After the election, we started thinking about our roles as writers, and how that has already changed and will continue to change in the months and years to come. We realized that we’re strongest when we’re together, and that hearing from each other is crucial.
So we started Don’t Write Alone, a communal writing event for Catapult’s writing program alumni. We wanted to create a space for writing, listening, and thoughtful engagement—that went deeper than RTs and likes, and gave us a break from refreshing the news. In the two sessions we held, our office was packed with writers hard at work by themselves, while quietly supporting one another. There was power in that, and that’s why we decided to expand those few hours into a weekend-long retreat .
This weekend, 80 writers will take to the very cozy Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House for a three days of writing and literary conversation. Paul Auster, Victor LaValle, Mira Jacob, and Porochista Khakpour will be giving talks on craft and process, and midday on Saturday we’ll break for a lunchtime panel with top editors and agents. Saturday will end with a reading and conversation from two of this year’s standout debut authors, Angelica Baker and Patty Yumi Cottrell, and an after party in a nearby bar.
We’re hoping that this weekend will be the start of something vital and sustaining in your writing practice—a new story, a new friendship, a big idea, the first pages of a book. And we hope that it will be the first of many more writing weekends to come.
