For the last several years—even during 2020, the year time and community left us—I’ve met once a week with other writers. All genres, all ages, all women. Pre-pandemic we gathered in cafes and coffeeshops, encouraged one another to make time for writing no matter what (well, except for births and emergency dental visits) and soon added one Saturday a month for those who had commitments on Tuesday mornings. We each set goals for the session and cheered when someone completed a task. Nothing was too small to celebrate! Thanks to KLH, we had a lovely brass bell to jangle for us Dames—Dame Good Writers, that is.

We weren’t always Dames. No, the group began as a chapter of Women Who Submit, a Los Angeles-based organization of women and nonbinary folks who share info about the submissions process. They regularly gather to submit writing for publication. I bumped into one of the local organizers at a poetry reading and she invited me to join. It’s not hyperbole to say that day changed my life. Once or twice a month we met at the library, where we visited for 10 minutes and worked on submissions for 50, then repeated the cycle. My heart thrilled to hear the claps and woo-hoos after someone shipped off another manuscript or application. I was also taking online poetry classes—I felt like a writer for the first time in years.

Eventually, as happens with many groups, the focus shifted. We sought more writers to join us, added periodic presentations, stepped out as an independent group. The new name: Badass Women Getting Shit Done. It wasn’t wrong! Once or twice a month on Saturdays, a dozen or more Badasses would sit at tables crowded with coffee in styrofoam, wine in plastic, snacks, books, and laptops. The women there helped me find the courage, the self-validation to submit my poetry. My first acceptance after a 30-year break resulted from one of those gatherings (thank you, South Florida Poetry Journal).

But nothing stays the same. The three women leading us Badasses needed to step away. We foundered. Some of us kept meeting anyway. We tried continuing short presentations. I wondered if we should keep the focus on submitting our writing. Neither felt right. We persevered. Some women left, some women joined. We considered whether the group should be open or closed (it’s open) and how actively to recruit new members. We gradually found a new identity for our group and changed both purpose and name. We mean our gatherings to be more than a submission party. Sure, some of us submit work, but others use the time to write, revise, organize files, do research.

And that name change? Occasionally some social media platform would balk at the 2 “bad” words. I worried that some writers would be offended and not join, though I later found out that at least 2 women joined because of the name. After much discussion, we became the Dame Good Writers. Dame, as in a female knight, a woman of authority—in other words, a badass.

[much love to all of you, pictured above or not]