Trusted Critics

Critique Group Guidelines for Devoted Writers

My critique group is as vital to my writing as my laptop. They are tactful, insightful writers who keep me moving forward.

I’ve been meeting with the same critique group, in one form or another, for fourteen years.

I first found them through the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society, and later met additional members through the Historical Novel Society.

Cover shot from Daniel's book, Seeking Intimacy - A Male Bulimic's Love Story.

At my first meeting, Shelly Y. led eight writers gathered on the patio of the Santa Monica Public Library. The discussion was lively, and everyone was clearly invested in one another’s scenes.

Three of us from that June day are still in the group: Daniel, Katherine, and me. I also owe Sue, Marina, Alexander, and Barry—a debt of gratitude for soldiering through my early drafts. Don P., in particular, helped me finally understand narrative point of view.

Over the years, the constellation shifted. Some writers stayed a season, others a decade. We met in Sue’s house—in Ted’s study or their backyard—occasionally at my home in Topanga Canyon, and at Ann’s place. When the pandemic arrived, we moved to Zoom, where we still meet since Dan moved out of state (see Daniel Brandler's Seeking Intimacy - A Male Bulimic's Love Story.)

Life unfolded alongside the manuscripts. Members married, had children, survived cancer, began and ended careers, and even had a love affair and breakup within the group.

We’ve also lost writers. We remember with affection Gabriel de Anda, whose presence elevated everyone’s vocabulary and sharpened every discussion, and Tony Todaro, co-founder and executive director of GLAWS. They left behind great stories.

Through it all, we keep exchanging pages. After all—who else will care if we finish that book?

Reading someone’s work month after month reveals the deeper corners of a writer’s imagination. I’ve wandered through Dan's speculative and sci-fi worlds, watched Ann’s fictional Los Angeles family slide toward homelessness, and followed Katherine’s romantasy and her Jamaican romance, Marilyn’s cross-cultural fiction, Sasha’s Russian crime, Suraj’s LA gangs, Don’s Neanderthals, Cecelia’s dragons, Kim’s Italian renaissance, Marina’s sexy sea voyages, Sue’s search for a birth parent, Gabriel’s imagined soirée with Kahlo and Rivera, Ken’s golf intrigues, Erica’s steamy travelogues, Roy’s twisted suspense, Shirley’s heist comedy, and Nancy’s poetry—along with chapters from many others.

Writers may move on, but their stories stay with me.

We compare notes on editors and agents, attend readings, and celebrate publications. Katherine, who led the group for several years, introduced us to National Novel Writing Month and later edited NaNoWriMo's Songs in the Key of Sunset and the Dreambridge anthology In My Element: Tales of Magic, Mystery and Transformation, which includes Ann's short story, The Hole.

Ann, a historical novelist I much admire (read The Devil's Son—Cap Hatfield and the End of the Hatfield and McCoy Feud), once wrote a playful yarn weaving all our characters together—imagining them meeting, colliding, and complaining about the predicaments we authors had put them in. It was hilarious and only possible by an author who supported other writers' works so fully.

A few conflicts have arisen in our history. We are opinionated! Sometimes pushing totally conflicting advice on some author. Take all with a grain of salt.

Ours is one of the most rigorous critique groups I know, though visitors often remark that we manage to be as tactful as we are candid. If you’d like to adopt our approach, you can download our guidelines below.

If you’re considering forming or joining a group, borrow what works.

And if you’re reading this as a former member of this particular critique group, please get in touch. Tell me how the novel

or memoir is coming along. Drop in on us sometime.

The right critique group will make you steadier, braver, and less alone in the long middle of a writing life.

If you’re interested in ours, you can contact me.

Fourteen years in, I wouldn’t trade that Sunday afternoon on Zoom for anything on my desk—except maybe a finished book.

Critique Group Guidelines 032326 Not spreads.pdf

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