Welcome to at Louis Place
(a liberatory community for writers)
︎︎︎
We are writers, artists, activists, and dreamers who hold each other accountable through shared writing practice.
About us
We are a community of generous readers and writers sharing ideas, listening to each other, studying together, learning from one another, and taking each other seriously. We are writing glossaries, short stories, screenplays, guides, essays, ghost stories, poems, morning pages, memoirs, syllabi, haiku, artist statements, journals, notes, fellowship applications, plays, sorrow songs, proposals.
Our biweekly open letter—free to all thinkers and readers—activates intellectual and creative networks across traditional intellectual silos.
Our co-writing community offers opportunities for personal and creative growth, as well as connection to peers from across the continent and the world. Offerings include daily co-writing, monthly project exchange, weekly groups for feedback or inspiration, guest workshops, and more.
Founded in 2020 by Steffani Jemison and Quincy Flowers, at Louis Place is coordinated by Naima Lowe in collaboration with Steffani and Quincy.
Programs at Louis Place in 2023-2024 are made possible in part through the sponsorship of The Field, with funding from the Teiger Foundation. Support us.
Our biweekly open letter—free to all thinkers and readers—activates intellectual and creative networks across traditional intellectual silos.
Our co-writing community offers opportunities for personal and creative growth, as well as connection to peers from across the continent and the world. Offerings include daily co-writing, monthly project exchange, weekly groups for feedback or inspiration, guest workshops, and more.
Founded in 2020 by Steffani Jemison and Quincy Flowers, at Louis Place is coordinated by Naima Lowe in collaboration with Steffani and Quincy.
Programs at Louis Place in 2023-2024 are made possible in part through the sponsorship of The Field, with funding from the Teiger Foundation. Support us.
What we do:
Quiet daily co-writing
8-9 am & 2-3 pm EST Monday through Sunday
Weekly small group cohorts
for support and feedback / feed forward (we call these Trajectory)
Writing workshops
for inspiration and advice. Winter/Spring 2023 guests include Sharon Bridgforth. Generative workshops are generally held monthly; we expect to host four between January and May 2023.
Page exchange
with other writers in the community, facilitated monthly
Library of writing prompts & reflections
from readings and proposals that surface in the community—with new additions every week.
Informal gathering around shared interests
strategizing about research software, residency applications. Also just hanging out.
Monthly writing retreats
we write together all day.
8-9 am & 2-3 pm EST Monday through Sunday
Weekly small group cohorts
for support and feedback / feed forward (we call these Trajectory)
Writing workshops
for inspiration and advice. Winter/Spring 2023 guests include Sharon Bridgforth. Generative workshops are generally held monthly; we expect to host four between January and May 2023.
Page exchange
with other writers in the community, facilitated monthly
Library of writing prompts & reflections
from readings and proposals that surface in the community—with new additions every week.
Informal gathering around shared interests
strategizing about research software, residency applications. Also just hanging out.
Monthly writing retreats
we write together all day.
Yes, at Louis Place is for you if:
✌🏾 You seek nonhierarchical, interdisciplinary, intergenerational intellectual exchange
✌🏾 You write or think meaningfully about writing in relation to your creative work
✌🏾 You want to be in comfortable, private, and drama-free conversation with ambitious writers (editors, playwrights, scholars, performers, artists, curators, activists) from around the world. We are in the cities currently known as Lima, Austin, Chicago, Mexico City, Oklahoma City, Brooklyn, New Haven, Washington DC, Cincinnati, Harlem, New Jersey, Atlanta, and more.
✌🏾 You prioritize Black voices & revolutionary dreams.
✌🏾 You want to share ideas and feedback and frustrations with other writers.
✌🏾 You are willing to give as much as you receive from a community.
✌🏾 You write or think meaningfully about writing in relation to your creative work
✌🏾 You want to be in comfortable, private, and drama-free conversation with ambitious writers (editors, playwrights, scholars, performers, artists, curators, activists) from around the world. We are in the cities currently known as Lima, Austin, Chicago, Mexico City, Oklahoma City, Brooklyn, New Haven, Washington DC, Cincinnati, Harlem, New Jersey, Atlanta, and more.
✌🏾 You prioritize Black voices & revolutionary dreams.
✌🏾 You want to share ideas and feedback and frustrations with other writers.
✌🏾 You are willing to give as much as you receive from a community.
Want to talk to a person? Request a chat.
What’s on—
at Louis Place is a community for writers.
All activities are open to every writer in our community. Here’s a selection:
We write together for an hour, twice every day (8-9am and 2-3pm ET, Monday through Sunday). Not everyone can join us every day. Some of our writers don’t participate in daily writing at all. For others, quiet daily cowriting is an important anchor. During monthly writing retreats, the Daily writing room is open all day, with somatic sessions led by a special guest. Writing retreats are lovingly hosted by Quincy Flowers.
Need a reader? Facilitated by Naima Lowe, Page Exchange is a monthly opportunity to exchange pages for feedback with writers in the community. Submit pages for exchange mid-month; meet with your partner to share feedback later in the month. For writers who need more or different feedback than they can find in weekly Trajectory sessions, or writers who can't commit to weekly sessions.
We shoot the shit occasionally...strategizing about software, residency applications, chitchatting about articles we've recently read, just hanging out. This winter/spring, we'll be hosting a community salon and open mic.
About half of us link up with small groups—we call these Trajectory—for “workshop,” for accountability, or a little bit of each. All groups are interdisciplinary and include a mix of writers from different backgrounds.
Some Trajectories are supported by our team of Community Liaisons—stewards who help anchor Trajectory groups and keep them running smoothly. Current groups include:
- Large-Scale Writing Projects (for writers working on books, chapbooks, and scripts)
- Poetry Club (writing poems)
- Close Encounters (renewing our connection to creative work through generative writing and discussion)
- Weird Scripts (for experiments in performance)
- Fiction Workshop (for novelists and short story writers)
We create roundups of prompts and reflections from writers, articles, and events discussed in the community. We’ve got hundreds so far, including new follow-along video prompts.
Workshops at Louis Place Workshops at Louis Place are generative and horizontal—thinking/writing aloud and alongside our mentors and guides. Writers in our community have access to all guest workshops as well as our growing archive, which includes recordings and notes from sessions led by Gabrielle Civil, Sharon Bridgforth, Sahra Motalebi, Quincy Flowers, Anjuli Raza Kolb, Cori Olinghouse, Ashon Crawley, Mayra Rodríguez Castro, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and many others.
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I’m ready to write at Louis Place.
at Louis Place will welcome new writers in September 2023. Register by September 13, 2023.
Step 1: First up: complete a short form that collects information about your access needs, your current time zone, and your writing goals. The form also describes our sliding scale contribution philosophy and our community compass. Don’t worry, no writing sample required.
Step 2: After you submit, give us time to read your materials; we’ll send you a personal response with your next steps. If you apply during a period when registrations aren’t open, you’ll automatically be added to our waiting list; we’ll review your application for the next available cycle.
Step 3: Check out. You will receive your checkout instructions via email.
Step 4: You’ll receive an email with a special link to access together.atlouisplace.com.
I’d like to learn more.
Not quite ready? You have a few options.
If you have questions, we’re happy to chat with you via Zoom or email to figure out whether at Louis Place is right for you. Start the process by registering your interest (follow the ‘sign up’ link above) or sending us a note.
During each application season, we host information sessions for writers who are curious about whether we’re a good fit. Inquire about accessing documentation of a past info session.
You can also follow what we’re reading and thinking about by joining our mailing list below or checking out our Instagram.
