Michelle Jenson, co-host of the Cape Girardeau chapter of Shut Up & Write!, remembers the first story she ever wrote: on three pages of notebook paper, a cat got trapped in a trash bin, and a rat rescued him. She wrote it while in the fourth grade, and it started her lifelong love for writing.
“I just love having a creative outlet, and this has always been mine, since I was little,” Jenson says. “I love making stories and watching people read the stories.”
This love inspired her to gather a writing community around her while she lived in Des Moines, Iowa, where she says there are many writers. There, she found different writing groups that were available, but most of them were about connecting with other writers rather than about the act of writing itself; she wanted a group she could go to in order to have focused time to write, working on her own projects.
After doing some research, she found the perfect group: the nonprofit Shut Up & Write, a meetup where writers gather, set a timer for approximately one hour and then write quietly together for the hour. With the group’s format, there is no pressure for writers to share what they write or to even talk to anyone else if they don’t want to; the point is to have accountability for scheduling writing time into the week. She started a chapter in Des Moines, and by the time she moved to Cape Girardeau in January 2024, 10 people came on a regular basis.
In Missouri, Jenson met Elizabeth Engram through a Missouri writers Discord channel, where Engram asked if she wanted to co-host a group in Cape Girardeau with her. Jenson agreed, and they started the group in May 2024. Now, the group meets every other Tuesday from 6 to 7 p.m. at Mana Tea in downtown Cape.
Writing has also been a lifelong love for Engram, who says she enjoyed reading as a child, which led her to write her own stories. Now, she writes fantasy short stories, some of which have been published.
“Once [writing] grabbed me, it just never really let go,” Engram says. “I was inspired by a lot of the stuff I read. I just feel like I had all these stories that wanted to come out, and so I’ve just kind of been chipping away all this time trying to see what will happen from that.”
Engram enjoys having a community of people to write with at Shut Up & Write!. Since the group started meeting, she says she has produced much more writing than she did before.
“It’s kind of what I had been looking for around here,” Engram says. “That was kind of the missing piece for me, just ‘cause I like to write. I claim to enjoy it, but sometimes when we’re on our own, it’s just hard to be solitary with it. I get so distracted if I’m at home. And I just wanted to gather with other people that enjoyed the same things that I did. And so I thought, ‘If I’m looking for that, there’s got to be other people that also are looking for that same thing.’”
With a job in information technology, Jenson says it’s easy to make excuses to not spend time writing; the group helps ensure she spends at least an hour every other week making time for what she loves. Now, she is working on editing a dark academia Gothic novel she wrote last year.
Although people often think the group is only for creative writers, Jenson says people can bring all types of writing to work on, including five-year plans, coding projects, homework, essays and journaling. The hope is that it’s a quiet time for whatever project people want or need to spend their time with.
The group is open to anyone who wants to have time and space to write quietly with others. People can leave whenever they need to within the timeframe, and they don’t have to come to every meetup. As Engram says, “It’s just here when you need it.”
Jenson encourages people to give attention to their creativity.
“Don’t be afraid to try out a little bit of writing,” Jenson says. “I think there’s a writer in everybody. So try it out, and you might be surprised. Just keep pushing — you don’t know what’s going to come out.”
Want to go?
Shut Up & Write! meets every other Tuesday from 6 to 7 p.m. at Mana Tea, 411 Broadway St. in Cape Girardeau. For more information, visit meetup.com/shutupandwritecapegirardeau/.
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