Fall 2025 Weekly Writer Group: Enhance Your Writing Skills

woman with headache

public service announcement

I don’t know who needs to hear this but…

Having a regular writing practice doesn’t have to make you want to drill a hole in your head.

What this is

Schedule

  • Weekly sessions are held Thursday mornings, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM Eastern
  • Sep 11 – Dec 4 (No session the week of US Thanksgiving) = 12 sessions total
  • A record of all prompts are kept for people who miss a session to try on their own

About the sessions and prompts

  • The first 60 minutes are spent on a lightly structured mix of shorter and longer writing prompts with a few short breaks thrown in. We keep things soft yet challenging, and each prompt is designed to help you develop new skills or reflect in fresh ways on familiar topics. People with limited schedules often need to leave after this time and that’s okay.
  • The final 30 minutes are spent in unstructured discussion and optional sharing. We do things like celebrate writing wins and publications, listen to anyone who wants to share brief excerpts of their work, curate a group reading recs list, and bear witness to shared struggles and challenges.
  • Prompts are usually non-fiction based, but easily adaptable to a variety of genres. People often modify them to suit their ‘home-base’ genre, like poetry, mystery, general fiction, devotional, etc.
  • Every third session is conducted as a “shut-up and write” session. Members are invited to bring their own writing project to work on, though a prompt is still given for people who don’t choose to bring anything. Afterwards, everyone is invited share what they’re working on and how it went.

About the community

  • The history. This community has developed organically since I first began hosting these seasonal groups in fall 2024.
  • Women only. At this time, the group is open to women only.
  • Faith based but not annoying about it. I call this group “gently faith-based.” It is rooted in a shared sense that Christian faith, in some form, shapes how we create and why our creative work matters. For some of us, this shows up directly in our writing–for others, faith woven into the implicit background. There’s no proselytizing, doctrinal debate, or pressure to believe or express things a certain way. While many of us come from sacramental or Eucharistic traditions like Eastern Orthodoxy, the group is open to anyone who identifies with this gently faith-based approach to creativity.
  • Facebook. Cohort participants will be invited to join an *optional* private Facebook group to keep in touch with others between sessions. All important messages will also be sent through email, so joining this group is not necessary for necessary communications.