Elise Woodson, the founder of Community Writers Group, worked as Education and Film Curator at the California African American Museum (CAAM) when she planted the seed for the writing group. In September of 2013, she created a one-day program: The Power of Story: Writing the Personal Narrative, which drew a huge public response. At the end of the program, the attendees pleaded with her to continue meeting to further the workshop process.  As a former English teacher, Elise always wanted to lead a group interested in capturing and documenting powerful personal stories from their lives. She agreed to facilitate a writing workshop and to meet the second Saturday of each month. Approximately ten committed writers stayed the course, and met each month at the beautiful Vision Theatre in Leimert Park. These persistent writers became The Community Writers Group (“CWG” rebranded “CWGLA”), and in February of 2015 published Snapshots Volume 1 to create a permanent record of their pieces of family history. Currently, CWGLA publishes a new volume of Snapshots annually in the month of February.  

In January of 2019, Elise filed documents with the California Secretary of State and the Franchise Tax Board for CWGLA to become a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, and during the summer applied for grants to offset publishing costs and to expand the reach of the group farther into underrepresented communities by creating a Snapshots collection specifically for young people to tell their families’ stories. 

On December 7, 2019 Elise received her Heavenly wings, but the Snapshots series is part of her legacy.

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Grants and donations received, along with the purchase of our books and merchandise, support CWGLA's efforts to continue Elise’s mission of documenting African American family history.