Trident writing group helps Boston residents build community
A woman taps her pencil three times and stares out the window from her bar-style seat onto Newbury Street below. She’s working on a short story — her second draft. She puts on her cardigan, bundles up, and looks back out the window. She jots something down. A breakthrough?
A man enters something into a spreadsheet. He’s working on the fourth version of an outline of a Christianity-inspired science fiction epic. He frequently consults Google Translate on his phone. He has yet to complete an outline, but he is optimistic.
They aren’t alone in their efforts. Surrounding them are more than a dozen more Boston residents, hoping to get something on the page, whether it be a poem, a short story, the next great American novel. In this cafe, everyone has one goal: to write.
Trident Booksellers & Cafe was first opened in the center of Newbury Street in the fall of 1984 by husband and wife Bernie and Gail Flynn, with the hope of creating “a third space; a place that isn’t your home or your workplace, but in which all are welcome to gather over a coffee, a conversation, or a good book,” according to Trident’s official website. In the decades since — and after recovering from a 2018 fire and adapting to new circumstances brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic — Trident has become a staple of Newbury Street.
Today, Trident boasts a full-service sit-down cafe and restaurant with a lively patio, a massive selection of books, assorted merchandise and tchotchkes and several events each week. These events include author signings, both themed and general trivia nights, bonsai shaping bars, poetry open mic nights, book clubs and the Trident writing group.
Leading these events is recent Harvard graduate Allison Scharmann, who took on the role of events coordinator in 2021. Last fall, she began hosting the writing group as a personal project.
“I took some creative writing classes in undergrad and I thought that it would be nice to host a space where people could just drop in and write together and meet each other and spend time together in a community kind of space,” Scharmann said.
The writing group meets every other week from 7–9 p.m. and is completely free to attend. Participants have access to Trident’s full dining menu, including coffee and all-day breakfast.
To 23 year old Caroline Vanderlee, this is the perfect space to work on her “sci-fi/mystery mash-up.” Although she recognizes the creativity in her work as a computer scientist, she finds the writing group a time to practice a different type of creativity.
“I do best, like writing-wise, when I’m writing with people around me because when you write, you kind of have to be alone in your own head… I’m a bit extroverted, so I don’t like being alone for too long,” Vanderlee said. “It’s easier to offset being alone in my head when I have other people around me.”
Forty-five minutes into the two-hour session, Scharmann gave the participants an opportunity to share their progress with the rest of the group. First-time attendee Zain Bokhari told her that he would rather share with a partner or small group. This gave the writers, most of whom came alone, a chance to further bond with each other. Throughout the sharing time, self-deprecation and disclaimers were commonplace (“I don’t really know how to write at all so I’m just writing some God awful f*cking dialogue;” “I’m literally not a poet, I’m just doing this…”), but constructive criticism and compliments abounded as well (“I do love a Catholic empire with a f*cked up aesthetic.”)
“I think it was more of me sharing because I think a lot of people were in the drafting phase, and I think it was pretty productive just learning about other people’s process,” Bokhari said. “One of the individuals was either a teacher or he had some kind of professional training and had published a few things, so he gave me a lot of resources and journals for submission.”
Bokhari found out about the event courtesy of website The Boston Calendar. Although he had trouble introducing himself at the beginning of the session, he asked for feedback from three separate attendees and plans to come to the next session. In addition to meeting fellow writers, one participant finds that the group motivates her to stay on task.
“Part of the reason why I wanted to come here was… I want to write more. I want to carve out that time in my life for writing,” she said to a friend over a plate of lemon ricotta french toast and a cappuccino. “But if I don’t schedule it, it doesn’t happen. Writing is something I really enjoy, but it’s work.”
Throughout Scharmann’s work in organizing events like the writing group every week, she has truly built the third space intended by the founders of Trident nearly four decades ago.
“It’s really hard to meet people as an adult when you’re just kind of working and existing in a new place,” Scharmann said. “I like to think that Trident is a place where that can happen organically, and that makes me happy and that makes me happy to do my job and come here and host events.”
Note: this story was originally published in May 2022.