Contestant's Case to Win

Blowing Up Barriers Enterprises
"If you are blocked, come.
If you are dissatisfied, come."

Where do artists find solace, rest, understanding, and encouragement?

The Two House Project exists for the creation and maintenance of The House of Intuitive Counseling, which offers emotional and spiritual guidance, support, and liberatory instruction for frustrated or want-to-be writers, artists, and musicians who can’t seem to get away from their day jobs to fulfill their dreams, and The House of the Discombobulated Writer, which offers an 18-month residency for writers in need of financial recovery and a respite from the demands of necessary two-prong artist survival: doing art and doing a day job.

Eighteen months of resting, writing, and working with the vibrant and challenging young people at Norristown Area High School in the quiet suburbs of Norristown, Pennsylvania. Three thousand dollars per month to rebuild, reconstruct, and amplify one’s future as one writes, ruminates, and seeks one’s right place in the literary and emotional world.

We of The Two-House Project plan to provide a temporary home and monthly stipend for writers besieged by a sometimes unwelcoming literary world: by publishing houses seeking celebrity manuscripts or easy “sells” to the public; agents hamstrung by narrowing options at big houses suffering corporate and not literary mandates; by the covert censorship of bookstores refusing to carry self-published titles.

The owner of a beautiful, expansive, 3700-square foot home in Norristown supports the Two-House Project with a lease-to-buy agreement requiring a $2,500 deposit and proposing a move-in date of late 2009. Said owner, who prefers to remain anonymous, agrees to pay all holding costs for the property ($4,500/month) until House of Intuitive Counseling activities (counseling, workshops, speaking engagements, book sales, writing services) turn enough profit to take over payment of said holding costs.

Our immediate need is to fund improvements to the property required by the Borough of Norristown as well as the State of Pennsylvania, given that the building is zoned both residential and commercial. Improvements include: handicapped bathrooms first and second floors; upgrade electrical; upgrade sprinkler system; upgrade heating system; and refurbish deck, front door entrance and window beds.

If we are successful, these costs are covered, we move into the building, a writer is housed, remaining donations and grant funding cover the WIR stipend, and a sparkle returns to the eyes of Norristown Area High School students come early 2010.

We at the Two-House Project are interested in preserving as long as possible the light of genius and individuality that shines deeply in the eyes of our brightest literary artists. Help us provide them with a necessary safe place of respite to re-gather their most daring dreams and put them to paper while inspiring and lighting a similar fire in the minds of our young people here in Norristown.

Vote for The Two-House Project. Writers and their pens are standing by.

Love and blessings,

Dr. Niama L. Williams, Founder