Writing is a famously lonely profession. When we work with clients, the Gilliam Writers Group is committed to sharing the burden of writing, transforming the process from an intimidating solo endeavor into a generative, shared conversation. We also do that for our faculty—that is, for each other. Unlike other online writing tutoring and freelance writing coaching services, which largely fail to prioritize interaction between service providers, we actively support each other through mentoring, workshops, dinners, retreats, and more. In this way, GWG’s faculty comes to know and trust one another deeply, forging relationships that make the Gilliam Writers Group fundamentally different from our competitors. We believe these relationships are essential to providing the highest quality services for our clients and students.

When writers work as a collective, however loosely formed, they can move mountains and penetrate the borders of cultural understanding, forever changing how they and their readers see the world. In the nineteenth century in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a “brotherhood of the Like-Minded” began meeting regularly to discuss their views, which were distinct in every way except their liberality. Labeled the Transcendental Club by a disparaging critic, this disparate band of writers, thinkers, and theologians would go on to publish its own groundbreaking literary journal, The Dial, and pen some of the most influential texts of the century, from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature” to Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. The Transcendentalist Club is just one example of the many literary fellowships, from the Dark Tower salons of the Harlem Renaissance to the Friday Clubs of the Bloomsbury Group, in which writers have found camaraderie through mutual support and empathetic conversation. 

Equally important as writing to the Transcendental movement was teaching. Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott, was a radical experimenter in the field of pedagogy and education; he averred that true learning was possible through conversation, not lecturing or rote memorization, and put his philosophy into practice through his work opening the minds of children. More than 150 years after Alcott called for education to follow the model of a conversation, we still believe that the best teaching is made possible by collaborative, supportive environments in which teachers can share methods, form mentoring relationships, and brainstorm solutions for the particular needs of clients. As a collective working toward the common goal of supplying the best instruction to our students and clients–rather than an unaffiliated scattering of strangers–we are better teachers, writers, and thinkers.