By Katrin Schumann

Media marketing experts agree that maintaining a robust newsletter is one of the best ways for an author to build a core audience--a group of people who will be more interested and committed to you and your work than, say, that stranger lurking on twitter or the random people liking your Instagram shots.

In late August, members and friends of the GrubStreet Writers of Color Group met with award-winning author Celeste Ng to talk craft, process, and publishing. Celeste's debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, has won multiple awards and was a New York Times bestseller, Amazon's #1 Best Book of 2014, and on the Best Book of the Year lists of over a dozen outlets. Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, was released on Tuesday. Writers of Color Group members Kayti Lahsaiezadeh and Shirley Jones Luke reflect on the experience.

Members of GrubStreet's Writers of Color Group, including Kayti Lahsaiezadeh …

This summer, GrubStreet instructor Jonathan Escoffery found much more than a workshop at the Kimbilio retreat for writers of the African Diaspora. Describing that transformative week to his white peers, however, was not always a positive experience.