LATMFA Part Two: Finding Your Literary Community
In Part One, we proposed some writerly goals to consider as we carve out a path for writing post-MFA.
You’ll recall that the second goal we set for you in our last installment was to get connected. In this issue, we explore the importance of finding a literary community to support your work and well-being. Whether you love or hate the idea of meeting and sharing your work with new people, the writers featured here each make a wonderful case for surrounding yourself with voices of encouragement and accountability, and offer advice for finding or building your community:
- In “Networking for Writers,” Niyati Keni offers some useful tips for building a writing network, whether or not networking comes naturally (over on Litro).
- Walter Mosley’s remarks at the 20th-anniversary celebration of Cave Canem, published by Lit Hub, exalt the influence of the organization and reflect on how Cave Canem went “from a small group of rough and rowdy aspirants who were only expected to be black and have something to say that had gone unsaid for centuries” to “one of the most sophisticated cultural institutions in America.”
- In “A Writer’s Comeback: How I Built My Own Literary Scene and Saved Myself,” at Poets & Writers, Julia Fierro explores how she found strength in building her own writing community, Sackett Street Writers, after feeling dejected when she didn't experience the immediate success she had expected upon graduating from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.
- Aso at PW, Marie Myung-Ok Lee’s “Pandemic Writers Group: Finding Creativity, Community, and Play” describes her experiences as a working writer during the pandemic, attempting to hold her life together while strengthening her bonds with her peers at a distance.
- Dawne Shand discusses building an organization that offers community and financial support to up-and-coming Asian American writers in “From Start-Up to Incubator: Kundiman Means Business (of Innovative Writing),” published on the Ploughshares blog. And Piyali Bhattachayra’s essay “How to Build a Powerful Community of Brown Female Voices,” also at Lit Hub, describes how an idea for an anthology nurtured a community of South Asian American women writers.
Feeling inspired? Remember to check out some of the resources we suggested in the last issue to find your community:
- Explore AWP’s Community Writing Groups Directory to find a writing group that fits your interests.
- AWP’s Directory of Conferences & Centers can help you find writers’ conferences, residencies, centers, retreats, and festivals.
- Find upcoming events and opportunities in our Writer’s Calendar.
- Consider joining our Facebook groups: AWP Community of Writers, AWP Novel Writing Group, and Friends of AWP will get you started.
That’s all for our second installment. This time, we'll leave you with the incredibly pertinent advice of former AWP Board Member Susan Jackson Rodgers, director of the MFA program at Oregon State University and author of the novel This Must Be the Place and the story collections The Trouble with You Is and Ex-Boyfriend on Aisle 6:
Set specific goals for your writing. Mark them on a calendar and review your goals and deadlines regularly—once a week is ideal. And try to stay connected to at least one person from your program. Be a part of a writing group (or pair), whether online or face-to-face. Writing groups can be the traditional “read-and-critique” groups, or they can be “accountability” groups—people you check in with regularly about your work, your deadlines, your challenges, and successes. And when the well runs dry, read. Read, read, read. Books will always be your best teachers and source of inspiration. Reread the books that make you want to write, then write.
Happy writing!
Your AWP Membership Team