Six people sat in a small room in the Newton Free Library, typing away or letting the ink of a pen flow as they crafted their stories.

This was a time for a diverse group of people to come together, sit down and just write—a time for them to gather and do something they love.

This is the monthly meeting of the MetroWest Writers’ Guild’s Wednesday Write Night, which has been meeting on the fourth Wednesday of the month at the Newton Free Library since the summer of 2025.

The MetroWest Writers’ Guild is a nonprofit that brings together diverse writers of all ages in a friendly, welcoming environment to support, encourage and inspire one another. Through writing workshops, classes and group writing sessions, the guild tries to help writers develop their skills and share their stories.

Wednesday Write Night is open to all types of writing, from poetry and fiction to plays and movie scripts. Participants complete some writing in three 15-minute time frames called “sprints.” After each sprint, the writers reconvene to talk about what they found most challenging and what helped them.

Laura Shaw, 83, a former early intervention trainer and coaching specialist, described her writing process as a “stream of consciousness.”

 “Most of the things that I’ve written are put into categories,” Shaw said. “I wanted to learn more.” 

Shaw said she was writing a short story about the time her dog accidentally called 911 from her smart watch. She described her new short stories as “memoirs” to the “silly stuff that actually happens” to her.

Jeffrey Letourneau, the host of Wednesday Write Night, said his main goal is to build a sense of community.

“There are a lot of people out there writing individually,” said Letourneau, 31,  “and so I think it’s great to connect with other writers, because there’s so much people have to share with each other in terms of techniques, struggles, logistics of publishing, and just general moral support. It’s also nice to have a time blocked off on your calendar where you know you’re going to get some writing done.”

Letourneau described what he is currently working as speculative fiction. “Lately I’ve been leaning into horror, but I also write fantasy, sci-fi and other speculative fiction that’s more grounded in reality but still has a tiny bit of magic,” said Letourneau, a computational biologist working on cardiovascular disease.

Others have found that it is about making time for something they’ve always wanted to do.

“I’ve always wanted to try my hand at creative writing but never set aside the time,” said Tripti Thomas-Travers, 52, deputy director of the Village & Wilderness Fund, a nonprofit working to restore nature where people live. “Now that I’m an empty nester, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to finally do something about it.”

The writers shared their creative processes, the challenges they face while writing and what the publishing experience looks like. They also discussed their personal goals and working toward them, giving a sense of what goes into writing and potentially being published.

Although she is not working on a specific project at the moment, Thomas-Travers said her “main goals are to finally put pen to paper and meet like-minded people.”

For others, writing is simply a way to have fun, try something new and take a break from their usual work.

“I started writing as a hobby because my full-time job is illustration, and I still draw as a hobby but when your job is your hobby you need other hobbies,” said Fergus Ferguson, a 27-year-old  game developer and illustrator. “So, I picked writing for some goddamn reason, just to keep myself from going insane.”

Ferguson is working on a collaborative project he described as a “wizard buddy cop comedy” and a short story about “a haunted-slash-evil hotel.”

“It’s kind of weird to be writing on your own,” Ferguson said. “So I looked for library events and saw that there’s a thing where I can do my hobby that’s not just in my room.”

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This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism’s Newsroom Initiative.