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You are here: Home / Writing / My Writing Group: The Little Engine That Could

My Writing Group: The Little Engine That Could

July 1st, 2016 by Sallie Bingham in Writing 5 Comments

From the series: Taos Writers Group

Every Tuesday, our writers group meets in Taos, New Mexico.

My Writing Group

Research file under Duncan Grant’s sketch of Virginia Woolf

Officially, my writing group—seven or so people who meet one evening a week in Taos, New Mexico—is an offshoot of SOMOS, the literary umbrella that provides readings, workshops and other services to this fascinating community. For reasons that are somewhat mysterious, there is nothing comparable in my hometown, Santa Fe.

Unofficially, I call it The Little Engine That Could, in honor of that small, cornflower blue engine in the children’s book and its uphill-going chant, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…”

We deserve that title because we are all working, without much support, on different kinds of non-fiction pieces, often parts of what will be full-length books, often variations on the theme of memoir: disciplined and acute writing about illness, accidents, addiction, the challenges of growing up, cooking as a cultural definition, and adventures in the wilderness, to name a few. Challenging material that must be treated with skill and detachment.

We are blessedly free from the dictates that have governed other writing groups I’ve joined and failed to stick to:

For any of you who think, or have thought, about starting a writing group, here is a model that works.
  • We always meet, even if only two or three of the group can attend.
  • Each of us pays what we can to SOMOS for the use of its space, usually twenty dollars a month.
  • We don’t discuss publishers, deadlines, agents—all of which are far beyond our control and deadly to deal with.
  • We are free of the competitive spirit that causes cruel or dismissive reactions to pieces that are often coming straight from the heart—and we have become close and trusting friends through the process of sharing our work, although I live sixty miles away and no one in the group sees the others on any regular basis.
  • At each meeting, each of us reads five new pages, hot off the computer, which keeps me moving steadily along on my new project, a short memoir called “Little Brother” which I plan to finish by the end of the summer.

Comments are often revelatory, as when Bob, last evening, pointed out to me a truth I’d failed to perceive about what I was writing: that my family was at its best when performing.

A revelation that will shed light on the rest of my book.

I’m particularly grateful for these Tuesday evenings because I finished four years of work on Doris Duke: The Invention of the New Woman last week and sent the manuscript off to Farrar, Straus & Giroux, my publisher, in New York.

My Writing Group

Doris Duke: The Invention of the New Woman: Completed manuscript, two drafts.

Some of you have been faithfully following the long, twisting path that has led to this conclusion. For you, I’m adding a photo of the piled-up research that resulted in my 365-page manuscript (shortened by strenuous editing).

Without my Taos group, I would probably now sink into that slough of despond where I sometimes lie for days or weeks when I’ve finished a big project.

I don’t have time for that particular immersion in mud. Here, instead, is the start of something new, with the glitter and shine the new always has before time, effort, editing, and uncertainty about the end result wear it off.

For any of you who think, or have thought, about starting a writing group, here is a model that works.

And we owe it all to that genius teacher and writer, Bonnie Black, who founded the group three years ago.

So, don’t hesitate. Go at it. As we all know, writing is inevitably and necessarily a lonely business, and so a once a week reprieve with your fellow toilers is what we all need, and what we all deserve.

But do follow this model.

[For more on my Taos writing group, please see my post, What It Takes to Be a Writer]

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A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. Shavawn Midori Berry on Facebook says

    July 1st, 2016 at 9:55 am

    Nice! I was just thinking a couple of nights ago that it is time for me to start one.

    Reply
  2. Bonnie Lee Black on Facebook says

    July 1st, 2016 at 12:13 pm

    Thank you, Sallie! Love you and miss you all. — BB xx

    Reply
  3. judyth hill says

    July 1st, 2016 at 5:29 pm

    Brava, Sallie! Your book off the publisher! And here, a true and beautiful piece! Blessings! Judyth

    Reply
  4. Bob Silver says

    July 2nd, 2016 at 5:48 am

    Some reflection on this “little engine that could.

    Bonnie Black’s determination to create a group culture, safely showing its members’ strengths and weaknesses as writers, committed to a covenant of unflagging intellectual honesty, all in a warm, generous, collaborative, empathic atmosphere, leaves a special legacy indeed. It has produced a union that often has the feel of family, a band of siblings who cherish and support their brothers and sisters, and who strive to create the best writing possible for each.

    Then there are the group’s participants. With the noteworthy exception of perhaps one career writer, group members were something else prior to becoming writers. In addition to one professional career writer, the group is composed of people who have had successful careers in other fields prior to writing: teaching, chiropractic, archeology, psychology, nursing, painting, photography, and business. In essence, they have little to prove, but much to do in their writing.

    And, of course, there is the inventive magic that is Taos.

    Reply
    • Bonnie Lee Black on Facebook says

      July 2nd, 2016 at 9:43 am

      Takes my breath away, Sallie.

      Reply

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Sallie Bingham introduces and reads from her latest work, Taken by the Shawnee.
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This event was recorded November 1, 2024 in Taos, NM at SOMOS Salon & Bookshop by KCEI Radio, Red River/Taos and broadcast on November 8, 2024.
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