38 / matters magazine / fall 2026 W alk into Perch Home on Thurs days around 10:00 a.m., and you’ll spot a group of people, including me, huddled over laptops typing away or writing the old- fashioned way with pen and paper. We’re all members of a local chapter of Shut Up and Write!, an international group that promotes dedicated writing time and fellowship. “I’d been working on a novel for two years and getting nowhere,” recalls Elaine Durbach. “This hour of putting our heads down all together in this beautiful place is like a magical hour for me. It’s gotten me going. It gave me momentum, just being with other writers and being committed to absolute concentration.” “I knew right away that this was a call to me for starting to do my own writing,” says Rona Kwestel, who first saw a posting for the SOMA Shut Up & Write! group on Facebook. “And that’s why I came to the initial meeting and I have barely missed a meeting since it started. I love coming here.” The basic philosophy of Shut Up & Write! is butt in the chair to finally work on that writing project that has been percolating for two weeks or 10 years. “The name is the whole philosophy,” proclaims the Shut Up & Write! website, shutupwrite.com. “Stop talking about writing. Sit down and do it.” Shut Up & Write! understands that “writing is solitary work, and solitary work is easy to skip.” The group’s organizing principle is to bring people together for shared writing time. Member Eric Singer says, “One of the things that this group has been most helpful for me is being able to just knock out an hour early in the day. It’s always just straight productivity.” Diego Centurion is writing a futuristic horror novel. He lives in Morristown but comes almost every week and says our group “has become the place where I go whenever I feel stuck with my writing. Sometimes an hour here is more effective than three hours near my town.” Founded in 2007 at a café in San Francisco, Shut Up & Write! now boasts more than a thousand in-person and online writing groups in over 80 countries – and here in Maplewood. There is no fee to join and participants can come and go as they please. The SOMA group is open to anyone doing any kind of writing, from a book to private journaling. It began a year and a half ago when Ingrid Wickelgren, a freelance science journalist and editor, and I, newly retired and trying to work on a long-dormant ghost story, wanted to find a communal setting in which to write. Wickelgren was writing a mystery and often used online Shut Up & Write! groups to motivate her. “But I really wanted to get out of the house!” She learned about an in-person group in Westfield. She and I attended one meeting and thoroughly enjoyed it. But getting there when the group starts to write at 8:30 a.m. was tough, so we decided to form our own group. We chose to meet at Perch and secured permis sion from its welcoming owner, Michele Bessey. Then we posted information online and hung up fliers in Maplewood and South Orange. We had no idea whether anyone would show up. Three people – Wickelgren, Kwestel, and I – came to the first meeting, and a few more people joined us the following week. From then on, the number A Magical Hour of Writing Local writers find community, motivation and focus at weekly meeting BY HARRIET SIGERMAN Members of the Shut Up and Write! group meet every Thursday morning at Perch Home.
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