History: Veterans Voices Writing Project & Veterans’ Voices Magazine
Veterans Voices Writing Project (VVWP) enables military veterans to experience solace and satisfaction through writing. The project encourages veterans to express their thoughts and feelings in writing and art and to send their stories, essays, poems, and artwork to the VVWP headquarters in Kansas City for potential publication in Veterans’ Voices magazine.
Every issue of Veterans’ Voices contains the writing and artwork of more than a hundred veterans from nearly every state. Manuscripts and letters from veterans express how thrilling it is for them to see their remembrances and compositions in print. Many are so excited that they do not cash the small checks that they receive as prizes for being published. Some return the checks as a donation to help keep Veterans’ Voices going. Others have been known to frame their check. For many veterans, seeing their poetry or prose in print is the boost that they need to get over depression, PTSD and other challenges.
Veterans Voices Writing Project originally began as the Hospitalized Veterans Writing Project, an outreach program for wounded veterans returning from World War II. Volunteer writing aides went into Department of Veterans Affairs hospital wards to encourage soldiers, sailors and airmen to put their stories, thoughts, and feelings on paper. They also worked by correspondence with veterans once they left the hospital.
Founded 1946
Elizabeth Fontaine is credited with founding Hospitalized Veterans Writing Project in 1946. She was assisted by fellow members of the Chicago North Shore chapter of Theta Sigma Phi (later known as The Association for Women in Communications) who visited VA hospital wards encouraging and helping veterans to write. Writing as therapy was an untried concept, but Elizabeth and her volunteers quickly gained the confidence of the Veterans Administration which encouraged HVWP to participate in hospitals throughout the country.
The veterans were writing for themselves but they and others weren’t seeing their prose in print.
Veterans’ Voices First Published 1952
Then, in Kansas City, Margaret Sally Keach and Gladys Feld Helzberg, with assistance from the Greater Kansas City chapter of Theta Sigma Phi, hit upon the all-time incentive for writers: a national magazine that would publish their writing so others could enjoy and appreciate it. The first issue of Veterans’ Voices was published in 1952. It was mimeographed, hand-stapled and hand-addressed.
It boasted 18 pages: 12 of prose and six of poetry. The manuscripts had been sent to Chicago for judging. From there, the winning manuscripts were forwarded to Kansas City for publication. Original magazine staffers, in addition to Sally Keach and Gladys Helzberg, included Betty Butler, Lucille Doores, Kay Dyer, Helen Huyck, Dorothy Martin, Josephine May, Charlotte McKenzie, Mary Jane Pierronet, Doris Quinn, and Mary Marcene Thomson.
From Chicago and New York to Kansas City
For a number of years, the organization operated out of three cities: HVWP, the parent organization, was headquartered in Chicago; members of the New York Committee were largely responsible for fundraising, and the magazine was published in Kansas City. Then in 1972, the operations were consolidated with HVWP’s move to Kansas City. Sally Keach was elected president of HVWP. Sally-Sue Hughes was named publisher of Veterans’ Voices and Margaret Clark became editor of the magazine two years later in 1974.
But medicine changed and patients spent less time confined to a hospital room. More treatment was handled on an outpatient basis and through independent contractors. While VVWP continues to partner with the VA, the project needed to find other methods to tell veterans about the benefits of writing and how they could participate. The project’s board knew it needed an up-to-date web presence, electronic submission capability, more writing groups, an online version of Veterans’ Voices magazine and additional partners to help the group reach some of these goals. We are in the midst of achieving these goals as our funds allow.
Operations have remained in Kansas City, although a 2014 move necessitated a change of address. The headquarters moved from an office on the Kansas side of Kansas City’s state line to space in Missouri. In the fall of 2015, the name changed to Veterans Voices Writing Project (VVWP) to accurately reflect the expanded mission. The project remains a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Veterans’ Voices Encourages All Veterans to Write
The mission has expanded to serve all veterans not just hospitalized war veterans, recognizing the need all veterans have to heal. Veterans Voices Writing Project now accepts prose, poetry and veterans’ art submissions online through the website and through the mail.
Volunteer writing aides and writing group leaders, both inside and outside of VA facilities, work to assist veterans in getting their life experiences on paper and to help submit them for publication in Veterans’ Voices. Veterans without Veterans Administration Medical Center affiliation are also encouraged to submit their writing and art. VVWP works closely with the volunteer services and recreation therapy directors in all VA facilities, as well as other veterans’ organizations to promote the benefits of therapeutic writing. The VA system has been very supportive of the efforts of VVWP because of the positive effects on the patients in their facilities. Volunteer editors prepare selected manuscripts for publication. Small stipends honorariums are paid to veterans whose work is published.
Joanne MacDougall of San Jose, Calif., wrote, “Don and I have told all our friends about your wonderful project. I learned about it at a VFW Auxiliary meeting and couldn’t wait to go home and tell my husband. He is disabled and can’t get around much. This is the perfect project for him – and he loved it! God bless you all.”
Today, the project continues to actively encourage all military veterans to express their thoughts and feelings in writing and to send their stories, poems, essays and artwork to the VVWP headquarters either through online submissions or by mail for possible publication in Veterans’ Voices magazine.
