Welcome to The Unexpected Shape Café! Hello, and a very warm welcome! This is the premiere destination for personal nonfiction and memoir writers looking for community and a place to make connections, exchange work, discuss challenges, and all the “real life” stuff that comes along with being an aspiring working writer. Esmé Weijun Wang and the team (Chloe) host virtual events, workshops, and exclusive fun stuff in here to help you learn more about writing and entering the publishing industry. ➡️ How To Earn Points, Level Up, and Unlock Premium Content: The more you engage with this group (posting, commenting, sharing, liking, etc.), the more you gain points, level up, and are rewarded with premium content, courses, templates, and more! As you level up, the rewards become more valuable. Start climbing the leaderboard, where our top contributors will win surprises too! You can give value and level up by answering people’s questions, sharing interesting strategies or tools that are working well for you right now (not self-promotion!), and starting thought-provoking discussions. ➡️ How To Invite Friends To Join We encourage you to invite your friends! Just go to Settings > Invite > and grab your unique link. You can share your unique invite link with your email list, social media followers, and audience. The more the merrier! We sometimes have special surprise gifts for those who refer the most new members. ➡️ Check out the “Search” bar at the top of the group The search function in this group will help you navigate the goldmine of content within this community. Use it to search for topics you’re interested in like [“ethics,” “pitching,” or “first drafts”]. You can also check out our “Best Of” module, where we curate and save the most valuable posts in the community. ➡️ Read our Community Guidelines, Be Kind and Respectful We’re here to curate an inclusive community where people of all backgrounds feel safe. Make sure to read our community guide to get acquainted with what that means.

I am building something based on a little daydream—a writing retreat made just for us. A place to be gentle, not force activities, learn and write, and to make forever friends. To help make this little daydream happen, I’m sharing a survey to help try and figure out what you want. Because that, in the end, is the most important thing. For full transparency: I need at least 300 people to fill out this survey in order to move forward with planning this retreat. I don’t mean 300 people will end up coming—that would be impossible to manage!—but I do need 300 people’s thoughts in order to understand what your needs are when it comes to a writing retreat with me. Please, if you can, take a moment to take this survey here. The survey will be available for one week, meaning that I’ll need you to fill it out by March 23. But why not—why not take a few minutes and fill it out now? https://my.trovatrip.com/public/l/survey/esme-wang Thank you! ❤️ E

I’m trying to think of a gift I can create (that’s not a workshop; I have too iffy of wifi while abroad right now) that would be lovely for all of you. Is there anything that you’d love to receive? A PDF or ebook? Let me know! And if you see something that someone else suggests that you’d love as well, weigh in! 🌱💕

I’m running an Indiegogo crowdfund that’s ending in approximate 30 hours for The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy, the online writing school that I founded for ambitious writers living with limitations. We’re trying to raise money for 7 scholarships, and we’re about 25% of the way there. Learn more & please consider donating or sharing: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/raise-for-scholarships-to-our-writing-academy/

You may have noticed that there's a Leaderboard here, which rewards people who comment and post (and do so with the best of intentions); each member of the community receives something when they reach certain levels. If you get to Level 4 (Scintillating Scribe), you'll get the Moodboard Creativity for Writers ebook/audiobook, and if you get to Level 9 (Brilliant Bookwriter), you'll unlock access to the One-Day Writing Kickstart, which is one of our most popular Academy 101 classes. It's likely that we'll add more things for various levels, but this is where we're starting, and I hope you'll enjoy your time here just as much as you enjoy these extra benefits. ❤️