world of words
wonder | wander | women are enjoying being in a writing class together. After over a decade of on going classes with writing teacher and author, John McCaffrey — we can finally attend them together on Zoom.
First formed when we had just moved to Hoboken, New Jersey — where the local middle school was offering some continuing education evening classes in February 2010. We signed up for a fiction writing class where we met what would become our decade long tightly knit gang.
Sadly, the next year Hoboken was low on funds and killed the program. We prevailed on John to continue and moved our venue to local homes and eventually, Symposia Bookstore, along the main drag on Washington Street. Through the years we kept to our core group while a few new folks came and left.
For the main members this turned out to be the best thing. We got into the habit of grabbing coffee or a quick bite either before of after our evening sessions. Mainly to review what we were working on but often spilling over into what was going on in our lives too.
It worked that we were a diverse group of expressive voices and strong opinions. Through weddings, children, moving away, health scares and deaths of our loved ones we got to bond even more. Our writing sessions were also our support group and even group therapy.
We wrote, read and learned together, forming an energetic bond that saw us through life tempests — from the usual petty dramas to COVID last year, and all the big and small scares throughout the decade. We’ve managed to keep this bubble around us where we were all accepted and safe.
We’ve had a few times where someone shows up who does not quite fit in. We even went through a period where some greedy intruder broke us up for a while. Thankfully not much can stand between us and these gaps did not last — ten plus years later we are still happily going strong.
In the meantime, John has published three books and counting, two more have as well, two others are working on their manuscripts — and all the while our writing keeps improving. Our relationships have expanded and deepened too in this circle we have all grown to love and value.
Here’s to more glorious moments together folks!
Originally published at https://wonderwanderwomen.blogspot.com.
