Owning your story: How writing helps veterans heal - Article in SOLDIERS

The Veterans Writing Project (VWP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, has several goals in mind – primarily, to help people involved with the military tell their stories by providing tools and advice to build a foundation for good writing.

A Soldier for 25 years, Ron Capps completed two tours in Afghanistan, and was later sent to Iraq as a Foreign Service officer (he has also served in Rwanda, Darfur and Kosovo). He was traumatized by the violence he encountered.

“(I) came very close to committing suicide – I was actually interrupted. I survived, obviously, and now I’m here. Writing helped me get control of my mind.”

Capps is a regular Time Magazine contributor, and has been a featured speaker on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” In 2008, he left government service and attended the graduate fiction and nonfiction writing programs at Johns Hopkins University, where he got the idea to start the project. More here and here.