The Writhing Society was a salon/class devoted to writing with constraints. Founded in 2009, it met at Proteus Gowanus, The Commons on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, The Brooklyn Public Library, and online. It was open to anyone interested in language and serious play. We explored constraints invented by the Oulipo and others, and invented some of our own. Some of our experiments were recorded in a blog: http://writhingsociety.blogspot.com/?view=mosaic


What is constrained writing? When Georges Perec of OULIPO wrote La Disparition, he did not use the letter E; this was his constraint. Constrained writing involves composing text by imposing rules that are invented and arbitrary. It is a surrender of control, it requires taking directions from something outside your own immediate intention. Writers are compelled to say what they had never thought to say in ways they never would have chosen to say it. It is a method for making sense differently; for escaping stale, ready-made ideas, subjects, and formulations; for creating many and various alternative realities and discovering what is true in them.

The Writhing Society drew inspiration from several sources, most importantly the French group OULIPO — Italo Calvino, Georges Perec, Harry Mathews, Raymond Queneau, Jacques Roubaud, Ian Monk, Michèle Métail — and from others practicing similar methods: Raymond Roussel, Gilbert Sorrentino, Doug Nufer, Tom Phillips, Ronald Johnson, Jen Bervin.