Though writing itself is generally a pretty solitary endeavor, writers can benefit greatly from meeting with and talking to other writers, whether for writing critique, business advice, or just plain emotional support. But how do you find other writers? There’s no “Yellow Pages” entry for “struggling poets” or “beginning screenwriters”, there’s no industry directory, and nobody has yet created a geographic map of writers using data from their websites.

Meetup is a pretty good place to start looking. Meetup is a web-based tool to help organize off-web meetings. There are meetups for knitters, photographers, Barack Obama supporters, feminists, fishers, doll collectors, you name it! Of course, writers are pretty well represented, as well.

To find a writing-focused group near you, go to their main page and enter a keyword to search for and your zip code. Meetup will search its database for any group within 20 miles that includes your search term in its name or description. For example, there are 10 groups near me that have something to do with “writing”, ranging