Instagram story viewer> @consciouswriters> Posts

Conscious Writers Collective

@consciouswriters

4.4K

followers

189

following

The online campus for writers 👇🏼
Learn from acclaimed authors. Write alongside peers.

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Everyone loves giving writing advice. “Just write,” they say. “Read more,” they say. But what if it doesn’t work? And what does?

@mayacpopa, poet and founder of @consciouswriters, shares 3 things over a decade of teaching has taught her about how writers actually improve →

When I first started teaching creative writing, I ended the semester with the usual placid advice: if you want to write, read.

Today, after working with hundreds of writers as a teacher, editor, and founder of Conscious Writers Collective (CWC), I concede that I no longer think that advice is sufficient.

For writers pursuing MFAs and seeking publication, advising them to “read” feels lazy when I know a student’s “what now?” is collapsing two questions: How do I get better at this? How do I get published? Reading passively won’t bring about the transformation most are after.

You need to figure out what makes development possible for you. How will you keep writing and refining your writing after the one-off workshop, five years after the degree, or 30 years into your practice?

It matters how you read if the goal is to develop your craft. Trying something once is not the same as making that knowledge available to you as a kind of muscle memory when you need it. It takes slowing down to metabolize, then put into practice, what you are learning. We’ve talked about this at length in @consciouswriters Office Hours.

Our strength can become our limitation. A beginning writer’s weaknesses are easy to see and address. Growth often happens by default at first, and less so as time goes on.

It gets harder to improve. I often describe it as turning a screw: the more tightly it’s already wedged in, the greater the resistance. So writers cultivate a kind of shorthand of rhythms, gestures, and ways of making meaning that become their signature. But there’s little growth in repetition.

This is one reason @consciouswriters exposes writers to multiple instructor perspectives. The best literary community isn’t a room where everyone shares the same taste—that would risk becoming an aesthetic echo chamber. The goal is to learn to trust your own compass.

I was adamant about wanting to build a space where wr by @consciouswriters

2k

106

17 days ago

Workshops end. Rejections accumulate. Careers become consuming.

CWC helps you keep writing.

Enrollment closes 12.31. After that, we move to waitlist-only and membership prices increase. Join by 12.31 to lock in the current rate.

Swipe to see everything your membership includes ✨

Our 2027 core faculty includes Carl Phillips, Adrian Matejka, Erin Belieu, Richie Hofmann, Meghan O'Rourke and Andre Dubus III.

Comment JOIN and we'll DM you the link for our free trial week, or enroll at the link in bio. Doors close 12.31

#ConsciousWritersCollective #OnlineWritingWorkshop #PoetryWorkshop #FictionWriting #CreativeNonfiction #MFAAlternative #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #PoetsOfInstagram by @consciouswriters

3

11

6 days ago

Four extraordinary poets. Four craft-focused quarters. A year devoted to developing your writing.

Meet CWC's 2027 core faculty in Poetry:

✦ Winter: @pinestereo
✦ Spring: @adrian.matejka
✦ Summer: @poet.erin.belieu
✦ Fall: @richiehof

Each poet will lead a quarter of craft classes offering members a chance to spend sustained time with their approach to poetry. Each month, members will also have a chance to ask questions about poetry and publishing in Office Hours led by these insightful writers and teachers.

CWC Poetry membership also includes:

✦ Regular workshops (4x/month in 2027)
✦ An active feedback forum
✦ Writing accountability hours, seven days a week
✦ More than 300 hours of past course in our replay archive taught by Jorie Graham, Jane Hirshfield, Kaveh Akbar, Ellen Bass, Kimiko Hahn, Greg Orr, Pádraig Ó Tuama, and others.
✦ A community of more than 400 writers worldwide

ENROLLMENT ENDS ON 12/31. 2026 is our final year of open enrollment and month-to-month plans. Starting in 2027, we’ll welcome new members on a waitlist basis.

Join CWC through the link in bio. Comment “2027” and we’ll send you a discount code and free week to explore our offerings. 💛 by @consciouswriters

522

53

7 days ago

@meghanor + Andre Dubus III + a thriving online community of serious writers = *actually* finishing a draft of your book in 2027.

We're so excited to announce that Meghan O'Rourke will be teaching and advising our non-fiction writers in 2027, while Andre Dubus III will be leading monthly Office Hours to answer all of your craft and publishing questions live.

Here's CWC Prose in 2027:

✦ 6x craft classes with Meghan O’Rourke
✦ Monthly Office Hours with Andre Dubus III
✦ 2x Additional monthly workshops for prose writers to get feedback from Chris Hood and Lucy Dale
✦ Additional monthly craft classes focused on fiction topics (and their applications to non-fiction)
✦ An active feedback forum to share work and exchange notes
✦ Writing accountability hours, seven days a week
✦ More than 200 hours of past fiction and non-fiction courses in our replay archive (including sessions with Robert MacFarlane, Garth Greenwell, Pascale Petit, @bethannfennelly, Noreen Masud, Amit Majmudar, and others).

Join more than 400 writers around the world for a year of reading, writing, and learning together.

ENROLLMENT ENDS ON 12/31. 2026 is our final year of open enrollment and month-to-month plans. Starting in 2027, we’ll welcome new members on a waitlist basis.

Join CWC through the link in bio. Comment “2027” and we’ll send you a discount code and free week to explore our offerings. 💛 by @consciouswriters

76

16

7 days ago

CWC meet up at @mcnallyjackson to hear @mayacpopa and @padraigotuama. ✨ by @consciouswriters

103

7

24 days ago

✨✨ Another impeccable clip (with a revision tip) from Carl Phillip’s class “On Patterning,” in CWC Poetry.

If you haven’t heard our exciting news yet— in 2027, we will be moving to a core faculty model in both branches that is designed to offer greater continuity and depth for writers in CWC. This new model will give members the opportunity to study with the same writer over three months—an experience closer to the sustained instruction of an MFA program.

So… guess who’s coming back to CWC Poetry as a core faculty member in 2027? In January, February and March, Carl Phillips himself will be leading our craft classes and office hours, and we truly could not be more thrilled to have him.

The full recording of this class, “On Patterning,” is captivating from start to finish, and it’s available 24/7 to members on our platform. ✨✨ by @consciouswriters

538

11

24 days ago

✨✨ A short clip from the stunning writer Meghan O’Rourke on the uniqueness of non-fiction as a genre, and her strategies for establishing trust with a reader.

We have to establish trust with our reader, and to do that we have to be a developed self on the page, and one of the ways to characterize the “I”, to let the reader get to know us, is to show them how we think.

The full recording of @meghanor’s craft class on “The Palimpsest Narrator” is available 24/7 to our Prose and All-Access members on our community platform. ✨✨ by @consciouswriters

56

4

2 months ago

✨✨The delightful poet and teacher, Traci Brimhall, visited CWC Poetry in August to teach a wonderful craft class called The Body Electric: Pleasure and Pain in Poetry.

The writing exercises she shared with us were simple, fun, and tremendously effective— the writing that came out of this session was FANTASTIC.

This two-hour craft class was recorded and uploaded to our platform for 24/7 member access. ✨✨

Our Poetry and Prose Branches are both open now, but will close on December 31st. Beginning in 2027, our fees will increase and we will offer annual membership on a waitlist basis. In other words, now is the time to enroll if you’ve been considering taking the leap. Send us a message or click on the link in our bio if you’re interested in joining our collective. ✨✨ by @consciouswriters

3

2

9 days ago

The vivid and brilliant writer, Beth Ann Fennelly, taught a riveting class on Micro Memoir to our Prose Branch this past August. The full, two-hour session is brimming with gems like this one.

In this clip, @bethannfennelly speaks to the considerations she made when ordering her manuscripts. By generously sharing from her personal experience, she offers excellent advice to writers in the organizational stage of a project.

This class is available 24/7 to CWC Prose and All-Access Members in our Non-Fiction Courses vault. ✨✨

If you’re interested in becoming a member of CWC, now is the time to do it! Doors close on 12/31. We will only open on a waitlist basis in 2027. by @consciouswriters

47

2

4 days ago

CWC Reading Series ✨ 10.13.26, 7-8:30PM ET on Zoom ✨

An evening of new work by CWC writers — poems, stories, and essays shared among friends.

Featuring work by Christine Leja, Christina Hauck, Carol Coven Grannick, Angela Janda, Beth Williams, Barry Casey, Laura Pendell, Kim Nelson, Emma Goldman-Sherman, Mary Roblyn, Daniel Warner, Michael Foran, Diane Silver, Brian Chaffee, Peter Carter, Harbour Fraser Hodder, and Jo Bower

Come listen! Link in the CWC Portal ✨

#ConsciousWritersCollective #ReadingSeries #PoetryReading #FictionReading #WritingCommunity by @consciouswriters

3

3

12 days ago

✨✨Michael Wiegers, Executive Editor of the legendary Copper Canyon Press, is visiting CWC for an hour long conversation with @mayacpopa.

These Q&A with Editors sessions give our members the rare and priceless opportunity to ask questions and glean wisdom from many of the most accomplished editors working today.

Previous Q&A’s with Editors have included Maya Marshall of Haymarket Books, Hannah Aizenman of The New Yorker, Adrian Matejka of Poetry Magazine, Camille Ralphs of The Times Literary Supplement and more.

These conversations are recorded and saved for 24/7 access to members on our CWC platform. ✨✨ by @consciouswriters

3

0

14 days ago

Our extraordinary writer-in-residence, @alinajenesaisquoi, is wrapping up the year with ONE LAST three-part class on generating writing based on dreams in October, November, and December. We miss Alina already!!!

Comment TICKET and we'll send you the direct sign up link. We have room for five non-CWC members to join us on this literary voyage into the subconscious. 🚢 by @consciouswriters

164

19

16 days ago