RAYMOND – Writers, to some, appear to take themselves very seriously.

The Writers, however, a Raymond-based group of scribes of all stripes and ambitions that is now seeking new members, does not fit that category.

“We don’t want to scare anybody off and think they need to be a writer,” said the group’s founder, Betty Libby, who owns the White Pines Inn on Route 302 in Raymond. “They just need to want to be a writer.”

The group, which meets the third Monday of each month and is free to join, has been meeting at the Libby’s home for about a year but has outgrown its space. The group decided to open the membership to the greater public and is now meeting in a large room at the Raymond Public Safety Building. The next meeting is Monday, March 21 from 6-8 p.m.

According to facilitator T. Jewell Collins of Harrison, whose creative writing pieces have been published in Maine-based as well as national magazines, including the Christian Science Monitor and Downeast, the group is meant to offer encouragement and feedback for those wishing to hone their writing skills.

“The purpose of the group is to be a support to one another in our efforts to come up with hopefully publishable writing or at least writing that is pleasing to our own sense of things,” she said at the group’s first public meeting in February.

Collins also said writers require feedback, and a group that can offer it gently with plenty of constructive encouragement is preferable to getting rejection notices from publishing houses.

“The group is for people who want to get feedback on what they’ve done,” Collins said, “and to have our fellow writers critique our work not as writers but as readers. Are they happy with what they’ve read that you have written, and, if they are not, what questions do they have that would strengthen the piece of writing for the reader?”

Lastly, whether one seeks to get published or not, the group is meant to be a place where writers can “share our victories and rejections and be a support to one another as we progress with our desire to express ourselves on paper,” Collins said.

Not everyone in the group wants to write a bestseller. Libby says she is thrilled to open the group to a larger audience. She wants to “put anyone who wants to write anything at all at ease with their intention and maybe get them published or not, so they feel competent enough to pick up a pen and put their thoughts on paper. It’s a thrill either way.”

One of Libby’s childhood friends, Charlene Gerrish of Scarborough, has joined the group. Gerrish says she tends to write about her childhood, exploring memories of serious or funny situations that occurred.

“I like to write about the more humorous things, but there’s always a lesson to it,” she said.

Gerrish especially enjoys the interaction with the group.

“I’ve found the other people in the group diverse. Some write for magazines. Some are retired. Some do it for fun. But they all are trying to get better and you learn from each other being face to face,” Gerrish said.

Collins said the spirit of the group is to have fun.

“My mother used to say, ‘I love numbers because you can’t fool around with them.’ And I said, ‘Well I love words because I can make them do what I want. You can play around with them,’” said Collins. “Doing math, I come up against a stone wall and I dissolve into tears or rage or whatever, but I never feel that way about writing. I’ll just try again and again and again, shift it around. I’m pulling something out of myself and there it is coming out.”

Harrison resident T. Jewell Collins, left, and Raymond residents Priscilla Barber and Betty Libby are members of The Writers, a group that has recently opened its membership to the greater Lakes Region public. Staff photo by John Balentine