A call to academic writing practice — September 2025 edition

by | Sep 2, 2025 | academic, science, writing in good company | 0 comments

If you’re looking for support and community while making progress on your writing this fall, check out this list of resources. There’s a whole variety of options, designed for and available to academic writers with or without institutional affiliation or support. Free resources are noted; others involve a fee.

Free online co-writing groups

  • At Writing in Good Company, Kyra Freestar hosts gentle, nonjudgmental co-writing time every Monday (9:00–10:00 a.m. Pacific time). Sign up for an 8-week session beginning September 8, a 6-week session beginning November 10, or to be notified of future sessions by filling out this Google Form.
  • Write Together Wednesdays with Kate Vacek is a free weekly online group (9:00–11:00 a.m. Central time) that helps academic writers maintain a regular writing practice in a supportive atmosphere.
  • The Friday Cowriting Sessions with Katherine Fusco are also free, and run for two hours weekly (10am–12pm Eastern time/7–9am Pacific time).
  • KDM Editing’s Free Writing Group/Office Hours meets once a month for two hours of dedicated writing time, during which developmental editor Karen Dewart McEwen is available for one-on-one consultations in a private breakout room. The consultations are a chance for participants to get on-the-spot feedback, ask writing and publishing questions, or just enjoy a friendly chat.

Writing communities that offer co-working time and more

  • The Academic Writing Studio with Jo Van Every is a writing community built around virtual co-working, group coaching, and additional online resources. It is open to faculty, postdocs, and PhD students, with a monthly fee to participate. A sliding scale and a free 30-day trial are available.  
  • Between the Lines with Candace Epps-Robertson is a gentle, supportive 7-week writing group designed for caregivers who are working on writing of any sort. It includes reflections, prompts, quiet writing in community, and optional group discussions.
  • Fall Into Focus, also with Candace Epps-Robertson, is a 21-day program designed to help you take stock of your writing life with calmness and intentionality. The program includes optional coworking times, but it can be taken as a self-paced experience.
  • Building a Writing Practice that Works for You with Ellen Tilton-Cantrell offers weekly coworking and group coaching for academic writers. The video lessons and group coaching sessions focus on things like navigating emotional and conceptual blocks, setting boundaries to protect both writing time and focus, and putting supportive but flexible structures in place.
  • The Community & Accountability Group run by Katherine Carroll is a weekly writing group that provides accountability, community, and writing advice and tips for moments when you hit a roadblock. It is capped at 6 people and meets weekly for an hour. To enroll in the fall cohort, sign up by September 2.
  • Creating in Community with Katherine Wiley is an 8-week scholarly writing group with cohorts capped at 8 people. Sign up for quiet writing sessions, guided writing exercises, conversation about writing challenges, and chat-based support from Katherine (a developmental editor) during writing sessions. Scholarships are available!
  • The Draft by Draft Writing Groups for post-PhD researchers, hosted by Jess Engebretson, meet for 10 weeks and include a mix of reflective conversation about writing challenges and coworking time. Sign up for Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday groups beginning on September 15.
  • The EMERGE Co-Writing Community with Melanie Sindelar includes options from video courses and co-writing to online community spaces, coaching, planning, and other events. There are three levels of monthly membership, with more coaching and events included in the more expensive membership.
  • Momentum Engine, hosted by Hannah de Keijzer, is an online community for nonfiction writers that includes online meetings, co-writing hours, a Discord server, and more for a small monthly fee.
  • The Researchers’ Writing Academy hosted by Anna Clemens is an online writing community with co-writing opportunities and small-group coaching calls along with other resources, especially for scholars writing up empirical research. The annual fee can be paid all at once or in modest monthly installments. (Anna also offers online courses, as mentioned in the section below on training courses.)
  • Thrive PhD, hosted by Katy Peplin, is an online writing community with a structured curriculum, accountability groups, coaching, and more. It’s intended for PhD students; there is a very small monthly fee to participate.
  • The Alumni Writing Group hosted by Allison Van Deventer is a weekly writing support, accountability, and coworking group for writers who have previously taken the Dissertation-to-Book Workshop or the Book Chapter Shortcut; it may open to other writers at a later date.
  • The semester-length Weekly Writing Groups with Candace Epps-Robertson and Beth Godbee give you a choice of Tuesday or Friday meeting times. Each meeting lasts 2.5–3 hours to include time for check-ins and goals along with writing time. There are sliding fee and payment plan options.
  • The small-group Writers’ Circles at Epilogue Editing, run by Kelly Clancy, include goal setting, weekly meetings and separate co-writing sessions, an optional Slack accountability group, and more. This fall, there’s a Writers’ Circle for administrators, one for mid-career scholars, one for early-career scholars, and one for PhD candidates and postdocs.
  • The WriteSPACE with Helen Sword is an international online writing community that includes online resources and a community forum, events and workshops, and live online Writing Studio sessions. There are two levels of monthly membership.
  • The Writing Accountability Group (WAG) hosted by Ellen Kuwana, Georgina To’a Salazar, and Liz Hazwell signs up small-group cohorts for four 90-minute sessions that include co-writing time, guest speaker presentations, opportunities for 1:1 feedback and coaching, and time to build relationships and share knowledge (e.g., about the federal funding landscape). The upcoming cohort meets Tuesdays starting September 9 (9:30–11:00 a.m. Pacific time). There’s a discount for students, postdocs, and freelancers.
  • The No Time to Write Club, hosted by novelist Sara Read and academic editor Tes Slominski, holds approximately 10 synchronous and asynchronous writing sprints every month. Members join through a modest paid Substack subscription and have access to all sprints, an online chat, and other activities. This one is open to academics, fiction writers, and academics who write fiction!

Writing retreats

  • Wendy Baldwin of Linguaverse hosts multi-day structured online writing retreats for academic writers. Note that they are scheduled on Madrid time. There is a modest fee to register for each retreat.
  • In the United States, Michelle Boyd, founder of InkWell Academic Writing Retreats, hosts in-person Composed Writing Retreats twice a year (fee information on website) as well as an online program that is available only to writers who have previously attended one of her retreats. However! Michelle also offers a free online half-day Power of Pause retreat twice a year — so check it out.

Scholarly writing courses and workshops

  • Allison Van Deventer also runs the Dissertation-to-Book Workshop, a supportive, Zoom-based 6-week workshop that will show you, via a series of practical, manageable tasks, how to build an argument that emerges from your evidence and develops in each chapter. Use the code EARLYBIRD for a 15% discount through September 12.
  • Leanne C. Powner runs the Book Incubator, a course that emphasizes argument, evidence, and structure. It involves peer and coach workshopping, optional coworking, and regular small homework to keep you moving forward. You’ll leave with a book plan!
  • Leanne C. Powner is also running Advanced Academic Writing, a 6-week workshop that will teach you what you never learned about academic writing. Themes: Text, Paratext, Metatext, Structure, Genre, and Audience. Join the wait list at the link above; the course will meet Nov/Dec 2025, time TBD by wait-list members.
  • Ana Pineda of I Focus and Write offers a free online training on how to write scientific papers.
  • Aure Schrock at Indelible Voice offers a mini-course called Master the Revise and Resubmit along with a membership (with a free option!) to a library of writing resources.
  • Crystal Herron is the creator and host of Scientific Writing Simplified, a self-paced online course in academic writing that includes access to an online writing community.
  • Anna Clemens hosts the Researchers’ Writing Academy, which includes a (fee-based) training course on how to write journal articles as well as a (free) online webinar on writing journal articles efficiently. (The Researchers’ Writing Academy also offers an online writing/co-writing community, as outlined earlier in this post.) Note that the training courses focus on empirical research articles and is not appropriate for scholars in the humanities. The annual fee can be paid all at once or in modest monthly installments.
  • Jane Jones hosts Book Brilliance, a 6-month program that includes a structured curriculum for writing an academic book paired with coaching, critiquing, and editing support, along with an online community. This program is designed for women and non-binary scholars; it is one of the most comprehensive options on this list, with corresponding cost.

Do-it-yourself resources

Ready to find your own writing partners, or create your own writing group on your own schedule?

Note that most of the people mentioned in this list offer writing coaching, workshops, academic editing, and/or other writing-related services and support, in addition to hosting the writing groups and trainings listed here. Do look them up, and follow them on LinkedIn or sign up for their newsletters for more information.

And if you host an academic writing group or retreat, teach a course or workshop, or have attended one that is not yet included on this list, please let us know!

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This list was compiled and edited by Allison Van Deventer and myself — based on an earlier list I posted in December 2024 — and is as up to date as possible as of September 1, 2025. Allison and I will be delighted to add any resources we have missed: please comment here or email one of us with any news or recommendations.

You can find this same list online any time at AllisonVanDeventer.com/Resources.

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