I Get by With a Little Help from My Friends

Eileen Vorbach Collins, Author

Eileen Vorbach Collins is a Baltimore native. She writes true stories she wishes were fiction and fairy tales she wishes were true. Her work has been published in Newsweek, NBC Today, Shondaland, The NYT, Next Avenue, and many literary journals. Her essay collection, Love in the Archives: a Patchwork of True Stories About Suicide Loss, received the Sarton Women’s Book Award and was a Foreword Indies finalist. Eileen’s website is https://www.loveinthearchives.com/

When I moved to Garner, NC a little more than a year ago, I missed my friends from the Suncoast Writer’s Guild in Southwest Florida. Around the same time, the momentum of a wonderful three-person critique group I wrote about here had begun to wane.

Fortunately, I’d been invited to join another virtual group. We’ve worked together for a couple of years now.

At the time I was invited to join, I’d only known the other three women from Twitter (once a safe haven for #thewritingcommunity) and a writer’s Facebook group. But we’ve since met at conferences and visited one another’s homes. We celebrate our successes and offer virtual shoulders and hugs when rejection notices find their way into our inboxes. We recently decided to name our group. We’ve laughed a lot, and each of us has taken our turn weeping. We’re now The Writer’s Tears. It’s a brand of Irish Whiskey, in case you didn’t know.

We each write memoir, a sometimes misunderstood and often maligned genre. Do we memoirists and writers of creative nonfiction engage in navel-gazing just to pick at the scabs of our wounds, never allowing them to heal; or are we processing and making sense of our lives? Does this writing help us learn to be good listeners to another person’s sorrow? To meet them on the path to empathy? I believe it can.

We strive to recall intimate, personal details of our stories while hoping to find the universal truths nestled in our memories. Truths that will speak to a reader, reach out a hand to them and say, I know you, come sit awhile on my porch. Put you tired feet up. Cry if you want to. Or laugh at our shared human foibles.

After numerous revisions, lots of rejections, more laughter and more tears, each of the four of us finally snagged a book contract.

And each of us will tell you, with unwavering conviction, that it wouldn’t have been possible if not for the care and support of our group. Our Writer’s Tears.

My Florida writers group consisted of songwriters, poets, writers of short stories, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, children’s books, comedy, historical fiction, and memoir. While I loved the diversity, and the people, I could never have received the level of support, feedback and understanding I found in my small group dedicated to a common genre.

But I’m greedy. I’ve come late to this writing life and I want it all. I long for my in-person group; their poems, their swords and dragons, their not-quite-erotic love scenes, their charming children’s books with delightful illustrations.  

I’ve sent my memoir out into the world. It’s on its own and will have to fend for itself. Now I’m ready again to experience all the other forms of writing. Beth Kephart, a writer I admire, says, “In the end, the words we’ve written are the words we’ve written. We claim them. They claim us. If memoir has become, for you, too small a space within to dream, consider the novel, the watercolor, or the poem.”

All this to say, I’m grateful to have found the Triangle East Writers. While I don’t make it often to the meetings, I so appreciate your warm welcome. I’m honored to write this blog post. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try writing a poem. Maybe I’ll paint.

I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends.