Olive Tree Ideas Club

This is a post I wrote for the Olive Tree Writing Club, the writing club I organize. Season 6 tickets are here.

During one of our Olive Tree sessions this season, my friend Lucas happened to be at Verci and decided to drop in. It was a coincidence, he forgot that OTWC happened on Sunday mornings, but he told me, “I was going to write today anyway, so this is perfect.”

After the session, I asked him what he thought. He said, “This was incredible. Can I give you some feedback?” I said, “Of course! What’s up?”

He told me that when he first heard about the Olive Tree Writing Club, he assumed it was just for capital-W Writers, you know, folks working on a novel or writing poetry. But when he joined, he saw people writing all kinds of things: sci-fi novels, personal Substack posts, screenplays, and scripts like himself. And that shifted his perspective.

That’s something I always try to emphasize: writing isn’t just for novelists or poets. Writing is a tool for thinking and exploring your ideas, no matter what you’re working on. Whether you’re building a business, designing an app, creating videos, or into fashion, writing helps you articulate what you’re trying to say and do.

That’s what makes Olive Tree different from any other writing club in New York. I couldn’t find a space that reflected this broader view of writing - so I created one.

Maybe instead of calling it the Olive Tree Writing Club, it’s more like the Olive Tree Ideas Club. Because yes, we write, but just as importantly, we talk, we think, we explore. That’s why people love the discussion part of OTWC so much. The writing time is powerful, but the conversations around it are what make it come alive.

So whether you’re working on a novel, a short story, a blog post, or just the seed of an idea, the best way to nurture it is to write it out.