Our mission is to build a supportive writing community for women and non-binary writers. We write. We share inspiration. We encourage. Together, we create an energizing community space for writers:
- Plume: A Writer’s Podcast: Our podcast features successful women and non-binary writers, from emerging writers to bestselling novelists and award-winning poets. Our conversations and literary roundtables showcase hard-working talented writers, as we seek advice, insight, and inspiration to bring us back to our collective community. Along the way, our goal is to help writers believe in their voices and projects.
- Our Weekly Drop-in Zoom Group: Now in its third year, this is a virtual drop-in support group, where writers check in about current projects and share writing challenges and triumphs. We also write together in response to a new writing prompt each week.
- Our Plume Slack Channel: This is an online virtual space where women and non-binary writers can share resources, ask questions, connect with other writers, share writing prompts and projects, and offer and receive support in a safe, private space.
- Plume’s Monthly Accountability Group: Plume’s newest community-building addition, the Accountability Group, is designed for writers tackling large-scale writing projects. We meet to set goals, discuss strategies, offer encouragement, and help hold ourselves and each other accountable.
Through Plume’s literary community, we seek to uplift, showcase, and encourage women and non-binary writers wherever they are on their creative writing journey. We’re here to fan each other’s flames.
Visit our Patreon page to learn more about Plume’s affordable membership. Our podcast is available for free on all major podcast platforms.
Become a Plume Patron. Get access to our exclusive online writing community on Slack, bonus podcast content, and more.
Crystal K. Odelle
Hello, friends! Today’s interview is with Samantha Tetangco, Plume’s upcoming featured writer for November. I met Samantha (or Sam, as she tends to go by when not publishing) at the beginning of my MFA program in the fall of 2007. Right away I knew I had met a kindred writing spirit. Sam is such a hardworking and talented writer, one who is always willing to share ideas and support other writers. We were delighted when she agreed to extend that spirit of creative sharing to the Plume community! Plume: When did you know you were a writer? Samantha Tetangco: Wow! That’s a tough question. On one hand, I feel like asking me when I knew I was a writer is like asking when I learned how to breathe! Writing (and reading) have always been a part of who I am. I was scribbling stories in notebooks and sharing them with friends before I learned we were supposed to feel insecure about it all! And I think wanting to “be a writer” was probably the thing I wanted most as a kid (that and owning a pet store…). On the other hand, I feel like owning that title, “writer,” is such a difficult one! This summer, I taught at the Martha’s Vineyard Creative Writing Institute, and Alexander Weinstein, the conference founder, verbally declared us all graduates who could claim the identity of “writer.” “Go ahead and call yourself a writers,” he said. “If you need me to write you up a certificate so you can own the word, then I can! But you are now allowed to call yourself writers!” Okay, so maybe he didn’t say it like that (but that was the general idea!), and maybe he was talking to the students and not the instructors, but it wasn’t until maybe that moment that I could say I was a writer without hesitation – and that was AFTER getting an MFA, AFTER getting stories and poems and essays published, AFTER teaching writing, AFTER writing and writing and writing for years. I mean, why did it take me so long to be able to claim something that I claimed as a child without hesitation? So yeah, the answer is – I knew I was a writer immediately, and then spent my adult life remembering. P: Where do you get your ideas? ST: Ah, I love this question. I think ideas are … Read more
