This New Yorker piece has an interesting take on what writers’ spaces are all about:

“As with the gym, at the writers’ space you feel less ridiculous spending your time on an activity with uncertain and elusive benefits: everyone else is doing it, too. It’s a cocoon that protects its inhabitants from a world where most people regard writing, with some reason, as a peculiar and dubious hobby. Inside the cocoon, a gentle sense of competition takes hold. You want your treadmill to be moving as fast as the next guy’s.”