TABLE IT: Sharon Rose-Calhoun wrote about hunting for parking in the
Fall 2018 issue, seen being workshopped above. Photos by Alexis Holloway
COURIER LIFE, DEC. 17–23, 2021 37
OUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BOROUGH OF KINGS
BY CATE CORCORAN
Browsing Greenlight Bookstore on
Flatbush Avenue in Prospect Lefferts
Gardens not far from Prospect
Park, you may happen upon a
remarkable journal of memoir,
oral history and photography
by and about locals and the
neighborhood, “Voices of Lefferts.”
The community writing,
photography and history
project documents the “life of
the neighborhood in the words
of the people who live here,” to
quote the program’s website. If
you live nearby, you may have
heard about the journal from a
neighbor or attended a reading
for an issue at the bookstore.
Begun in 2017 by longtime
neighborhood resident
and English professor Deborah
Mutnick, it was inspired
by the Depression-era Works
Progress Administration’s
arts and writing programs, which
documented life across America. The
journal’s makers, an ever-evolving
band of about two dozen volunteers
whose regulars include coach/editor
Brenda Edwards and graphic designer
Frank Marchese, recently published
their seventh issue.
Sponsored by PLGNA and Humanities
New York, among others, Voices
of Lefferts refl ects the
community and also
helps foster it. “This
has been a project to
bring people together,
understand the world
through other people’s
eyes, and listen to
one another,” as Mutnick
put it. Empowered
to tell their own
stories, participants
help shape recorded
history and how others
and future generations
will see them.
The quality is high, polished
through a process of group discussion,
writing and help with editing by
volunteers that allows even non-writers
to say their piece. All community
members are welcome to contribute,
including former residents and those
who work in the area. In non-COVID
times, the group meets at Grace Reformed
Church, the 1893 neo-Italian
Renaissance building on the corner
of Lincoln and Bedford. Lately they’ve
been holding virtual meetings.
At a series of weekly two-hour
workshops, a dozen or two participants,
a handful of coaches/editors,
and a photographer come together to
produce the journal and document the
process. Much of the agenda is conversation,
followed by writing, then sharing
what they’ve written.
Mutnick enjoys the writing segment
the most, she said. “That sense of
Making
history
A community
writing project
unites Prospect
Leff erts Gardens
Continued on page 40