Ironically, it is difficult to capture and express how I feel every month when going to meet my writers’ group. I look forward to it for 30 days, I scramble to create or further a piece for my fellow writers, I both anticipate and dread their feedback. Led by the joyful Sophie, we gather in a coffee shop – occasionally the Green Beanery, lately Urbana Coffee (which is great, a block from my home) – and dish about writing: the fiction, the nonfiction, the technical, the non-existent. And whether or not each of us brought a piece to share, we enjoy the company, the kinship, the renewal of confidence, the knowledge that we are not struggling with the muses alone. We leave the oh-too-short meets elated, reinvigorated, and, for myself, already beginning to compose the piece to share next month.
If only I had a French writers’ group, too.