Community

Have you been searching for a place to be yourself,
share your writing, and know you belong?

Guess what?

There’s room for you in To Live & Write. And membership is free!

In 2014, I created a new kind of writing community in the San Francisco Bay Area.

All these years later, we’re still going strong.

I thought I was just putting together a small group of local writers I could meet up with in person and keep up with on Facebook. I was happy to begin with three people — two introverts and me. Skip ahead ten years and as I write this, we hover at just under 700 members in the main group and 70 in the subgroup To Live & Write in Practice, which is just for active writers who enjoy engaging with each other and giving and receiving support on their writing journeys.

We move at our own pace, but we are indeed a growing, thriving community. I limit membership to preserve the sense of community and connection between writers and to avoid overwhelming our pages with too many random, disjointed voices.

We touch base in the Facebook group To Live & Write in Alameda and meet in person or online frequently to write together, share our work, and/or discuss the writing life with people who speak our language. This main group is really just a touchstone, a place for every member to have in common. 

To Live & Write in Practice is exclusively for members who want to participate in writing events and activities, connect with other writers in genuine ways, and give and receive advice, support, and encouragement from people who are engaged in the same kind of creative activity. 

We are set to launch three ex-pat writing communities around the globe in 2024, one each in Mexico, Singapore, and Scotland. 

Join To Live & Write in Alameda on Facebook to connect with other writers at an in-person Elevenses discussion or Write In, or at an online Write Along or Proof of Write.

To accommodate lurkers as well as writers who openly engage with each other, just about every month I invite members to participate in a challenge designed to establish and reinforce regular writing habits, push productivity, and spark playful creativity. The rotation includes Daily Pages, Flash Lit, Imagine March, Imagine August, and Double Dubs.

Each new month also presents an opportunity to share your polished work with an audience. Local Voices is our open mic, Alameda Shorts is our curated lit night, and Lend Me Your Voice is a fun event where we read each other’s work to find out how different readers experience our writing voices. 

Membership in To Live & Write is free and there’s room for you.

If you believe you have to lead a life worth living to have anything worth writing about, and that you need to write to have a life worth living, you’re one of us.

If you believe honing your craft is a lifetime endeavor and the very thought of all that work sends tingles up and down your spine, we see you.

Whether you have impostor syndrome or you’re proud of your work, or you’re some of both, none of either, and everywhere in between, you’ll fit right in.

In this community, we focus on a shared love of story, celebrate the magic of communication between imaginations, appreciate effort and attention to the craft, and embrace our growing diversity.

Our intention is to continue to build and sustain a community of writers who identify and acknowledge each others’ challenges and achievements when shared, lend an ear or words of wisdom when needed, and show up for each other when asked.

What sets us apart? We provide each other with old-fashioned moral support in a modern, high-tech world. We keep in touch on Facebook and Zoom, and celebrate each other across social media. We also make sure we have plenty of opportunities to get together in real life to strengthen our connections, build lasting and important friendships, and draft off each other’s creative energy.

It really is a surprisingly effective, productive, life-affirming way to strengthen your creative habit and develop your writing career.

Happy writing and I hope to see you there!

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