As nearly as we can remember, the wild writers started meeting in early 1983—although then we weren’t the wild writers, just five or six writers who’d met at an SCBWI event and formed a critique group. Several of us had published a few articles or short stories, but none of us had published any books…and several of us had published nothing at all. But we learned from each other. We read books on writing, and shared what we’d read. We tried to figure out how to make each other’s stories better, and learned how to critique honestly and try to be supportive at the same time. Over the years, as members—both writers and illustrators—came and went, we discovered that you can learn as much or more from people who don’t write in your genre, or with your particular slant. The discussion between character-centered writers and plot-centered writers can be fierce! And we’ve learned that sometimes people whose writing might not be as advanced can still be wonderful critiquers—and we welcomed pretty much everyone, regardless of genre or skill level, until we grew so large we had to call a halt—at something around 20 members. At this point many of us have gone on to publish books, and many aren’t published yet, but we’re all still working on our craft, trying to make our manuscripts better and support one another in the tough world of publishing.
And one day, we were sitting around and grousing—there’s a reason our mascot is the Whiney Writer, and let’s face it, sharing your problems is a big part of support! Anyway, we were grousing about how hard it is to achieve any kind of platform in the overcrowded internet, and one of us had the idea of putting together a website for the whole group, pooling our marketing efforts on a single site where we could sell ebooks and artwork, blog, and gain traction from all our efforts together…and theWildWriters.com was born.
If you look over the site, you’ll see that we produce work for every age group, in every genre, and for all kinds of differing tastes and interests. Because over the years, we’ve discovered that when you’re working with good will toward the common goal of improving your writing or your art, there’s great strength in diversity; that both fiction and non-fiction needs good tight writing, that even the most character-driven story needs a solid plot, and the most plot-driven story fails without a strong character arc. And that writers, whatever their genre or level of craft, need the support of other writers to grow and prosper.
Welcome!
The Wild Writers
