Howdy, dear word nerds,

For the longest time (okay, fine, the last two to three years), I’ve dreamed of starting an online writing community — a place where writers can network, engage in book clubs, find critique partners, and hold each other accountable for making progress.

As with anything I think about doing for that long, I gave it a go. And failed. After investing approximately $2,000 in personal investments across various software platforms and advertising, I successfully established a community and hosted my first book club…

Which, unfortunately, drew only a single attendee.

You live and you learn. I still want to sink my teeth into an online writing community one day, but perhaps that will come later. Entrepreneurship is a fickle mistress, indeed.

Unlike the community I attempted to launch, numerous thriving writing communities have emerged over the years, playing a significant role in shaping the literary landscape. Let’s discuss a few of those communities from the past and explore why they remain important today.

Table of Contents

• Howdy, dear word nerds,

  • The Bloomsbury Group

    • Notable Bloomsbury Writers and Their Works:

  • The Sisterhood

    • Notable Writers in The Sisterhood and their Works:

  • The Inklings

    • Notable Members of the Inklings and Their Works:

• Today’s Writing Communities | The Vanguard for Tom …

The Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury Group emerged as an avant-garde collective of intellectuals in early 20th-century London, fundamentally reshaping modernist literary and artistic production through their radical experiments with form and content. What began as informal gatherings at the Gordon Square home of the Stephen siblings evolved into a powerful cultural force that challenged Victorian morality, embraced aesthetic innovation, and cultivated a distinctly intellectual approach to life and art.

Their contributions weren't merely literary—they created an entire ecosystem of critical thinking, one that valued "good conversation" and intellectual freedom above societal constraints.

Beyond their creative output, the Bloomsbury members embodied a proto-progressive lifestyle that continues to fascinate contemporary audiences—their complex romantic entanglements, their embrace of feminist and pacifist politics, and their cultivation of spaces where intellectual experimentation flourished.

Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness techniques, E.M. Forster's explorations of repressed desire, and Lytton Strachey's irreverent biographical approach all represented not just stylistic innovations but direct challenges to established cultural hierarchies. The group's legacy lives on not just in their individual works but in their collective demonstration that art and literature could function as vehicles for social criticism and personal liberation.

Notable Bloomsbury Writers and Their Works:

• Virginia Woolf – "To the Lighthouse," "Mrs. Dalloway," and the feminist manifesto "A Room of One's Own"

• E.M. Forster – "Howards End," "A Passage to India," and "Maurice" (published posthumously)

• Lytton Strachey – "Eminent Victorians," his genre-defying biographical work that punctured Victorian hagiography

• John Maynard Keynes – "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," merging economic theory with cultural criticism

• Leonard Woolf – "The Village in the Jungle" and his political works on imperialism

The Sisterhood

In 1977, amid the sharp fluorescence of emerging Black feminist thought, seventeen Black women writers gathered in the New York apartment of poet June Jordan. This literary summit would later crystallize into "The Sisterhood."

This collective—featuring literary giants such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde—was not just a casual meeting of minds, but a deliberate confrontation with the publishing industry's systemic barriers. They assembled not merely to commiserate but to strategize, mapping the terrain of a literary landscape that consistently devalued and marginalized Black women's voices despite their profound contributions to American letters.

The Sisterhood operated at the intersection of art and activism, embodying the notion that for Black women writers, the personal narrative is inevitably entangled with the political. Their conversations likely swung between granular publishing frustrations and expansive visions for literary liberation, creating an intellectual exchange that undoubtedly shaped their subsequent work.

This gathering represented a crucial moment of solidarity in which these writers acknowledged a shared struggle while affirming their artistic identities—a microcosm of the broader Black feminist movement that sought to carve out space for voices operating at the nexus of race and gender in American culture.

Notable Writers in The Sisterhood and their Works:

• Toni Morrison — Revolutionary novelist whose masterpiece "Beloved" (1987) explored the psychological trauma of slavery; won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993

• Alice Walker — Author of "The Color Purple" (1982), which depicted the lives of Black women in the rural South and introduced the concept of "womanism"

• Audre Lorde — Fierce poet and essayist whose collection "Sister Outsider" (1984) examined intersections of race, class, and sexuality

• Paule Marshall — Novelist whose work "Brown Girl, Brownstones" (1959) captured the Barbadian immigrant experience in Brooklyn

• Margo Jefferson — Cultural critic and memoirist who later won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism; wrote "Negroland" (2015)

• June Jordan — Passionate poet, essayist and activist whose work "Directed by Desire" showcased her commitment to progressive politics and personal voice

The Inklings

The Inklings were a group of writers in Oxford who came together to create a space where they could blend myth, fantasy, and Christian ideas. They met in C.S. Lewis's rooms at Magdalen College and later at a pub called The Eagle and Child. This group served as a place to share and develop early versions of what would become important fantasy literature.

Their collective imagination reshaped 20th-century literature by legitimizing fantasy as a vehicle for serious philosophical and theological exploration—a direct challenge to the period's literary establishment that privileged realism and secular perspectives.

What distinguishes the Inklings' cultural impact is their remarkable staying power—their works have not simply endured but have expanded in influence, spawning film adaptations, academic departments, and entire literary genres. Through Middle-earth, Narnia, and their theological writings, they created immersive secondary worlds that continue to offer alternatives to technological materialism.

Their literary project—rescuing pre-modern ways of knowing through narrative—appears increasingly prescient as contemporary culture grapples with meaning in digital spaces. The Inklings remind us that fantasy is not mere escapism, but can function as a cultural critique and imaginative restoration—what Tolkien called "recovery," the renewed clarity with which we might see our primary world.

Notable Members of the Inklings and Their Works:

• J.R.R. Tolkien — The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion

• C.S. Lewis — The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, The Space Trilogy

• Charles Williams — All Hallows' Eve, War in Heaven, The Place of the Lion

• Owen Barfield — Saving the Appearances, Poetic Diction, History in English Words

• Lord David Cecil — The Stricken Deer, Early Victorian Novelists, Oxford literary scholar

• Nevill Coghill — Translator of The Canterbury Tales, literary scholar

Today’s Writing Communities | The Vanguard for Tomorrow’s Readers, Writers, and Thinkers

It’s relatively easy to see the impact of yesterday’s literary communities.

That’s the beauty of hindsight. We can more easily make sense of things that happened in the past because their outcomes have had time to play out.

When discussing groups like the Bloomsbury Group, the Sisterhood, or the Inklings, we have an innate sense of their value because we are familiar with the names and works of their members. Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, and J.R.R. Tolkien loom large in the literary and cultural zeitgeist, and for good reason. Their works and their legacy, along with those of their fellow writing group members, have been inducted into the literary canon and have shaped the world of publishing for decades to come.

In our writing groups, things are still playing out. It’s harder to see the beauty and impact of our immediate surroundings precisely because we exist within the context of where we are. We didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree, you know?

We lose the forest for the trees. Or perhaps the trees for the forest. Whichever version of that saying makes the most sense here, apply it. My point is that time hasn’t yet revealed what will come of the communities we’re a part of now.

I don’t mean to suggest that we’re all in line to be the next CS Lewis or Audre Lorde. Hardly.

But, I do think it’s important to acknowledge the literary legacy we have inherited as today’s readers, writers, and art lovers. Literary communities have had such a profound impact on the canon and on culture because (and I’m not being melodramatic) magic happens when already sharp minds come together to sharpen each other.

One of my refrains across this newsletter and the accompanying podcast is that writing never exists in a vacuum. It is always responding to the culture in which it is created. A story will either reinforce or subvert dominant cultural norms. While I’m usually a man of nuance, this is something where there is no gray area. Writing subverts or it reinforces– always.

When we examine groups like the three discussed in this newsletter, it becomes clear that their artistic endeavors were consistently framed within the context of politics and culture.

In our current society, there are significant shifts away from intellectualism, thoughtful cultural critique, and engagement with art. The chronically online think that academic research is a waste of effort or that the villain’s actions in a book must represent an author’s personal nature. Booktokers and bloggers equate their personal taste with artistic merit, prioritizing the aesthetics of books over the value of literature. And, of course, there are revenue-maximizing efforts to more deeply commodify story with AI, giving wishful thinkers the illusion that they too can be authors and corporate executives the idea that they can cut out authors altogether, replacing them with a fleet of LLMs trained on previously published works.

This is why it is imperative that we continue to gather. When writers gather to hone their craft, challenge each other to deepen their skills, and form a life raft of mutual support amidst the shifting tides of tech, capital, and culture, we are embracing the legacy laid out for us by the writers whose shoulders we stand on.

Additionally, it puts us in a position to stand stalwart for those who come after us. We are engaging in a conversation that transcends genre, craft conventions, and even generations.

Art– especially literature, but hey, I’m biased– is a net good in the world. It teaches us about ourselves and our relationship to humanity. It instills empathy, helps us think critically, and improves our abilities to communicate with each other. If there’s anything we need more of now, it’s that.

Coming together as communities and breaking writing out of the box of being a solitary endeavor is how we advance not only our own skills and craft, but the field as a whole.

And who knows? Maybe you are the next Morrison, Tolkien, or Woolf.

Happy nerdery to us all,

Blake Reichenbach