Why Do Writers Need Community? Find Out, with Jim Jackson

You’ve heard the stereotypes. The writer in a room, frantically typing to capture inspiration from a fickle muse. The writer sighing out a window opening on autumn, holding pencil to lips, pondering the next sentence.

Very romantic notions, but I find they assume that writing is a purely solitary task.

Okay — so we do the act of writing alone. But there’s so much more to writing than hammering out words.

Words alone don’t help us when we’re lying awake at night wondering why we chose this particular passion. Words alone don’t help us find readers who will be moved by our writing. Words alone don’t help us when our inner critics tell us to chuck it all in.

What does help us is community. When I take pitches for Prairie Soul Press, the first question I ask aspiring authors is “How involved are you in your local writers’ community?”

I used to think writing was just about the words. Just about perfecting my craft, my unique voice. But writing in a vacuum is like playing Seven Minutes in Heaven, trapped in a closet, all by yourself. Certainly safer, but not nearly as satisfying. 

By the time I went to my first proper writers’ festival — one that was built around learning and community, and not just on pitches to agents — I’d been involved in my local writers’ community for a couple of years, attending book launches and other events. But book launches — much as I love them — are blips amid the scrape of everyday life. I got — and still get — a far deeper sense of being part of the larger writing community when I attend festivals.