I love writing. It’s my lifeblood or my heart pulse; it’s the thing that keeps me going. Noodling over a writing problem or coming up with a new story feels like living to me. But when I’m doing it in a community of other writers, it feels like magic.
I’ve rambled on before about the importance of community for writers and how it helps us keep going. Community also helps bring in new blood and writers who would never really try writing. Not until they see someone else doing it. That’s why I spent several years studying writing groups in my area to try and come up with a local writing group that catered to speculative fiction writers who wanted to make a career or lucrative/satisfying hobby out of their writing.
The South Whulge Speculative Fiction Writers Group is more than just a critique group, though. We are a community of writers who host workshops and decompression sessions to help the members of the group grow through learning and socializing with other writers.
We’re a mixed group of writers who are just starting out and writers who have been writing for years. We aim to improve our writing and advance our careers through honest and knowledgeable feedback, deliberate practice, and community building. Our primary hub is on Reddit, where we share our upcoming workshops, news, and craft book club reads. But we host all of our actual meet-ups on Slack.
We are open to speculative fiction writers based in Thurston, Kitsap, Lewis, Mason, and Pierce counties in Washington state!
Meet Up Schedule
- First Tuesday- Critiques
- Second Tuesday- Workshop/tutorials
- Third Tuesday- Critiques
- Fourth Tuesday- Decompress and talk shop
- Occasional Fifth Tuesday- Bring your own book club discussion
Our Critique Set Up
Every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month, writers based in the South Sound of Washington state can come and share up to 3,500 words of speculative fiction for critiques. We meet virtually through Slack and share Google Docs or any format that allows the writer to share an editable document of their story. We use our own method of delivering critiques and do not follow a Milford style.
We define speculative fiction as an umbrella term encompassing these genres:
- science fiction
- fantasy
- science fantasy
- horror
- silkpunk
- jazzpunk
- steampunk
- cyberpunk
- slipstream
- Afrofuturism
- Africanfuturism
- Magical Realism
- Fairytale retellings
- Paranormal romance
- Urban Fantasy
- Alternative History with a speculative lean
- The Davinci Code (alt-history) vs. She Who Became the Sun (magical history retelling)
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means. And we take all age groups of speculative fiction.
We share our stories with focus points and content warnings or notes to help guide the critiquers. We spend about 30-45 minutes reading through the story and leaving comments or edits directly on the doc. Then we convene again in the chat to discuss the story further. In each session, we usually have time to critique two to three stories, depending on the length.
Critique Story Submitting Guidelines
- All stories shared must be speculative fiction stories or excerpts up to 3,500-words
- There is a 200-word allowance for stories that go over 3,500-words
- Stories up for critique must be posted in the chat by 7 PM the day before (so they need to be posted by Monday evening)
- Create an editable Google draft for critiquers to comment on
- Writers need to give critiquers focus areas for their stories so they have an idea of what state or draft the story is and what issues writers want critiquers to focus on while reading.
- Writers sharing their stories for critique must also include with their focus areas content warnings.
- To avoid continuously editing a piece and allowing the writer time to implement changes and make story decisions, critiques should only be given during the critique session.
- Unless an author says it’s okay to send critiques after the session.
- Sex, violence, and curse words are okay. But listen if someone says something makes them uncomfortable (you’re not writing in a vacuum).
- All writers asking for feedback must give it to others. No showing up just for your story.
- Be open to feedback, critiques, and comments and understand there is more than one way to approach writing a story
- No copy editing (our critiques are developmental and content-based)
Our Workshop Set Up
South Whulge Speculative Fiction Writers is modeled after the North Seattle SciFi and Fantasy Writers, intensive speculative fiction workshops, and Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, all writing communities with the mindset of helping writers improve as professionals through workshops, exercises, and informed critiques. These groups aim for more than simple critique exchanges like most writing groups and prepare people for careers as writers and authors. South Sound Spec Writers was designed with all of that in mind!
There is a workshop/tutorial component to the group. This is different than a lot of writing groups in the area because our workshops are about challenging ourselves with deliberate practice, so that we can become better writers through more than just writing but learning. A few past topics we’ve covered with our workshops have been flash fiction, description, openings, middles, speculative elements, and more.
Each month, I write up a workshop including resources and an exercise to guide our discussion and practice. I’ve taught writing classes and written genre analysis for years and use that experience to help me design the workshop. I’ll include about 15 different resources across different mediums and from different sources to help us create an introductory but in-depth breakdown of the topic.
Before we meet for our workshop, we’ll all go through the resources and any pre-workshop exercises. Some writers will take notes throughout the week as they go through the resources to help them remember talking points or ideas, but others just some with their thoughts on their mind. For the first hour of the workshop, we discuss the resources shared, our own struggle areas, examples, and whatever else comes up around the topic. During the second half of the workshop, we’ll break for a writing exercise and reconvene to share what we came up with and any final thoughts.
All of our past workshop write-ups are available online through our subreddit. Other writing groups and classes can use the workshop set up for their own learning, but only local members of the group can attend the actual workshop.
Decompression Set Up
We also have a decompression component where we don’t write and just shoot the shit talking about how our writing is going, cool books we’ve read, new ideas that are stealing us away from our current WIP, etc. The decompression session happens at the end of the month and we’ve been trying to remix and change it up in 2023.
In the past, decompression was just a place to hang with other writers in the group and share what’s been going on. It’s a great place for just building community and getting to know each other outside our stories.
Join the South Whulge Speculative Fiction Writers Group
South Whulge Speculative Fiction Writers Group is a writing group and community based in Olympia, WA for writers in all cities and towns within Thurston, Kitsap, Lewis, Mason, and Pierce counties. We are for writers of fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and all the subgenres found within those genres. We do not serve romance or mystery writers unless they are speculative fiction writers of those genres. We also do not serve writers outside those counties even if they live in Washington.
We are group of writers who love writing and love helping others. We work together to meet our writing goals and use research, experience, and knowledge to deliver helpful and actionable critiques. Writers who come should be committed to submitting, meeting, and critiquing regularly to get the full experience and benefits of the group. The writers who have had the most success are the ones who show up and do the work both in the group and outside.
It is helpful to have an understanding of the basic fundamentals of writing speculative fiction (formatting dialogue, understanding of genre, common tropes, etc.), but it is not a requirement to join. We welcome beginners and writers of all experience levels!
We are an inclusive and diverse group with writers from different walks of life and backgrounds. We also have a zero tolerance hate and discrimination policy. As a queer Black woman, I’ve experienced first hand how rampant discrimination and bigotry are in the speculative fiction field. South Whulge Speculative Fiction Writers Group is not that type of place. People who do not behave in a respectful manner are removed from the group and not allowed to participate. We also remove inactive members who don’t attend the group from the Slack channel after three months of absence.
I aim to make the South Whulge Speculative Fiction Writers Group an accessible group, so if you have any accessibility issues or requests, please feel free to reach out to me directly! I will do everything I can to make a reasonable accommodation for people who request it.
Ultimately the goal and aim of the South Whulge Speculative Fiction Writers Group is to make speculative fiction writers better so that they can reach their career goals. Our setup isn’t great for hobby writers, journalers, or writers who have generally given up on publishing. We’re writers who take writing and our careers seriously while having fun learning how to make this crazy thing called writing work.
Writers who come to the group and participate are there to learn, grow, and become professionally published authors, whether full-time or part-time. This group is excellent for beginners and pros (we have both!) and all those in between.
For more information about our practices, check out the post over on our sub and read through the Welcome post on our sub.
Our next meeting is this Tuesday. Membership is free. If you’d like to join us, please use our Slack invite link channel available through our subreddit.
Aigner Loren Wilson 