Every Friday afternoon, a group of around a dozen people gather around a conference room table in the Woodside Library to exchange constructive, encouraging feedback on their poems, novels, essays or memoirs, incorporating timed writing exercises to spark creativity.
The Wordside creative writing group was founded almost a decade ago as a safe place for participants to share their writing and practice reading it aloud.
It also provides a social space for members, who enjoy chatting at the beginning of each meeting.
The group formed in 2017 when Christabel Choi came to the library in search of a creative writing group. Without one, the librarian asked Choi, a Hayward resident who traveled to Huddart Park to bring her children to a nature program, to found such a group at the library.
Choi has since left the group, but she published her first book, a memoir called “Rice Paper Window” about her experience as a student in South Korea in the late 1980s, in June 2025.
One of the group’s earliest members, Woodside resident Ricardo Lopez-Regalado, intended to get help from the group to translate his Spanish poems into English with nuance. Ultimately, Wordside inspired him to start a novel. He compiled a book of short stories and poems called “Sangre Without Lines.”
“We have a sense of community, a sense of being safe here, a sense of exploration without fear,” he said.
Menlo Park resident David Roland, who joined in 2025, said he was a Toastmaster — a club in which you practice both planned speeches and unplanned responses — for many years. He wrote a lot but only had fragments and ideas.
“This group gave me the juice to put pieces together,” said Roland. He’s brought his granddaughter to the group as well.
He is working on an autobiographical novel, along with poems and chronicles of his business trips. “In fact, I’m on the threshold of cleaning up a couple of poems which I plan to submit to the New Yorker. Why not aim high?”
Since joining Wordside, Maria Devito has written two poetry books and a detective story.
But looking back, the San Mateo resident recalls that she was nervous when she joined Wordside. She brought a children’s story to her first meeting.
“So I read it, and they gave me such positive feedback and were really supportive,” she said. “So my fear just dissolved. … Every Friday I’ve been coming as many times as I’m able, and I learned so much. I grew so much as a writer.”
Although she doesn’t attend Wordside meetings very often anymore, Foster City resident Shirley Potasz said she has found purpose in memoir writing since joining the group.
“I’m 90, and you have to have a purpose in life to keep going — something that inspires you to get up and do what you feel,” she said.
Potasz also held leadership roles in Toastmasters over the years, where she met Lopez-Regalado, who introduced her to Wordside.
Redwood City resident Irene Perali joined Wordside a year ago when she came to the Woodside Library with her kids.
“I self-published a novel (“Followives” about Italian women who immigrate to the U.S. with their husbands) five years ago in solitude, so I really wanted to join a group that kept me motivated,” said Perali, who is originally from Italy. “It’s nice to be part of a writing community. I work in tech, and all my friends are in tech, and it’s been very refreshing to be exposed to people who are not in tech.”
She also noted that she is not a native English speaker and that reading to other people forces her to read better and be more expressive.
Wordside Writers Group meets at the Woodside Library, 3140 Woodside Road, on Fridays, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
View the Woodside Library’s events calendar at tinyurl.com/WoodsideLibraryEvents. Visit tinyurl.com/WordsideFirstFriday to see Wordside Writer’s Group’s presentation at Woodside Arts & Culture’s First Friday event.
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