We're in a unique time on the internet, where anyone can pop onto social media or start a newsletter, and post something. But the support to write well, to tell stories elegantly, to dig into and express what's actually true for us, is very scarce. Most of this support is locked up inside of legacy media intuitions, outdated models, and expensive professional editors. Foster is a collective of writers and editors that was founded to support those writers in service of better storytelling and more authentic and courageous expression.
As a co-owned and operated writers collective, we take on a wide variety of projects. We publish magazines, host retreats, bring writers together, build software products like our flagship chrome extension, and host four-week intensive writing programs like this cohort.
We believe three things about writing:
There’s a pervasive myth of the lone writer toiling away in the woods who emerges months or years later having written a masterpiece. Yet when we expose ourselves to a diverse community of writers and collaborators—essayists, poets, and fiction writers—from all over the world, not only do we have more fun, but our perspectives and intersubjectivity become more creatively full and vibrant.
There’s plenty of advice online about how to write the perfect essay, to build an audience, to write a book, etc., and much of it is either convoluted or overly simplistic. What always works and brings sometimes unexpected benefits, however, is committing to writing as a consistent, devotional, and dedicated practice. We’ve never met anyone who committed to a writing practice over years and regretted it.
Many of us have a complicated, baggage-ridden relationship to writing informed by various results-based experiences from our past—writing for academia, business, likes, followers, etc. We see writing as inherently valuable on its own. And when we engage deeply with writing as a practice, it helps us progress towards truer expressions of creativity and ourselves.
Throughout the Cohort 6, you'll be exploring a thread—a question, complexity, or muse. This experience will help you dive below your surface-level curiosity and let your emotions and body guide your writing and personal unfoldment. The goal is for you to fully inhabit these threads, allowing them to reveal and realize new perspectives and opportunities.