A little over a year ago, I was sitting on Suleika Jaouad’s couch, and she said something like: “I kind of have this idea. It may sound kind of wild, but… a journaling club.”
I remember thinking: Tell me more. I was intrigued. Isn’t journaling something one does alone? Journaling itself is new. Many of us have been doing it since we were twelve, with half-filled notebooks sitting in drawers somewhere. But she was suggesting that we take a deeply solitary act and make it collective.
A few months later, I joined Suleika for a live Journaling Club, and the first thing she had us do was draw a giraffe with our non-dominant hand. You are not here to write well. You are just here to show up.
Yesterday, we sat down together for a Substack Live on how to start a Journaling Club of your own. The first 10 minutes are above and available for everyone. Group Lifers can watch the full replay.
Here are ten steps to get your own Journaling Club started
1. Stop waiting for someone else to host the thing you wish existed. When Sheri moved to Minneapolis, she didn’t know many people. She’d read Suleika’s The Book of Alchemy and The Alchemy Journal and kept hoping a journaling club would simply pop up nearby. After a few weeks, she realized: she could just host one herself. She made a flyer and posted it at a bakery she already loved and in a neighborhood Facebook group. She made name tags and prepared extra prompts. Now she hosts these monthly, and people come back month after month. One of the best ways to make a new city feel like a home is to host something because it gives you hosting energy rather than guesting energy.
2. The gathering starts at the moment of the invitation. Sheri’s flyer included phrases like: “Sharing optional. No pressure. Prompts provided.” Every invitation is a kind of social contract that tells people exactly what’s happening and how to arrive. Particularly now, when so many people feel lonely, socially rusty, or emotionally exhausted, clarity is its own form of care. A specific invitation creates emotional safety before anyone even walks through the door.
3. Tag in a subhost. Sheri’s son comes to almost every Journaling Club with her. And that one person makes all the difference. A subhost can help greet people as they arrive, ease awkwardness during transitions, or problem-solve if something unexpected happens. I think of subhosts as lighthouses: when you give a guest a small role, they stop wondering whether the gathering is good enough and start wanting to make it as good as possible with you.
