Whether you’re a private journaler or a published author, all are welcome to participate in the Sawdust City Writers — a writing collective established in 2017 by Kate Venit. Diana Peterson joined the group in the inaugural year, and now serves as its lead organizer. She also is the curator for the Chippewa Valley Museum and has her own website where she writes about classic television. Diana is passionate about the writing community in Eau Claire and hopes to fuel it by fostering new writers with the Sawdust City Writers. The group meets at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library once a month. From working on your next novel to writing out your grocery list, any level of writer is encouraged to come. I had the pleasure of interviewing Diana and she let me in on everything that makes The Sawdust City Writers special.
McKenna Dutton: Who created the Sawdust city writers?
Diana Peterson: Back when it was created it started in 2017 and Katie Vennit started that. At the time we were called “Writers Anonymous” and then during the pandemic we started meeting more online and Katie was actually the one who said we should have a different title cause people were getting a little confused about what kind of group they were coming to and then it became the Sawdust City Writers in 2017.
MD: How long have you been involved in The Sawdust City Writers and what’s your position?
DP: I’ve been involved with them for the entire six years. I started attending and then Katie decided her personal life was getting really busy so she had to step away from the group and so I took on the management role. Making sure we have a place to meet, reminders are being sent out on Facebook, and events are being set up. So that’s my role right now with the group.
MD: What do you think is the intention for The Sawdust City Writers?
DP: We want to be a welcoming and encouraging group for anyone who has just begun writing or for someone who’s been writing for decades. We have people who have been in all aspects of that, whether it’s journaling and they’ve never written anything else or they’ve written three books and they have been querying them but received no response or they’ve actually been published. We have representatives from all those areas and I think we like to share our joys and sorrows of going through publishing. We can commiserate with people who have been querying for forever who aren’t getting responses but then being really happy for anyone who gets published. One of the biggest things is that writing can be really solitary. This gives a chance for writers to come together. During a session, the group is writing most of the time but we don’t do critiques. We do talk about things and bounce questions off of each other but we don’t critique each other's work. We can still write and not be solitary and if you’re having a hard time finding time to fit writing in your schedule at least you get an hour to an hour and a half once a month to dedicate towards that.
MD: What advice would you give to anyone who is nervous to join?
DP: We’ve all been there. Don’t feel bad. I remember my first time going and I walked in thinking “what am I doing?” So everybody’s been a new person at times, but I think they will fit in quickly and after a couple times they’ll feel like they’ve been with us all along.
The upcoming Sawdust City Writers meeting is on April 19th at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library from 6-7:45. If you have any questions about details leading up to future meetings you can check out the Sawdust City Writers Facebook or contact Diana!