Do you have a writing group you love?
Turns out, social support is like a vitamin — it literally enhances your immune system. When you belong to a healthy network, it makes your life better. When you belong to a healthy writing community, it makes your writing better.
Writers who gather together are more grounded, creative, and productive.
A good writing group will support your professional career, and help you reach your goals.
As a writer, you use language to express the inexpressible.
You write to discover what you don’t know yet. You write to metabolize all the things that have happened to you. You write to make sense of the world, and to honour the people you love.
You have an invigorating and mysterious job!
It can also be confusing. When you’re writing in a vacuum, it’s hard to tell if you’re on the right track. It’s hard to stay focused.
Sometimes, writing alone can feel aimless.
Honour your intellect and your intuition with deliberate creative practice. You’ll get daily writing prompts to help you work your right brain every day. In our monthly calls, you’ll develop rhythms and rituals you know you can trust, so you can create even more joy in your writing.
Connect with writers who understand your love for language and craft. Share knowledge and resources, get book recommendations and help with research, and pose technique and structure questions to the group. Even introverts flourish with good writing conversation.
It’s so much fun (and satisfying) to talk with fellow emerging authors. Between our book club, reading series, writers’ salons, monthly workshops, active discussions, daily prompts, feedback and conversation, this is a place for rich, collaborative insight about all facets of a professional creative writing life.
Mastering a craft comes from hours of deliberate practice, but writing time doesn’t have to be a grind! When you’re writing with friends and peers, time passes quickly and you’ll feel in flow. You’ll generate new stories, scenes, and ideas on a regular basis, and they’ll sparkle with fresh energy.
Access advice, events, and other resources for learning, creative strategy, and skill development. In addition to regular co-writing and conversation, you get to learn from a different guest mentor every month.
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
11:30am - 1:00pm EST
(timezone converter)
$20 drop-in, or free for members
You can put the drop-in cost toward your Centered membership if you decide to join later.
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
11:30am - 1:00pm EST
(timezone converter)
As authors we are interested in developing craft, stretching into new genres, and understanding how to make the writing and book promotion process more enjoyable and effective. How do we create the space for new learning, new writing, self-care? How do we lean into the fallow times between projects? How do we deal with frustration when our work isn't feeling spacious?
Farzana will reflect on a few key moments in her writing life and then open up the conversation to the group for their own reflection on these topics.
Farzana Doctor is a Toronto-based author, activist and psychotherapist. She’s written four critically acclaimed lit-fic novels, Stealing Nasreen, Six Metres of Pavement, All Inclusive, and Seven, a poetry collection, You Still Look The Same, and a self- and community care workbook for helpers and activists, 52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life. The Beauty of Us, her first YA book, has just come out.
In 2023, Farzana received the prestigious Freedom To Read Award. In 2020, Seven was chosen as an Amnesty International Book Club’s Reader’s Choice Pick and was shortlisted for the Trillium, Evergreen awards. Six Metres of Pavement won the Lambda and Writers’ Trust Dayne Oglivie prizes and was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award in 2012.
Learn more at www.Linktr.ee/farzanadoctor.
$20 drop-in, or free for members
You can put the drop-in cost toward your Centered membership if you decide to join later.
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
*
“The intention and care that you all put into Centered, and the writing school as a whole, is truly inspiring. I’ve never been in a community offering quite like what you, Sarah, and the team have created. I’m having a ball in it and love that it is a dip-in-and-out-with-no-pressure vibe.”
Woz Flint
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
*
“Today everything came together and I’m seeing the fruits of my labour/practice pay off. I can see it working. Thank you for your community, monthly calls, guest lecturers, kind words and expertise. Loving it.”
Jesse McQuay
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
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“As a part of Centred, I feel that there is support if I’d like to reach out for and this sense of being supported, seeing and been seen has made all the difference to my writing practice.”
Reshmy Kurian
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
*
“[Centered is] a timeless magical place where people who love writing and the writing process, gather to share, learn and support one another through wherever they are in their own writing journey. It is a place that encourages, supports and helps move you along the path of writing that is meant for you. Its space is timeless because also the sessions are recorded, and this allows you the benefit of going back through materials when it suits your schedule. Wisdom and Community to carry you through a wild writing life.”
Vitra Kalsi
“What you all do to create the warmth of community online is nothing short of magic. I’ve been involved with lots of online writer communities. Nothing beats Sarah Selecky Writing School.”
Sidura Ludwig
Author of You Are Not What We Expected
Inspiring Warm-Ups to Generate Ideas
Our daily prompts are deliberately random and unique, designed to set off sparks in your mind. Every day, we drop a new exercise (and every two weeks, a story prompt). Take 10 minutes and then share your writing with us! Encouragement and feedback from your peers gives you momentum, so you look forward to your writing practice.
Write to a prompt every day, and turn a fun exercise into a valuable habit.
You may also choose to receive your Daily Prompts by email, every day at 6:00am ET, so you can get writing first thing.
Your writing mastermind
These are consistent, brief, and actionable meetings for writers who want to get focused quickly, hold each other accountable, keep each other motivated, help each other find resources, and otherwise get amazing work done every week. This is the writing group you've been wishing for.
Free from outside distractions
As graduates of our writing programs know, the magic really happens in the Discussion Spheres. In Centered, you get to experience that magic every day. It’s the place where you can meet friends, teachers, and colleagues, exchange meaningful feedback, and join stimulating discussions.
Our spheres are on a private site, to keep distraction at a minimum. We don’t use social media, so you can stay focused on writing, and not be interrupted by pings. And if posting your words on public sites makes you uneasy (we get it), you can feel safe to do so here.
Monthly 90 minute focus sessions
Our monthly themes guide our programming. Themes like spark, support, commitment, structure, wonder, and shadow. And each month we gather on Zoom to reflect on our theme.
These calls start with a motivating meditation, to build up your confidence, creativity, focus, and the depth of your work overall. Then we move into deep focus and write together for 45 minutes. When we write together, we co-regulate. Also known as “body doubling,” this is a productivity aid that cultivates focus and motivation. As a result, writers have frequent breakthroughs during these sessions.
Join our next Hypnosis and Co-writing Session ($20 drop-in, or free for members).
Learn from bestselling authors of different genres, creativity coaches, agents, publishers, and more experts throughout your membership in Centered.
Guest mentors join us every month for live workshops and active learning. These workshops are recorded, so you can watch the replays whenever you like.
Make an impact, get published
On the 3rd Sunday of the month, we submit our work! Send your writing to the contests, agents and journals with whom you want to publish. When we submit together, it’s more fun, and we feel empowered, motivated, and encouraged.
Don’t have anything to submit yet? Come anyway, and tap into our combined energy to create or polish your story to get it ready for submission at a later date.
Powerful writing time every week
These are fun and energizing 45-minute sessions that bring focus to your Friday! We’ll meet in the Field to say hello and write together using the Daily Prompt for ten minutes. After, you may choose to read your writing to the group for extra accountability and that sweet little rush that comes from reading aloud.
Read like a writer, with other writers
Twice a year, we get a chance to speak on behalf of the books we choose to recommend to each other. We look at books from both sides—as writers and as readers. We discuss the whys and hows of the writing itself, and find new ways to solve our craft problems.
Our book club is about reading widely, layering our influences, and benefitting from the shared intellect, passion and wonder that is alive in our community.
Read your work out loud
One of the paradoxes about writing is that it’s often done in isolation, and yet it takes a reader or a listener to give our work meaning.
Experience the benefit of reading out loud to the generous members of this community, and feel the energy in your new work. Our reading series happens twice a year.
Our gathering space
The Field is our private gathering and writing space. It feels kind of like Zoom meets Narnia. We’ve designed it for you to have easy and fun spontaneous co-writing dates with each other. The Field is always open to members, 24 hours a day, in any timezone. Whenever you need motivation and companionship, reach out to meet a member for a writing date in our virtual meadow.
An assessment to guide your focus
As a Centered member, you’ll get our Life Cycle of a Writer scale, so you can assess where you are right now and make a good decision about what to try next.
You know you’re a good writer. But are you pushing yourself out of your comfort zone? Is it time to start submitting your work? Or is it time to go back to the beginner’s mind? Find out using this unique, sensitive, and detailed assessment tool we created for our members.
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
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“I really love the feel and atmosphere of Centered. I also love the platform and how intuitive and easy it is to use. It’s a beautiful space! ... I am really happy to be a part of the community! Thank you for creating it!”
Nancy Sulaiman
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
*
“I absolutely loved participating in Centered’s first Reading event. You’d think it might be frightening to read brand new work to strangers, ... but it was the exact opposite ... This event was a celebration of writing and reading amongst friends. I’ve had the opportunity to read at the Banff Centre as well as UBC during my MFA, but neither offered quite this experience of intimacy and connection. I highly recommend Centered’s Reading Series (and everything about Centered!)”
Cheryl Archer
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
*
“Thank you SO much for creating Centered. I was on the fence, about joining because I just wasn’t sure how intentional I would be about engaging. It’s hard to admit, but I was a little worried this was something I would pay for but not do. Something about the space, the structure, the gentleness of it all is so inviting. I’ve really been surprised how much I am enjoying sharing my pieces as well as reading and engaging with others’ work. I’ve been writing more in the last two weeks than I have in the entire first half of the year. ”
Diane Douiyssi
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
*
“There is something about Sarah’s approach, the insightful and encouraging method and teachers that she puts together, and the writers that collect around her that I appreciate. It’s good to be here.”
Ivy
“What you’ve built for writers is something hard to find: a safe, supportive, non-competitive space where people can really build each other up and cheer each other on, while growing their skills and finding their heart stories. I love being a part of it.”
Sidura Ludwig
Author of You Are Not What We Expected
I
’m a writer, novelist, and the founder of this program. I started teaching creative writing in my living room in 2001. Since then, I’ve taught thousands of writers from more than 20 countries around the world how to write what they want to read.
I believe writing is both an art and a contemplative practice.
Centered is a sparkling collective that exists alongside our creative writing programs. Most members are our graduates, but all writers are invited to join us.
Imagine how it would feel to have a genuine connection with your writing every day — and to belong to a group of writers on a similar journey.
If you’re at a stage where a generous and supportive community of writers would benefit your creative career, I invite you to try a month in Centered.
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
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“Centered is the community I’ve been waiting for. An opportunity to connect with thoughtful, kind, brilliant writers from all over the world. It is an unparalleled opportunity for daily practice and sharing — truly a supportive, inspiring place to nurture my writing.”
Julie Gabrielli
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
*
“Using Centered to enrich my writing practice has done wonders for my state of mind and my writing. It keeps me connected to my creativity, even when I am struggling to produce work in my own practice. It reminds me to write for pleasure.”
Diana Dinerman
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
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“Many writers will find themselves at home here because Centered is more than a school—it’s an ethos. ”
Stephen Forman
Want to meet other writers? Log in for support and conversation in a writing community you’ll love. Find a writing partner and enjoy daily writing prompts, feedback, and monthly workshops that help you grow as a writer. Be more productive! Join co-writing sessions, work with guest mentors, discover what writers are reading, share your work in our live readings, and more.
Find your writing community.
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“Thank you so much for creating Centered ... This is the first time I have had the chance to really share my everyday writing and I love it!”
Rebecca Kingston
We believe that what you pay attention to grows. We want writers to grow creatively without making themselves feel like they’re wrong all the time. That’s why, in our programs, we focus on what works. We find writers’ strengths and magnify them.
Stories are our witnesses, healers, protectors, and guides. We believe that writers empowered with craft can weave new worlds and propose new norms. And that writers who know how to accept the mystery of the creative process can find insight, surprise, and joy in their work.
Centered is a space for collective growth. Our members help each other cultivate a satisfying writing life. We bring together writers in different phases of our writing life, from around the globe. You’ll find thoughtful individuals here; people who will encourage you, challenge you, assist you, and meet you where you are.
We believe that a non-competitive environment builds creative, confident, curious, and psychologically healthy writers. We try to meet writers where they are, and help them evolve on their own terms. We endeavour to support the entire writer, and the entire process of writing, from beginning phases to advanced.
As a collective, we’re paying attention to writing in a particular way: from a generous, generative, and imaginative place. We appreciate the power of technique, and are always open to learning more.
Memberships to Centered are non-refundable. Your membership will automatically renew monthly. You may cancel at any time.
(Subscription fees are subject to change)
For more details, please review our complete terms and conditions.
Photo credits of dandelion images:
Wolfgang Hasselmann, Alexa T, Viridi Green, and Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash.
