The La Crosse Area Writers Group (LAWG) is a small group of local writers that share their writing and humble critiques in order to better their writing. All forms and genres of writing including prose, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction are welcome. If you would like the opportunity to read your writing and receive critque from fellow, serious writers, then please contact us!

MORE DETAILED INFORMATION:

We meet on the first and third Thursdays of every month at 7:00 in a basement meeting room at the Gundersen Lutheran Clinic in La Crosse. The meetings last until 9:00, give or take. There are app. 35 members with some being far more active than others. At any given meeting we have 8 to 12 people in attendance. We start with some chatter, social but focused on our writing; what we are working on, what we are submitting, successes, not-so-successes and the like. Then the moderator finds out who has something they would like to share, to read. The moderator then figures out who reads and in what order. We try and balance so everyone gets a chance, and people who seldom bring anything get first opportunity, and so on.

The writer tries to bring 8 to 12 copies of their piece to the group. (Not a requirement) We all listen and follow along. Then we have a discussion about the piece. Some folks also make written comments to pass back to the author. The comments are, well, terrific. It has always amazed me that the members of the group, while being very honest, still manage to be respectful and helpful. We have a variety of people at a variety of skill levels and the group does a great job at naturally taking that into account.

We have all kinds of people in the group. There are college students and retired professionals. Some of us have been writing for quite a while and some of us are just getting started. Some of us have been published and some of us are never going to try. We write novels, short stories, poetry, plays, essays and one guy even used to write a regular column on physical conditioning.

I always forget, but there is a $10.00 a year fee. But don’t worry about that. Come visit us a few times and see if you like it before you take that plunge.