Beyond Feedback and Critique
The Magnificent History of Literary Community
Last week was the final session of this year’s Writing in the Dark | The SCHOOL, after nine months of meeting on Zoom and in our weekly Binders on the WITD, gathering in small groups and open-mic salons, welcoming visiting writers and editors, celebrating each other’s publications of essays, poems, books, and anthologies—along with other equally important milestones, such as writing through a block, or breaking through a difficult topic, finally.
It was a beautiful last meeting after a year of hard work. I logged off knowing that if Writing in the Dark is anything, it's not just craft essays, writing exercises, and intensives. It’s definitely not just feedback and critique, though members certainly find opportunities for swapping pages with one another (We’ve even developed a very specific workshopping method which has helped hundreds of writers publish their work, which we then share in ourWITD directory and che…