Reenvisioning theWriters Group

IF YOU’RE like me, the only thing more difficult than struggling to revise a draft that’s stalled is struggling to revise someone else’s draft that’s stalled. Let’s face it: Reading other people’s writing for the sole purpose of giving them feedback or, worse, “fixing it” is taxing. Hence I don’t often recommend writers groups. This admission may sound contradictory to anyone who has heard me gush over my current writers group, with whom I’ve been meeting since roughly 2010, three years before my first poetry collection was published. But this writers group succeeds where others have failed because it’s generative rather than critical and is respectful of everyone’s time. We do zero “workshopping” together and focus instead on what’s working in everyone’s writing and on showing up for one another each week.

We’re sometimes told that a work-shopping writers group will give us multiple perspectives on our writing that will help move it forward. But honestly I’d suggest avoiding a multitude of takes on one’s writing. As the adage goes, too many cooks spoil the broth. That said, I’d offer three writers group options that can enhance and support your work over many years:(2) a short-term writers group of three readers who can rely on one another for targeted, critical feedback, or (3) one or two trusted readers to whom you can quickly turn in a pinch—most likely you’ve built a relationship with them already, possibly from writers groups past.