To maintain a safe, confidential space in which to write, we follow certain practices in responding to new writing:

• We honor the writer by listening carefully
• We experience and treat everything as fiction
• We refer to the narrator / speaker, not to the author, as the voice of the piece
• We maintain confidentiality, and do not speak of others’ writings outside the group unless the writer of a piece begins the conversation
• We remember, while healing often occurs, this is not a therapy group
• We are invited to read our work
• We respond only with what we like, what stays with us, what moves us – and not with how to make it stronger (new writing which has not been edited is like a baby: it’s vulnerable and easily damaged by negative judgments)
• We do not need to respond to every piece
• We stick to the writing, avoiding our own anecdotes and asides
• As writers, we listen to the responses to our work and do not comment – we don’t want to influence how people respond to our work