The Tabletop Writers Guild is a group of people who still insist on writing about board games. (I’m a member of the guild, and currently on the board of directors.) This year, spurred in part by conversations on Black Lives Matter, the guild promised to take a few steps toward combatting racism and inequality in the world of tabletop games. The Tabletop Writers Diversity Initiative is one of those steps: it’s an 8-week program encouraging people—especially Black writers and other marginalized voice—to practice writing about games.
The idea is somewhat akin to things like Nanowrimo or Inktober: it’s primarily meant as something for you to challenge yourself to practice different types of writing, but providing a timeline so that you can do so with a group of others. It starts on September 8, and the weekly challenges are as follows:
- Week 1: The Game That Brought You Into The Hobby
- Week 2: Tabletop Listicles And You
- Week 3: A Board Game Review (Note: For this Challenge you will have four weeks to work on it, not just one)
- Week 4: Caption This!
- Week 5: Mechanics, Theme, and Artistry
- Week 6: Gaming Culture
- Week 7: My Board Game Community
- Week 8: Freestyle
There’s a link to sign up—it’s optional, but it helps the guild know that you’re participating so that we can also provide feedback if you’re interested. More details will be provided on the guild website about each of the challenges.
If you love tabletop games and you’ve been considering creating written content, this could be a fun way to get started!
