By Andrea Cardona
Sitting at the long table at the Village Market on a Monday morning, a group of five pulls out their laptops and iPads. They go around, sharing what happened over the weekend and the progress they’re making. Greg Wolford, the speed writer, is almost done with his latest book draft. Chaz King, the poet, is putting together a business plan. And Zia Khan, the graphic designer, is slowly piecing together a memoir. As the hour turns 11, the Blue Bell ice cream man appears. The cacophony of him restocking the week’s frozen goods overtakes their conversation. Unable — and unwilling — to yell over him, they quietly laugh before shifting to their screens to enter their own writing worlds.
In the course of a decade, Walsh Ranch has grown tremendously. For land once lined with cows, it’s now lined with homes. And while this section of suburbia has attracted working zillennials with young kids, it’s also stocked with plenty of artists.
“There are so many homes that have sprung up. When I moved here, there were like five hundred homes; now there are like three thousand,” Khan said. “Most of them are in their thirties with families. But there are a fair amount of people that are fifty-plus, sixty-plus, who are in whatever the next stage in life is, wanting to create something.”
Wolford found the newness of the neighborhood beneficial.
“One of the advantages of a relatively new neighborhood is that everyone’s kind of in the same boat,” he said. “Everybody’s new. So you kind of have to go out and put yourself out there and find your people.”
For Nina Gates, author of “Be An Artist (Or Just Live Like One),” inspiring people in the community to live creatively has always been her mission. She cofounded the Arts League, which has since grown to over a hundred members. The Walsh Ranch Writers Group was an offshoot of the League.
Arguably the most high-profile member of the group was Julie Kibler. The author of “Calling Me Home” and “Home of Erring and Outcast Girls,” which was featured in 360West, Kibler found herself in a creative funk when she moved to Walsh. “I was just kind of done,” she said at the time. “I was tired of selling myself, and I was like, I don’t need to write anymore.”
An open mic in the area that other members of the group happened to be at slowly pulled her back. “I wrote a poem about depression — first poem I had written in about twenty years, thirty years. It was kind of a turning point for me to getting back in my creative life and writing again.”
Kibler provided prompts and tips on the traditional publishing process. Through weekly meetings, Wolford began presenting chapter after chapter of what is now his debut novel, “The Maker’s Heir.” Centered on a robot named R, the book tackles the question of what makes life significant and memorable. “Knowing that there were people kind of holding me accountable to keep me moving forward kept me writing.” With the book completed, Wolford tapped fellow writers group member Khan to design the cover before completing the self-publishing process.
Wolford still owns his home in Walsh, but he and his wife are traveling the world; they’re currently set in Panama. Kibler, too, has left the area, finding a new base and creative pursuit in New Mexico. But despite being miles away from Walsh, the group still trades texts almost daily. Khan and King have floated the idea of reviving the Walsh Ranch Writers Group this fall. While that’s still in the works, the old members continue to set their next stories on the page.
“We don’t meet, but we’re all writing much more than we were before,” said Gates, who released her latest book, “The Elegance Code,” in May. “We’ve all kind of grown up as writers.”
To find a writing club in your area, start with neighborhood Facebook groups or your local library. The City of Fort Worth’s libraries hold weekly in-person meetups suited for everyone from novelists to songwriters. And for writers looking to take their work to the next level, conferences like DFWCon on Oct. 3–4 feature workshops and pitch sessions with literary agents and editors.