8.1.2026

Reflections: Two Years in the Conscious Writers Collective

I haven’t written here before about Maya C. Popa’s Conscious Writers Collective (CWC). You’ll find lots of information about the program on the CWC Substack.

Here are some reflections on my time in the poetry branch, in case you’re a poet wondering if CWC is right for you.

Joining

By the time I joined CWC, I had been taking conventional fiction and poetry workshops for some thirty years, off and on. I actually enjoyed one of them, an eight-week workshop in 2009 on revising poems. The others weren’t traumatic or even negative. I simply came to understand that presenting unfinished writing for workshop critique doesn’t support my creative process, nor does reading early drafts by others.

But two years ago I hadn’t quite accepted the implications, and so I joined CWC with a question in mind: “Can I turn into a different person?” By “a different person,” I meant someone genuinely drawn to and thriving in workshops.

A Different Person?

To be clear, it was never CWC’s mission or responsibility to turn me into a different person. And, no surprise, I didn’t turn into one.

But my experience with CWC did expose the narrowness of my question. The answer to “Can I turn into a different person?” wasn’t yes or no. It was another, rhetorical question: “Why should I?”

During my two years in CWC, I attended three or four of the monthly workshop sessions. There was nothing at all wrong with those workshops. They just weren’t for me. But plenty of poets in CWC swear by the program’s workshop component, and there’s no reason for me to doubt their enthusiasm.

At any rate, I couldn’t have answered my question the way I did without CWC’s flexible structure, which offers the functional equivalent of what you’ll find in a high-end MFA program but without the degree or degree requirements. What this meant is that nothing was required, and everything was available. For the first time, thanks to a program that implicitly honored my learning style, I had access to an organized curriculum without a mandatory workshop attached.

Can I become a different person? Why should I, indeed.

Moving On, with Appreciation

All things considered, I decided that two years (the length of most MFA programs) was a natural stopping point, the moment for me to redirect time, attention, energy, and money to my poetry micropress, Monday Editions.

I didn’t avail myself of every CWC offering, and my engagement was sporadic. But I benefited greatly from CWC’s structural freedom and found much else to like and admire about the program.

Maya C. Popa, Founder

Maya has a true vocation as a teacher (but I’m glad she’s a poet, too). The curriculum she developed is excellent. A number of writers have joined CWC to deepen what they learned in grad school or pick up basics their MFA programs didn’t teach. I suspect that if Maya were not a poet, she would still be teaching. She has a gift. She has also gone out of her way to support my own and others’ work, personally and publicly.

Craft Talks

I’m a junkie for poetry craft talks, so I’m grateful poetry is culturally marginal enough for me to find myself in digital company with some of the most preeminent poets of our time. CWC’s craft talks are outstanding. They were the heart of the program for me, especially because they were recorded. I found the craft talks alone worth the entire cost of an annual membership. Whether you’re starting out as a poet or advancing into unknown territory with your work, the nuts-and-bolts nature of a craft talk may give you exactly what you need for revision, experimentation, or both.

Office Hours

This feature took the form of a monthly Zoom meeting, with Maya presiding and fielding questions CWC members had often submitted beforehand. I didn’t always attend but usually watched the recordings. Writers typically wanted one or both of two things—practical advice, and encouragement. Maya always rose to the occasion with humor and informed common sense.

The Single-Poem Study Group

CWC members are encouraged to collaborate, and that’s how the Single-Poem Study Group got started. The group meets regularly on Zoom to discuss one poem for no longer than forty minutes (perfect). Whenever I attended, I was impressed by the quality and diversity of the poetic intelligence in the room. Every meeting was a reminder that readers encounter the same poem in different ways—that the poem, once released into the world, no longer belongs exclusively to the poet, if it ever did.

The Community

When I joined, there were perhaps forty people or so in CWC, all poets. Since then, the membership has scaled up tenfold. Except for a few people who are enrolled in both the poetry branch and the prose branch, I met only poets.

My fellow members were kind, accomplished, and often brilliant. I made lovely connections and hope they continue. I don’t assume that my friends in CWC want their personal information casually disclosed on my Substack, so I won’t mention names. CWC pals, you know who you are.

To Join or Not to Join?

CWC is a flexible program of rich electives. You can watch recordings of a multipart class on literary criticism, or not. Participate in craft talks with distinguished guest poets, or not. Take workshops, or not. In other words, you can customize CWC to your liking.

There’s the all-you-can-eat model: consume everything in sight, and go back for seconds.

And there’s the cafeteria model: take what you want and leave the rest, without guilt (the model I followed).

You can use one model exclusively or move back and forth. Whatever you choose, you have access to a warm, smart community and opportunities to make literary friends at every level of artistic development.

If you think that sounds like more than enough for you, I can’t disagree.