From Algonquin Round Table to Alvarium Experiment

I am privileged, lucky, and ever so grateful to be a member of an amazing little writers’ group we call the Alvarium Experiment.

From time to time we all get together at some dive cafe and eat rich foods and drink port wine until we close the place down (or get thrown out,) and then we go somewhere to spend the rest of the night drinking absinthe and smoking opium, all the while talking about literature and world events, and challenging each other to write wondrous new things.

(Sigh.) I wish.

Okay, so no. We do none of those things—except the last one. We challenge each other to write wondrous new things.

Every year or two, someone in the group suggests a short story topic, a consensus builds, and the Alvarium Experiment puts out a call to all its members for short story submissions for a themed anthology. Across the various anthologies AE has published over the past decade or so, the only constants are that the stories be of speculative fiction, which includes sci-fi, fantasy, horror, or paranormal genres, and that they be good. Each anthology’s theme fine-tunes to some unique notion. For example, one project required stories to be speculative fiction re-imaginings of, or sequels to, great literary works. I think there have been six Alvarium Experiment anthologies so far, and I’m honored to have gotten my stories published in two of them, The Masters Reimagined, and The Light Fantastic.

The call went out last month for the next AE anthology, a yet to be named book, to be published in the spring. I won’t reveal the theme here—frankly, the theme might still evolve as various members back-and-forth, as we usually do. For myself, though, I was inspired by the initial suggestion, and in short order I wrote the story I intend to submit: “Versipellis Nemora.” That’s Latin, I’m told, for “Werewolf Grove.”

It’s a dark-humor story about a retirement home for werewolves, focusing on the poor, mortal schmuck who manages the place. More on “Versipellis Nemora” in a future post. I promise. This post is about what inspired it.

I might be biased, but I love the story. I’m very pleased I wrote it. I would not have written it, would not have conceived it, if not for the fellow writers in the Alvarium Experiment making the challenge.

The writers’ salons of lore, I assume, are so a-century-ago. Who does that sort of thing anymore? As Dorothy Parker said, “Civilization is coming to an end, you understand.” As usual, she wasn’t wrong, at least regarding civilization as she knew it. Fast-forward through a hundred years of population growth, technology explosion, mass media, internet, lowered educational standards, reduced social expectations, and physical isolation of suburban living, and it’s hard to imagine the world we have now could produce Parker’s Algonquin Round Table in New York, or Lord Byron’s Villa Diodati retreat in Geneva, or Gertrude Stein’s salon in Paris, or Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury Group in London, or even Cass Elliot’s Laurel Canyon gatherings in Los Angeles, except perhaps digitally, across the internet.

Nonetheless, opportunities for writers to commune do exist, perhaps most commonly online. Such modern-day salons may be far less intimate, more itinerant, less profound, and more accelerated, but they still can be obtained. They still can help inspire creativity and drive production. Whether they may be with actual friends, or with informal groups of acquaintances like the Alvarium Experiment, or something like Facebook groups, or other organizations’ message boards, there are options. Whether drugs, alcohol, or rock ‘n’ roll are involved is up to each individual.

I cherish all my relationships with other writers, from those who are longtime friends to those I’ve only encountered on group chats. We need each other. We must reach out, and we must be there for each other. No one is a better sounding board than a fellow writer. No one knows what it’s like to be a writer like another writer.

So, take what you can get. If you are a writer and you have an opportunity to commune with similar writers, court it like you’re pursuing true love, and then embrace it like you’ve found true love.