What the FUQ?

Fosterverse Weekly #38: First FUQs

This month, we kicked off a CoAuthored revival with an April Fools Day reflection, only to discover that in 2025, April is a weird 30-day month with five Tuesdays (we only had four posts planned). Who knew?

And now it’s Wednesday!

But if time is a robust fiction, who cares? Be cunning.

We’re taking this occasion to issue an invitation to Foster writers to share reflections on what we’re calling Frequently Unanswered Questions (FUQs). We acknowledge this is a community where many of us have found the strength and the courage to explore the big questions shaping our lives, but sometimes it helps to call them to our attention for more pointed answers.

Many Foster writers have risen the occasion of giving a first set of FUQs (see full list below). We welcome you to submit your responses to any of these for CoAuthored. You can get started in the comments, or find us on WhatsApp to share your thoughts. (When we curate a What the FUQ? post like this one, you’ll hear about it there).

This month, we invited writers to reflect on our First FUQ:

What Makes Community?

As a writing community made up of people who belong to lots of different kinds of communities, we thought this FUQ would raise reflections on what keeps us showing up for our writing and each other, and the Fosterverse did not disappoint!

From Jesse Evers, a community space-maker in Brooklyn who shared his journey west this month:

To me, community is made of shared goals, shared values, shared context, and shared space. I think some of the core tenets of a healthy community are:

• Its members have a deep sense of belonging and trust

• There is a clearly defined (or felt) shared purpose

• The community as a whole internally promotes a “yes we can” attitude, i.e. community members feel agency to deepen/expand the community

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about community spaces in particular, and came to the conclusion that community spaces are defined by their purpose:

The purpose of a community space is to give people a place to gather, connect, and belong, usually centered around a particular set of activities, interests, and beliefs.

(I’m working on a muuuuuuuch longer piece on community spaces that I pulled some of this from, which I hopefully will release…eventually :)

From Sara Campbell, a Foster Steward who wrote this month about the Zen of writing:

At its heart, a community is a place where we can gather and be ourselves with each other. A place to simply exist and unite around a shared interest, which could be anything from raising our children to our desire to learn a language to just wanting to be out in the world amongst other humans. While I do think it’s mostly about being in relationship, in a good community there is also some kind of value exchange, even if the exchange is unconscious (e.g. I meet another person who admits to struggling with the same thing I am and it makes me feel less alone). We humans need to be seen and we need to feel needed, and the best communities give space for us to both give our gifts and benefit from the gifts of others without it being a whole thing, you know? So ideally it’s a lot of people who bring varying strengths to the table, and help illuminate for each other the meaning and value of what each of us have to give.

From Dylan Tweney, a Foster Circle facilitator and active Buddhist in the SF Bay Area (who’s starting a new in-person writing circle!):

Community arises in surprising ways and diverse environments. On Zoom, in a coffee shop, at a retreat, or in a sports club. You might go to these places looking for community and not find it. You might try to form a community and find that it fizzles. Or, you might be surprised to discover that you’ve been participating in a community all along. I’ve learned that a few elements are necessary for community to happen. These seem like necessary conditions for the formation of community:

A sense of space: A framework, like a regular meeting time or place, where people can gather.

A sense of solidity: The assurance that the space will be there, whether you are able to show up or not. You can miss a day and still be confident that it will happen without you.

A sense of care: Successful communities need at least one person, preferably several, who are committed to showing up again and again, and who care for the space and the people in it. Sometimes all they need to do is show up. Sometimes they need to act in a more directive, leadership role. But the main thing is to demonstrate care for the community.

Without these three senses, people won’t feel safe coming into and returning to the community day after day or week after week. With them, the spark of connection has room to turn into a cozy fire of companionship.

Other FUQs:

• What does self-belief or conviction feel like?

• Why do you write?

• If a fortune teller tells you that you’ll never make money or gain ‘audience’ traction through writing, will you still write and why?

• What do you think is the meaning of life?

• Does everything happen for a reason? What sits behind your answer?

• For those who’ve left a big city other than for starting a family or it got too unaffordable, what were your reasons?

• Do you think manifestation is real, why?

• Is the world a friendly place? (Albert Einstein's question)

• What do you believe?

• What’s the value of writing when AI can generate such convincingly good content?

• What’s the best pen for a serious writer? Pencil? How about your favorite journal or paper to write on? Why are you still writing on paper anyway?

• Why (or how) is community important for writing?

• Where do the words come from?

Which FUQ is calling you?

Let us know in the comments.

Looking for inspiration to gather and write IRL?

Join Dylan Tweney’s in-person writing circle in SF the 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month: https://tally.so/r/w584Wd

In the Fosterverse this week:

• Persevering Through Doubt by Alicia Bonner

• My Joy List by Syd Connolly

• Final post (for a while) by Ann Gauger

• The Gratitude Gap by Joshua Doležal

• briefly, forever by Alex Dobrenko

• 1:1 Creativity Conversations and Guidance by Kathryn Vercillo

• A Secret Third Thing: The Zen of Writing Together by Sara Campbell

• hello to all that by Sarah Wood González

• Leonora Carrington Art and Mental Health by Kathryn Vercillo

• The Sweetness of Heartbreak by Danver Chandler

• 15 Questions to Kickstart Your AI Autobiography by Russell Smith

• I’m Me at 26 Because of These 26 Beliefs by Nicolás Forero

• The subtle ways I’m growing into myself | #57 by Caryn Tan

• confessions of a recovering content creator by Alex Dobrenko

• Could THREE reading vlogs be one too many? by Cams Campbell

• Living in liminal spaces by Jen Vermet

• What a fool believes by Dee Rambeau

• A Story of Decent Exposure by Rick Lewis

• 260: Fraught Conversations by Jason Shen

• Michelangelo Buonarroti: Art and Mental Health History by Kathryn Vercillo

• How Alive Do You Really Feel? by Ariane Goodwin

Interested in giving a FUQ? Let us know in the comments.