We were lucky to catch up with Susan G. Weidener recently and have shared our conversation below.

Susan G., thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I created the Women’s Writing Circle in suburban Philadelphia. The Circle was started in 2009 to offer women a place to share their voice and tell their stories through creative writing. We began in a bookstore with three people. The group grew, sometimes to fifteen or sixteen women meeting at the local bookstore. We had so many that the bookstore could no longer accommodate us, so I rented a hotel conference room for us to meet. Then we moved to a church for a while. Now we meet in a library in a historic town dating back to the Revolutionary War. Over the last 15 years … minus two years when we didn’t meet due to the pandemic … the Circle has broadened to writing workshops, author signings and talks in the community.

Susan G., before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As a former journalist with <i>The Philadelphia Inquirer</i>, I had spent seventeen years reporting news and writing features. When I left the newspaper, journalism proved the perfect segueway to start a new direction with my writing, which was creative writing and memoir. I attended a writing retreat in Kentucky, which was facilitated by Women Writing for a Change. The nuns sang matins from the church on the retreat house grounds. It inspired introspection and reflection. Every day, I wrote. Later, in the evening, women read their stories in a circle. I was amazed at what I was hearing. So much of it resonated with my own life. At the retreat, my first memoir, <i>Again in a Heartbea</i>t, was born in a circle of women sharing stories of trauma and healing. They encouraged me to keep going. The group’s founder, Mary Pierce Brosmer, became a mentor and the inspiration to start my own group based on her techniques of the read-around and women sharing their work in a circle of support and camaraderie. My story was about my happily-ever-after dreams shattered by the death of my husband from cancer and facing life as a single woman with two young children. So I started dating again. And wrote about that, too. And learned a lot about myself. Memoir became the foundation of the Women’s Writing Circle as many wanted to explore the trauma and loss in their own lives. This has been the most gratifying journey of my life, the trust these women have put into the circle, and the many writing workshops I’ve taught over the years.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Writing my first memoir led to a sequel, <i>Morning at Wellington Square. </i>The book is about my journey as a widow and single woman in her forties. Travel played into that, including a year in Arizona where things came into focus for me as a woman on a quest to find herself creatively and spiritually. After that, I wrote a novel, <i>A Portrait of Love and Honor</i>, based on my late husband’s memoir when he was a cadet at West Point during the Vietnam War. Of course, I also turned it into a love story between him and me. In the book, I was his editor and he was the writer. I could relive our lives and our love together through my writing. I wanted to share that journey and read my writing so women could share their love of writing and their work in a spirit of camaraderie, goodwill, and support. Women had suffered trauma or loss and I encouraged them to spend a morning to devote to themselves away from the outside world’s distractions, and the demands of family. Eventually, hundreds of women from all walks of life and diverse backgrounds attended the writing circle. The 2.5 hour sessions, which have met over the years in bookstores, hotel conference rooms and libraries, focus on discussing the craft of writing and writing techniques, and then moving to the read-around, which is a lovely exercise of reading aloud what you wrote in an intimate setting while “test-driving” your voice and work. This has been inspiring and gratifying for me and helped improve my creative writing. We offer “soft critique” of a piece, if the writer wants that. Our fee is minimal to attend these sessions, but a fee is required so that they have a bit of a stake in the effort. If it’s free, then it’s not valued.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word-of-mouth. In the earlier days of the writing circle, we relied heavily on small newspapers, but as they faded away and when the pandemic hit, we struggled to find new members. We encouraged women to talk about the circle and invite a friend to join us. It seemed many women longed for a writing circle in our community. It is also important to publish. Women’s Writing Circle has published two anthologies of short stories and poems and is working on a third, which is due out this spring. Our goal was, and is, to take the books to the public through open mic readings at assisted living communities, libraries, and bookstores, and offer book signings, which proved successful in providing information about the Women’s Writing Circle. It also encouraged other women to journal and write their life stories. I write a blog, Along the Writer’s Way, where I share reflections, always with an eye toward the challenges and struggles we women encounter and embrace in both creative and personal ways. My memoirs and novels, which I publish under my imprint, Writing Circle Press, have been featured in local book clubs, newspaper articles, and radio interviews.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://susangweidener.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WomensWritingCircle
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanweidener/

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