Writing While Masked

Seven writers, all retired from professional careers, meet every week for two hours to discuss what each of them wrote in the previous seven days. Before 2020 they gathered in one another's homes over coffee. The pandemic moved their meetings to video calls, which took away the physical closeness they had enjoyed.

Then, in May, a white police officer kneeled on a Black man's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds while other officers looked on, seemingly unmoved. The man repeatedly said he could not breathe. A teenager recorded the scene on her phone, and public reaction followed swiftly and widely. The group turned to writing to make sense of the upheavals of that year, and the practice helped them endure 2020 and the years that followed.

The collection brings together their personal responses: spontaneous pieces written in the moment, reflective essays, and poems that convey raw emotion. The authors describe what they experienced and learned, along with what they hope the future holds. Optimism runs through nearly all of it.