The Writing Group Book: Creating and Sustaining a Successful Writing Group

by Lisa Rosenthal (Editor)

In this insightful guide, more than 30 members of writing groups explain how and why they found a group to join or established their own, how they have kept their group flourishing, and what it has enabled them to accomplish—from simple self-expression to a lifetime of published work. Poets, playwrights, screenwriters, fiction and nonfiction writers, memoirists, and children’s writers share advice on how to give constructive critiques, manage difficult members, delegate responsibilities for maintaining the group, and keep meetings productive. Online groups, international groups, and women-only groups are represented, and a resource section details ways to market and sell finished work and how to parlay one success into a writing career.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

236 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

Reviews

[Michele Cacano · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays by founders and members of various writing groups. It covers a lot of the what, who, why, and how of participating in a writing group, particularly focusing on critique. Every essay author explains who and what their group is beforehand, and lists favorite resources, books, sites, and prompts afterward.

Good format. Good content. I plan on making copies of one in particular to hand out at my group ("Keep Your Mouth Shut: The Key to Getting Helpful Critiques" by John Weagly).

I plan to cull ideas from the "Moving Beyond the Meeting" section, like Halloween Party themes. (I have had a Halloween Party for the group once, and it was quite powerful. I would like to do another one.) There are useful tips for dealing with boisterous members, rallying productivity, and getting the work out there...readings, group anthologies (I'd love to, but I shudder at the workload!), events.

The downside of this book is just it's datedness. Published in 2003, authors admonish against e-mailing queries (can you imagine?) and discuss the merits and problems of POD publishing, none of which is applicable anymore.

If you know what to ignore, this book is more useful than not. Plus, I only caught one typo, and cover and the pages of this paperback edition are aesthetically and kinesthetically pleasing.

Oh, and I bought this because I run a writers group, going on ten years now. Just exploring, maybe looking to level up.

[Linda Flynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of essays on different aspects of writing groups from different types of books. The book is a good resource for one who is searching for a writing group, for one who is in a writing group and for one who leads a writing group.

I appreciated the different perspectives and the common themes found in the different essays. My plan is to share some of this information with our writers group in the hope to make us even more productive and effective.

[Krystyne Taylor-Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good tips to keep writing groups fresh and motivated.

[Laura Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yuk.

[N.L. Riviezzo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listings of a lot of good books, websites and other resources for writers. The advice for writers and writing groups is nothing new.