Lake Atitlan, Panajachel, Guatemala

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

K is for Knickerbocker Group

The KNICKERBOCKER GROUP was a group writing in and about New York during the first half of the nineteenth century. The name was made famous by Washington Irving in Knickerbocker's History of New York. Their association was one of geography and chance rather than of close organization.

Writers have always tended to flock together and form groups. Now with the internet, there need be no geographical boundaries, and our group can consist of writers around the world. A few groups I've noticed are the Blogger writers (more closely knit imho than the Wordpress writers), the indie ebook authors on Amazon forums, those on Facebook groups (I'm part of one of these and the constant email notifications are currently driving me insane), those all represented by a single literary agent, or published by the same publisher, those writing the same genres.... If you think about it, writing is such a solitary venture, yet we like to interact with other writers. Who else can really understand our peculiarities?

(This post has been inspired by and in some instances, directly quoted from A Handbook to Literature, 8th Edition, by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman)

18 comments:

  1. There's usually some sort of commonality that draws groups together. I'm wordpress but I've never noticed groups based on which king of blog service you use. Maybe b/c I'm on the outside! :)

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  2. Batman.

    I mean, here's a guy who's supposed to be the big loner, and yet he's got almost as many supporting characters as an episode of The Simpons.

    ;-)

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  3. I love my Omnific publishing group, but also enjoy hanging out with authors from other small publishers and indie authors too!

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  4. so, so true, Karen! Great post. Blogging has helped me find my group, and I'm so much happier as a result. It's difficult for non-writers to understand all the *stuff* we deal with~ <3

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  5. Great post Karen. Yes, I've definitely formed a special 'group' of blogger friends.

    I'd never heard of the Knickerbocker group
    x

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  6. Great choice for K, Karen! I've been amazed at the connections I've been able to make just in the short time I've been blogging, it really does help a great deal.

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  7. I've always wondered what Knickerbocker is and where the word came from. Someone from New York told me the name came from a beer.

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  8. Nice segue from the original Knickerbockers to the present-day manifestations of writing groups. Even though writing is largely a solitary endeavor, being able to share its ups and downs with others who truly understand makes it feel less solitary and more "solidarity."

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  9. Yeah, blogger writers rock! Although it hasn't been until recently that I started to notice a lot of writers in my genre.

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  10. And here I thought just blogging you belonged to a special group?! Nice post, KarenG!
    Jules @ Trying To Get Over The Rainbow

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  11. Groups are very interesting and so helpful!

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  12. I've always chuckled at the idea of writing being a 'solitary' profession...at least in my case. While they may not all be as serious as I am, there are many many sisters and brothers in this family...just look at the bloggers alone!

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  13. This is interesting. I'd thought that the name Knickerbocker refered to the elite social class of New York at that time. I didn't know that the name came from a group of writers.

    Jai

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  14. And today I actually talked about forming a very small private email group with a couple of writers I know and correspond with already via email!

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  15. who indeed. My hubby does his best to understand and I love him for it :)
    Great post

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  16. Hi Karen!
    Stopping by from the A-Z challenge. I do not consider myself a writer, just a survivor sharing my story.
    However, I am so glad to have found this challenge and read blogs such as yours and many other writers.
    elayne

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  17. Wherever your are but only one thing required is that we has to write truth is important. And our writings will help the humanity.

    Nice to see you at a2z blog fest. I am follow this blog.

    Stop by the my blog and if you like follow my blog.

    With warm regards,

    http://mydaughtersdreams.blogspot.com

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