Linda Sivertsen On The Unexpected Power Of Women’s Writing Groups

If you’d asked author Linda Sivertsen for most of her life whether she’d rather spend a weekend with five men or five women, she wouldn’t have hesitated.

“Men. Every time.”

Linda was the tomboy who climbed trees instead of gossiping under them. She preferred blue jeans to dresses, sports to shopping, and boys, who seemed less complicated and “far less interested in drama.”

At university she joined a sorority, mostly because she thought that’s what college girls did. Less than two years later, she quit. “It simply wasn’t my world,” she says. “I’ve never been much of a joiner.”

For decades, Linda’s life only reinforced her bias.

Wasn’t Working With Men Easier?

She ghostwrote books for men, a few chart-topping bestsellers among them, developing manuscripts for male entrepreneurs, celebrities, and thought leaders.

The self-described Daddy’s girl adores her husband and calls her thirty-five-year-old son her “soulmate kid.” Her favorite rescue dogs are boys, and her dream horse is a gelding.

If you’d told the younger Sivertsen she’d one day create writing retreats open only to women, she would have answered, “Not on your life.”

And yet that’s exactly the case. Of over 500 retreaters in 17 years, only 5 have been men—and none in the past few years.

Surprise #1: Resilience At The Retreat Table

Her clients call her “Book Mama.” Asked why her retreats are now almost always women-only, she says:

“Maybe it’s because men don’t often feel safe enough to let down their guard, and when they do, the result can feel overwhelming. It’s a lot to hold,” says Sivertsen. “Both for myself as the facilitator and the other four women seated around the retreat table or in the video call room.”

Linda has great compassion for men and how hard it can be to tell their stories. She understands how rarely they get room to go that deep. She’s just rarely willing to be the one to set the space.

Because somewhere along the way, writing completely changed her mind about women.

As a developmental editor and ghostwriter, Linda’s spent thousands of hours helping people write books. She’s watched them fall apart after brutal edits, celebrate breakthroughs, wrestle with impostor syndrome, and stare down rejection letters.

Surprise #2: Writers Needed Different Kinds Of Support

Sivertsen is quick to point out that some of the toughest writers she’s known are men, and she’s profiled them on her Beautiful Writers Podcast and in her latest book by the same name, Beautiful Writers.

As Steven Pressfield, one of Linda’s favorite humans, told her on her podcast and in her book, he collected rejection after rejection for seventeen years before anyone bought his work.

In Sivertsen’s experience, more of her male clients wanted to understand each stage before trusting the process, and sought reassurance when facing rejection or uncertainty.

The women? Yes, they, too, were terrified. They worried they weren’t good enough, that no one would care, that perhaps they’d wasted years on a dream that might never come true.

But then they’d take a breath, laugh, usually swear…

…and keep writing anyway, encouraged by their inner vision more than Sivertsen’s cheerleading, although that’s never in short supply.

No Surprise: Women Are AMAZING

Repeatedly, Linda watched women push forward while carrying more than anyone should, writing through divorces, chemotherapy, aging parents, raising children, losing children, financial crises, grief, and exhaustion. None of it was easy. But they couldn’t imagine giving up on something that mattered so deeply.

Linda’s thought a lot about why this is. “Maybe women who’ve spent their lives being underestimated have quietly developed muscles that creative work demands. Maybe we’re accustomed to hearing ‘no.’ Maybe we’ve had so much practice juggling impossible expectations that writing one more chapter doesn’t seem quite so impossible.”

The men who came often surprised her. She recalls Tony Franklin, then offensive coordinator for a Division I football team, arriving skeptical and announcing he wouldn’t eat vegetables and didn’t believe in anything “woo-woo.” Five days later, he left with a spontaneous crying habit, a new love of broccoli, and having stayed up all night protecting the women upstairs from what he swore was a ghost in the kitchen — an account Franklin has confirmed.

The Pull To Turn One’s Mess Into Their Message

Still, it’s her female clients who leave Sivertsen spellbound. “I’ve watched women transform heartbreak into memoirs that make strangers feel less alone. Turn illness into hope. Build businesses around helping others avoid the mistakes they made. I see them driven less by recognition than by contribution.”

Her thinking is that once a woman discovers something that helped save her and/or her children — recovering from addiction, escaping abuse, surviving poverty, rebuilding after loss, or figuring out how to become happier — good luck convincing her not to share what she’s learned.

Making someone else’s path easier is reason enough. If another woman feels seen, it was worth it.

It’s as if she’s handing over a flashlight and saying, “Here. This helped me. Maybe it’ll help you, too.”

The younger Linda — the girl who always chose the boys — never would have believed she’d feel most at home in a room full of women.

But writing has a funny way of introducing us not only to ourselves, but to one another. In helping hundreds of women tell the truth on the page, she landed somewhere she never expected:

The sisterhood she’d spent most of her life avoiding turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of her life and career.

Linda Sivertsen is the host of the popular Beautiful Writers Podcast and author of Beautiful Writers: A Journey of Big Dreams & Messy Manuscripts — with Tricks of the Trade from Bestselling Authors, both of which help creative people move past self-doubt, reclaim their voice and time, and finish what matters most.

Order Beautiful Writers, or find more ways to order at Book Mama.

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