It doesn’t really carry over to operations and writers. I mean, they have different kind of admin responsibilities.

Jeremy Weisz 13:02 

I feel like an important piece. When you said there, what sticks out to me is there’s really a shared values, because, I think with anything, but also, especially if you’re like, listen, we need someone who’s passionate. We’re on a budget. And especially in San Francisco, I remember some friends telling me the rent there. I’m like, are you insane? That’s crazy, like, compared to Chicago, like, that’s what you pay, and this is what you get. But there’s a shared values there, and someone’s super passionate, and then has the means to do it. I’m curious about the knowledge transfer piece. Like you said you were doing it for a while. A lot of the business owners I have sometimes it’s hard because, like, Ah, it’s just easier if I just do this myself, right? And that inhibits them from getting out of it, because it takes a lot longer to do that. So how did you eventually get that knowledge transfer or document, or however you did it to the next you know person who’s going to do operations?

Ben Jackson 14:01 

With the utmost patients. Training, I come to this position as a teacher, so I did, over time, develop incremental approaches to address outcomes like, in a classroom setting. How are we going to get this writer to hopefully move beyond fragments or fragmented sentences and write complete sentences. What’s the step-by-step process to get that person to this place where they feel comfortable with grammar. In our setting, at the at the writing salon with training, it’s copious documentation, follow-ups, regular follow-ups where I’ll say, hey, let’s do weekly meeting, but even let’s do a monthly performance check, and it’s not really in then with that kind of language like performance check, because it gets kind of it could be uncomfortable for an employee, to feel like they’re getting evaluated all the time. But having them come into a very natural conversation with me and say like, hey, what?

And also to invite them to share with me where the struggles are, and allow me to then be in a position where I can say, all right, here’s some possibilities. If these work for you, I’ll make my recommendations. But also invite them to also pursue a road map that works for them, because they don’t want to be prescriptive in my position, however, I do find that I have a certain degree of institutional knowledge, having done this work for eight years now, but so I do at times, when I find that there is a slip, I’ll be like, hey, you know what? Let’s talk about what I think is, it really works. If we want to achieve. In operations, it’s like 99.9% accuracy. You don’t have that much room for error.

Jeremy Weisz 15:49 

What are some of the other positions you wanted to put in place? So operations managers seem like Jeremy is a no-brainer. In order for me to grow this thing and actually run it the way I want, I need someone handling these pieces. What were some of the other positions that you wanted to put in place?

Ben Jackson 16:05 

So earlier on, design director that my wife was in was essential, because we needed to rebrand in order to grow in 2017 and we needed to build a website. So it was a no-brainer, where we said, okay, we need to update our design. We need to get fresh. We have that cool, like library lamp in red that people may have seen when you were taking them through the website. So that rebranding really helped us and gave us The Writing Salon a sense of, like identity a little bit more. So that’s one, and then more currently, education director. Now, this was a hard one for me to let go of, because I love the educational component of running the school. I love developing curriculum as well, and I still can do that alongside our education director, but I found that I really needed someone who could be in engagement regularly with our teachers, and who could also when there were conflicts that came up, who could be a guide through those conflicts.

And so I taught Kathy Garlic, a long time, colleague and friend of mine, to be education director. And I recognize in that relationship, will mark out time to discuss a conflict, sometimes for about an hour. And it might be a single conflict. It doesn’t sound very efficient, but the value there is that we’re both recognizing what our school is all about. We know that our services have to be excellent, and so we’re going to continually iron out the pieces, and we have a wonderful relationship around that too, around just like what works in the classroom, what do we believe really is effective, and how do we transfer that knowledge to teachers, especially our newest teachers.

Jeremy Weisz 18:06 

Ben I’m curious, because I love thinking about this, which is what’s something that’s hard to let go because you love it, because a lot of business owners I talk to, but they know it’s going to grow the business. They know you’re going to be able to touch more people and lives because of it, but you love it and it’s an essential part of the business. How did you come to terms with it? Or mentally be like, finally, good, listen, I just need to make the decision, because you could have easily just kept doing it, right? You love it. You’re good at it. What was that mental leap that you had to make to finally do that? Maybe someone listening will it’ll help them think about it. And I speak for myself too, help me certain things. I’m like, I love doing this, but I know I need to not do it actually.

Ben Jackson 18:59 

I think a lot of it, there is one piece of it is just absolute trust. So and that trust is you’re letting go of your relationship with that particular item. So in my case, it was being kind of responsible for the educational component of the school to a great degree, like letting go of some of the details of it, and just saying, I trust Kathy with all of this, but holding on to the pieces that I really value still. So keeping some of the ones that I’d say made me feel a sense of kind of attachment in a healthy way with the educational side of the school. So like, for instance, scheduling, I found that that was one where I was like, I don’t want to let this one go, because there’s a certain kind of institutional knowledge associated with being able to mark out the most optimal schedule for classes across genres. Weighing out all the like variables that come up, including things that are as crazy as COVID or like a cyclone bomb that comes through right, I was just talking to Jeremy about, and it’s going to shut down our school for a day. And we have to think about, how are we going to pivot? So I hold on to some little pieces, and let go a lot of the big ones. And when I let go of them, I give up, I make sure I do it in trusting fashion.

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