Find a small group of uncompromising writers to build a mutual writing practice with. My friends Darcie Dennigan and Kate Schapira and I have been meeting monthly for sixteen years to read and critique one another’s work. We began meeting as poets, albeit not very similar ones, and are now working in different genres, but we’ve become the best readers for each other. Flattery is anathema and we would never let one another get away with anything glib, lazy, or rushed.
Sometimes I leave a meeting deflated but always, always end up with a better poem or essay once I’ve sat with their comments. Sometimes we disagree on how to fix a piece of writing, and that is perhaps most useful to the author in figuring out what their writing is trying to be and do. They keep me writing because I have to do my part to keep the tri-corner tension up. I have been in other writers groups before and it does take some trial and error to find the people who will read your work on its own terms and tell it to you straight, but it’s a priceless gift when you do.
—Kate Colby, author of Paradoxx (Essay Press, 2025)
Photo credit: Eleni Sikelianos