Festival Feature: Co-Writing & Other Tricks of the Trade
August 16, 2025
NOTE: A version of this story appears in our 2025 South Dakota Festival of Books guide, produced by South Dakota Magazine. Minneapolis writers Kristi Belcamino, Jess Lourey and Sarah Stonich will present together at two Writers’ Support sessions at the Festival of Books, Sept. 26-28 in Spearfish, and Lourey will also lead a writing workshop.
Writing is often a solitary endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be. Minneapolis writers Sarah Stonich, Jess Lourey and Kristi Belcamino have settled into a co-writing routine that they say energizes both their personal relationships with one another and their work. The trio will discuss the benefits of co-writing as well as publishing tips and tricks at this year’s Festival of Books.
They began their regular meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Lourey invited Stonich and Belcamino to her home, which features several writing stations and a gaggle of foster kittens — an environment sure to please most writers. “We would show up at her house and she would have, in our spot, glasses of water with lemon or lime, and little energy shots. It was so fun,” Belcamino recalls. “We call her place the ‘Author Barbie Townhouse.’ We could write at the table or stand up at her kitchen bar or go to the big velvet couch with a lap board. Moving around like that is helpful, not only for your physical health but for your creativity.”
As the country moved out of the pandemic, the little writing group moved to a nearby coffee shop, where they’ve stuck to a weekly schedule. They talk about what’s been happening in their lives and the industry, then sit down to write. Think of it as gathering around the water cooler in a traditional office setting before going to work.
Lourey is also a writing teacher and recommends co-writing to her students. “The best thing you can do to make sure you finish a project is find a group of writers to work with,” Lourey says. “And you don’t even have to share your work; we don’t read each other’s stuff. Just be physical bodies doing the same thing. It makes a huge difference. When you’re writing fiction specifically, and you’re just making stuff up, it’s hard to keep going after a certain point because it just feels transient. If you’re with other people, it provides validation that this is worth your time.”
Stonich admits she once believed that if a person was meant to write they would find it easy to consistently make time. “That reality can be difficult,” she says. “It’s hard to get yourself up and going. I hear this from a lot of people who are just starting out. A lot of us have methods and practices and habits of writing, but sometimes that’s not enough. We like to have that support.”
Belcamino is a longtime advocate of co-writing. Several years ago she helped organize the Backroom Writers, a small group that met at least twice a week in a Minneapolis coffee shop. “I was missing that type of a writing environment,” Belcamino says. “There are a lot of other things when you’re sitting at home alone that you could find yourself doing, but if you’re showing up to meet someone, you’ve dedicated that time mentally and physically to sit there and write. One thing that really works is setting a timer, writing for an hour and then checking back in with each other. We call those ‘sprints.’ It’s amazing how much you can get done in an hour sprint.”
The three writers also have diverse publishing experiences that range from self-publishing to working with large New York publishing houses. They’ve learned how to market and advertise themselves and have survived an array of pitfalls with literary agents. The message they want to impart is that anyone can write and there is no right or wrong way, but by sharing the bumps in their own journeys they hope to smooth the path for aspiring Festival writers.
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