Interview – Sarah Lewis, Writers’ HQ
Foulmouthed activism meets touchy-feely sandwich sharing to create a kick-ass writing movement at Writers’ HQ. Boss Sarah Lewis tells us how the 25,000-strong community is inspiring each other to write more, while occasionally sticking it to the man.
Sarah, tell us about Writers’ HQ…
Writers’ HQ is a writing community that runs affordable creative writing courses, retreats and workshops for writers who feel like they don’t fit in other literary spaces. Our whole ethos is about providing time, space and friends for anyone who wants to develop their writing. It started in 2012 when my eldest child was about nine months old and I was losing my mind because I couldn’t find time to write. I hired a room in Brighton so I could spend the day working on my project and posted on Twitter that anyone was welcome to join me. 20 people turned up, and then it just kind of evolved into the sprawling behemoth it is today. Like any membership organisation we have people coming and going. The free membership still gives people a huge amount of stuff, and we have bursaries for people who are financially disadvantaged.
Tell us a bit about yourself…
I was working as an environmental journalist around 2008 when a combination of the financial crisis sinking all my work and a major burnout from working in the climate change space meant I had to evaluate what I was doing. I decided to study creative writing and somehow got a place on the famous UEA MA, where I ended up winning a bursary from a literary agency, whereupon I freaked out again and decided to embark on the decade-long procrastination project that it Writers’ HQ. I adore WHQ, it’s absolutely everything to me, but it does mean I still haven’t finished the novel I was working on during my masters in 2011.
Tell us about your community…
We currently have a community of about 25,000 people. They’re mainly from the UK but there are people all over the world: we have a strong contingent in Canada, people around mainland Europe, and a special shoutout to our Lebanese outpost for some amazing writing in the midst of some horrific chaos. WHQers just love stories in all and any format and have often thought about writing but life just gets in the way. I spend a lot of time telling people they have the right to take up space and the right to tell their stories.
What do you offer them?
We run affordable day-long writing retreats for writers in which we get everyone in a room, feed them sandwiches and tea all day and give out gold stars for writing progress. They’re so much fun and so productive. I think they work because there’s a particular kind of magic that happens when you work alongside other writers. Our online courses and events are all based on the idea that you get a tangible result at the end of it. We try not to spend too much time talking about theoretical ideas or focusing on inspiration and the muse. There’s a lot of focus on practical, generative, sustainable work. We just want to get on and do stuff.
Any writer success stories?
Yes! The amazing Samuel Burr’s novel The Fellowship of the Puzzlemakers was an instant Sunday Times bestseller earlier this year. Mallika Narayanan’s novel In The Dark I See You is doing really well. We have a whole slew of amazing short story writers like Sarah Royston, who’s short story collection Fernseed is out in September 2024, and Mathew Gostelowis published in every lit mag everywhere constantly.
Why is Writers’ HQ important?
Because stories are important and community is important and our creativity has been hijacked by a world that is very much not designed for the actual people who live in it. We’re not really about getting published or getting the big publishing deal (although obviously we love that stuff too), we’re about embracing the act of writing as an act of joy in and of itself. We’re about connecting with other people who understand stories as a fundamental part of existing as a human. Success for us is marked by the experience of writing - are you enjoying it? It is giving you that particular story feeling in your gut? Do you feel part of something bigger than yourself?
Best advice for writers?
Stop fucking about and start writing. Stories are your birthright, no one can tell you not to tell them.
How do you structure your time?
Some weeks it’s full time. Some weeks I sit on my ass and watch the sea and feel extremely smug that I get to do this thing that I love and that allows me plenty of ass-sitting time. I’m currently working on a novel and broadly speaking I can set aside a day a week to do that, although not right now because it’s the summer holidays so everything is chaos. It’s a nice balance but I’m slowly working to shift my week to be 50% Writers’ HQ and 50% my own writing, which is often fiction but also I like to write really nerdy essays about climate change and culture over at fictionalsarah.substack.com.
Despite spending so much time supporting other writers I’ve discovered that I can’t really do it for myself, so I have my own separate support network in place. I’ve recently finished being mentored by Leone Ross, which was an incredible experience, and I work with creativity coach Paul Macauley who helps keep my tangential self on track.
Tell us more about your events…
We run a monthly masterclass on a specialist writing subject, such as our Writing for Neurospicies series. I’ve teamed up with cognitive neuropsychologist Soracha Cashman for that, who I’d worked with previously and I know first-hand is extremely good at supporting people with executive function challenges. We have a huge number of neurodivergent writers and I really, really understand their struggles, so it’s awesome to be able to put things in place to support my spicy crew. We also run three special festivals a year - the Write A Novel Festival, Write A Short Story Festival, and the Writing as Resistance Festival.
One of the great privileges of having such a big community is I can reach out to writers I love and ask them to run workshops and they very often say yes and then I turn into a fangirl mess. For example, the Lidia Yuknavitch interview is such an embarrassment for me because she’s like this super incredible towering intellect and I’m literally squirming and squealing in my chair like a child and now that’s on video for members to watch any time so coooool well done me.
Who helps run Writers’ HQ?
We have a core WHQ team who run our retreats and regular events. Without them WHQ really is nothing and they make putting on events so easy with their professionalism and general writerly excellence. They include Anika Carpenter, Paul Macauley, Kathy Hoyle, Melissa Stirling Reid and Veronique Kootstra.
Tell us about the Writers’ HQ tone of voice…
I’m going to assume you mean the swearing and the unapologetic politics? Broadly speaking, that’s just me. I’m a filthy sweary lefty. When I started sending emails for the original Brighton Writers’ Retreat, they were only going to about 30 or 40 people so it was super low stakes. I spent years writing for other people and I got so sick of being told to be less energetic or less angry or less noisy or just ‘less’. At the time I was also wildly sleep deprived owing to having a tiny baby, working a job that did not suit me in the slightest, and I just wanted to say all the things I thought in the way I thought them without any filter or worrying about what other people thought. I was also really fed up with writing communities that made me feel like an alien. So I just kinda of gave no fucks and wrote things that made me laugh. Those very early emails were absolutely wild but I discovered straight away it really connected with people and the growth of the community has been phenomenal. So I stuck with it and not much has changed in the last 10 - 12 years…
What have you learned through the process?
How to swear better than any fucker out there. How to turn anything - literally anything - into a meme about writing. That everything is a metaphor. The importance of being extremely clear on my goals and boundaries. The importance of prioritising my own creative output. How important stories are. I mean, I always knew that stories are important, but the process of spending 10 years working with storytelling people has really shown me the true power and importance of this thing we all do.
What’s next?
The Writing as Resistance Festival! Throughout September we’re exploring stories as radical, political and powerful and omg I literally cannot wait. I’ve been talking about doing this for a good five, if not 10 years!
And after that?
Bringing about a global revolution via the power of creativity.
You can read more about Writers’ HQ here.