Members of Pine Island Writer’s Group help each other hone their craft
Chai Voris has been the president of the Pine Island Writer’s Group for the past four years. Spending much of her time doing administrative work, rather than writing, has helped her make the decision that this is her last year as president.
Belonging to the group offers much to aspiring, as well as seasoned, writers, Voris said.
“We are pretty much considered a critique group,” said Voris. “We get together and we read our writing to each other and we get feedback. It’s wonderful to get feedback because when you’re reading it yourself you know what you have going on in your mind, but when you read it to someone else and they don’t understand it, it allows you to improve your writing skills. In the end, you don’t have to take any of the feedback you get, but it is nice to have.”
The group consists of every genre writer imaginable, Voris said, from young adult and fantasy to science fiction and children’s books and even scriptwriters. Each writer seems to be on his or her own journey, from those writing their own journal to writers in the midst of publishing.
Due to the pandemic in 2020, the group had to become accustomed to meeting on Zoom, which it does on Monday nights from 7-9, with a monthly Thursday topical meeting on writing skills.
If you are interested in joining the group, you can visit the website at pineislandwriters.org and send the requested information to get the Zoom link. The first two meetings are free of charge, and after that you will be asked to join the group. Voris said she always does a training class for anyone who is not tech-savvy enough to share their work via Zoom. Those unwilling to learn are free to email their work to Voris, and she will share their work for them from her computer. She says she is confident that she can teach anyone to get into a Zoom meeting and from there she can take care of the rest if necessary. Fortunately, many of the current group members are tech-savvy, she said, often willing to teach one another things such as blogging.
“The group is very beneficial, enriching your writing,” said Voris. “It can be something as simple as improving grammar. It’s great, you get experience from a lot of different types of writers.”