Writing Friendship
On the joy of real and fictional friends
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This dispatch is inspired by Write & Shine’s winter season of morning writing workshops on rest, comfort and pleasure.
In the warm winter sunshine yesterday, I sat in my living room and talked with three of my favourite writing friends on Zoom. We call ourselves ‘Pen Pals’ and meet every month to share our work.
I admire and learn so much from them—London-based poet and artist Sophie Herxheimer, author and illustrator Emily Haworth-Booth in Devon and poet, critic and lecturer Alison Winch in Norfolk. Our sessions are always different. Between us, we paint and illustrate, craft graphic novels, write poetry and short stories, novels and auto-fiction, and we work with communities, in academia and in museums, too.
After our call, I thought about writing friendships. How on screen, we speak from the same sized rectangle which makes our time together feel balanced and good. How we support each other's ideas to evolve into fragments, then drafts, full projects and books. What we’re doing, I realised, is helping each other gather courage and sustenance for our writing lives.
I have another glorious writing friendship with poet Katrina Naomi, which offers something different. We talk about what we’re thinking, writing and reading, where we’ve been and who we’ve seen. We cheer each other on. I see this friendship as a creative diary, a charting of progress. The place I share exactly how much I’m writing, what I tried and failed, what I’m aiming towards.
Katrina lives in Cornwall and swims every day [you can read about that on this Substack here!], so often we speak after she’s been in the sea. From my flat in London, I love immersing myself in her experiences of waves, cormorants and the feel of kelp on skin. Katrina is always curious, always full of new ideas. She opens my mind and heart to living life more creatively, more committed to poetry and joy.
One of my favourite literary friendships is in Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (1962). Anna Wulf, a writer in 1950s London, shares her experiences in her fragmented journals, each with a different topic. Anna's most formative relationship is with her actress friend Molly. They talk together about ideas, politics and people in their lives. The book opens when they meet after time apart. Here’s Anna:
'Do you know something? I discovered while you were away that for a lot of people you and I are practically interchangeable.'
'You've only just understood that?' said Molly, triumphant as always when Anna came up with-as far as she was concerned-facts that were self-evident.
In this relationship a balance had been struck early on: Molly was altogether more worldly-wise than Anna who, for her part, had a superiority of talent. Anna held her own private views. Now she smiled, admitting that she had been very slow.
'When we're so different in every way,' said Molly, 'it's odd. I suppose because we both live the same kind of life- not getting married and so on. That's all they see.'
'Free women,' said Anna, wryly. She added, with an anger new to Molly, so that she earned another quick scrutinising glance from her friend: 'They still define us in terms of relationships with men, even the best of them.'
'Well, we do, don't we?' said Molly, rather tart. 'Well, it's awfully hard not to,' she amended, hastily, because of the look of surprise Anna now gave her. There was a short pause, during which the women did not look at each other but reflected that a year apart was a long time, even for an old friendship.
I love the complexity of this relationship, what they disagree on, what they share. The layers of conversation, thought and gestures offering us a sense of their history. It’s important, isn’t it, to have examples of good friends—and in books, films and television, and in our lives—to keep us steady when we need steadiness, to challenge and celebrate us when we need that, too.
Do you have good writing pals? What’s your favourite fictional friendship? I’d love to hear your stories!
Gemma x
Writing prompt: Write a scene between two very different friends meeting after a year apart. Let us find out about their lives and their relationship—their similarities and differences—both through what they say and their inner worlds, too.
February 2025. This essay is by Gemma Seltzer who runs Write & Shine, a programme of early morning writing workshops. Artwork by Paulina Kozicka.