Wordos FAQ
1. What are the Wordos?
The Wordos are a group of writers who meet once a week in Eugene, Oregon to critique stories and discuss the art, craft, and business of writing. Our goal is to help each other produce fiction that will sell, and to
continually improve our writing abilities even after we've achieved that
initial goal. We do this by meeting weekly to critique each other's work
and to discuss topics of general interest to working writers.
2. Where did you get the name "Wordos"?
The Wordos are the continuation of a Eugene-based writers group that began
in 1987, and was named "The Wordos" in 1995 when its members decided it
needed to be called something shorter and friendlier than its business-name (The Eugene Professional Writers Workshops, Inc.). Someone suggested "wordos" as a term that connoted people who work with words in a fiercely Eugenian kind of way. The name stuck, and it has come to mean "someone to keep an eye on" in the writing world. In a good way!
3. What is a critique anyway?
The Wordos follow the Clarion model of critiquing. The short description is as follows: you read a given story on your own time, write up your comments, then on the evening of the workshop you speak for one to three minutes offering those and other comments aloud. At the end of the evening you give the critiqued story back to the author. There are a bunch of other rules about when you can speak and what you can say. If you're truly interested, you can read about it in our guidelines.
4. Where do I get the guidelines?
Email us at wordos@wordos.com and request them. But please don't do that unless you're seriously considering attending the workshop, or starting a workshop of your own.
5. What are the benefits of being a Wordo?
The critiques help you revise stories to make them sell. Over time, having critiqued and been critiqued, you also write better stories from the outset.
We discuss market information, such as which editors are buying what material, who is working where, and how ownership and direction of different publications are changing.
6. When and where do you meet?
We meet every Tuesday night, except over the Christmas/Chanukah season, at Tsunami Books on Willamette Street in Eugene, Oregon. We meet from 7PM to 9PM.
7. Are there any requirements to joining the Wordos?
Yes:
You must offer at least one story per quarter to the workshop for critique. It should be fiction intended for publication in a commercial market. You can write any type of story you want, but your goal must be to sell it. Our reason for existing is to help each other sell fiction.
You must critique other people's stories to the best of your ability, following the instructions in the workshop guidelines.
Over the years there have been some people who come to the workshop, sit in, talk about writing, are great company, and seem to have a good time, but never turn in a story. These people are eventually shown the door. We like each other and we socialize, but the workshop is about WORK.
8. Are there any dues?
Yes. We pay rent to Tsunami Books and add to our discretionary account by each person throwing a dollar in a hat, at every workshop.
9. You have a lot of members who write science fiction. Do you all write the same type of stories?
No, we don't. Wordos members write in all genres, in all lengths. Although to keep critiquing manageable, we have a maximum limit of 10,000 words per story or novel excerpt
10. Why Eugene, Oregon?
Beats the heck out of us. There are more professional writers here -- especially science fiction writers -- per square foot than anywhere else in the world. We don't know why. Maybe it's the water.
11. How do I get in touch with the Wordos?
Email wordos@wordos.com