In August of 2023, I pitched establishing an online writing group for the Straw Dog Writers Guild, modeled on the SFWA Weekly Writing Date. The rest is history. As we start our fourth year, I’m looking forward to another great year.
I had started attended the Writing Date soon after I joined SFWA and I found it helpful. It was a nice way to meet people and to have some “accountability” for putting a block of writing time.
When we did a survey of Straw Dog members, a theme emerged that people wanted to meet other members and write together. But there was also an interest in having more virtual events, especially for people who don’t want to drive after dark in winter. I realized the writing date model was a good fit.
The program committee liked the idea and on September 16, 2023 I got my first request to join the group. Since then, we have met nearly every week (with the exception of holidays). There was a initially a surge of interest and then the group settled into a steady-state with an handful of participants every week — sometimes as few as one or two, but typically five or six — with new people regularly joining and folks dropping out after a while.
At the end of that first fall, I wrote a paragraph as part of my year-in-writing review:
In the fall, I established Straw Dog Writes for the Straw Dog Writers’ Guild. It’s a program modeled on the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers Association Writing Date. I’ve gotten about 20 participants (about half of whom might show up on any particular week). And about half are pre-existing members, half new members (who’ve signed up to participate), and a handful of people who are not yet members but who are considering it. This has been about as good as I could possibly have hoped.
And after a full year, I wrote a brief report of my experiences. It was mostly satisfactory, although I periodically questioned whether I had really succeeded in building a stable group that could sustain the group if I wasn’t there every week making it happen. That was true during year two as well. But over the course of this past year, participation has grown. We now typically have more like nine or ten. Furthermore, we have developed a core group of participants that make the group feel like more than just me pushing it along. It’s felt really good to have the group find its audience.
As we now go into year four, I’m looking forward to another great year. Straw Dog is beginning a redesign of their web presence that I’m involved in, so I’m hopeful I can improve how Straw Dog Writes is represented on the web. I think a better graphic identity would help too. I would also like to see Straw Dog Writes have a steering committee of folks interested in helping think through how we can improve.
As always, Straw Dog Writes is open to anyone who would like to try it out. I invite you to contact me to get the Zoom link. And if it is useful to you, please consider joining the Straw Dog Writers Guild to support the activities we do.
