NEA Brings Operation Homecoming to VA Medical Centers

U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt (Kansas-4th District) attended a special screening of Muse of Fire, a documentary about the NEA's Operation Homecoming initiative, in Wichita, Kansas, on Veterans Day 2007. Photo courtesy of The Boeing Company.

Launched in 2004, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience was the NEA's groundbreaking writing program for U.S. military personnel and their families. The program brought 59 writing workshops led by distinguished American writers to troops at 27 domestic and overseas military installations. This summer the NEA will partner with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense to sponsor a new series of Operation Homecoming writing workshops that will be open to veterans of both current and past conflicts as well as U.S. Armed Forces active duty troops. The Boeing Company again will provide support for the Operation Homecoming workshops.

Led by nationally recognized writers such as Tobias Wolff and Jeff Shaara, the progressive four- to six-week writing workshops will be offered at 25 sites around the country, including VA medical centers, military hospitals, and affiliated centers. To build closer partnerships between local and military communities, local literary organizations and writers also will partner with many of the workshop sites. Andrew Carroll, one of the nation's foremost experts on wartime correspondence, will manage the workshop series. Carroll previously worked with the NEA to edit the 2006 Random House Operation Homecoming anthology, which featured nearly 100 of the submissions collected by the NEA as part of the writing project.

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