SATURDAY CLUB :: WRITE YOURSELF IN
A five-month, Venus as Evening Star, Parisian-themed salon series
for women who are ready to write themselves in
MAY to SEPTEMBER 2026
Online
The FOURTH Saturday of each month
5pm BST UK time
In 1405, a woman named Christine de Pizan, had spent years reading what men had written about women + found it to be, collectively + with increasing fury… insufficient. TOTAL MOTHER-LOVING UNDERSTATEMENT. So she wrote The Book of The City of Ladies + conjured, with her words, a city into existence + populated it with women that history had overlooked or diminished or refused to see.
Now, across lifetimes + timelines - inspired by Christine + the women who have been before + are yet to come - a Venusian literary + arts salon that has no postcode, no arrondissement + exists outside of time, hosts women who WROTE THEMSELVES IN.
NOTE: If you’re called, YOU will absolutely KNOW how to find it.
Anais Nin, Gertrude Stein + Musidora are there.
Agnes Varda is filming the light through a doorway.
Marguerite Duras is at the window, watching rain hit the glass + making VERY extensive notes about it.
Janet Flanner is at the corner table, filing copy so precise, the entire weight of Paris is held in her words.
Louise Brooks, sharper than anyone EVER gives her credit for, is writing in the margins of a book that she wholeheartedly disagrees with.
Natalia Ginzburg is absolutely not here for my/your/our excuses, while Colette, yes, THE Colette who wrote forty books + took her name back from the man who stole it, is pouring the gin.
I’ll give you a clue, for now at least, because the address is ever-changing, you can find it in Paris at early evening, when, at least in the Paris of MY imagination, the sky is golden + full of possibility + when you do, you’ll be met by a woman, wearing a glorious kaftan + a strong red lip - me - who will welcome you to: WRITE YOURSELF IN.
In this literary + arts salon outside of time + place, yet also in Paris, + that’s always existed,
there are books on the shelves without titles + words waiting for YOU to claim them as your own.
WHY DO I NEED TO WRITE MYSELF IN?
Your story lives in you the way that all unwritten things live: restless, persistent + usually really bloody inconvenient.
You’ve thought about it in the shower, on the school run + at 2am when you should be sleeping.
+ you’ve started it, maybe.
Stopped, probably.
Told yourself that you’ll get to it when things “settle down”. Except, spoiler alert, things NEVER. SETTLE. DOWN. Rude, I know. + your story, despite what AI will have you believe, is NOT going to write itself.
Now, what I WILL say is that the stakes of you NOT choosing to WRITE YOURSELF IN are higher than you think.
If women like you/me/we do not write ourselves into existence, our stories + realities WILL be written for us. (+ I can PROMISE that they will NOT be written in our favour.)
This is NOT a drill.
The stories that WE tell about women's lives, women's bodies, women's desire, women's rage, women's joy, women's ordinary extraordinary days shape + form + make true what gets considered possible, real + true. Every woman who doesn’t write, who doesn’t tell, share + live her story out loud in her own voice, leaves that space wide open for someone else to fill it for her + you’d best believe I am NOT COOL WITH THAT.
Enheduanna pressed her name into clay in 2300 BCE
making her THE first author + showing us the way.
Christiane de Pizan built a City of Ladies in word-form for us to live inside in 1405.
Madeleine De Scudery, novelist, saloniere + the reason why SATURDAY CLUB exists,
gave us the female “I” voice in literature in the 1600’s.
Helene Cixous, my forever love + inspiration, wrote in 1975:
“woman must write herself or she will be written.”
It’s now 2026, four thousand years have passed (+ are yet to come + still exist) + tap, YOU. ARE. IT.
So, WHAT EXACTLY IS WRITE YOURSELF IN?
It’s a five-month online salon series, running May through til September 2026 + it’s for women who are ready to take their writing, + themselves, really bloody seriously.
You might have a book idea - fiction or non-fiction - or something completely NOT categorisable.
A memoir you’ve been afraid to start.
Essays + words + poems that are piling up somewhere in your body because they’ve not made it to the page. YET.
A Substack that you keep meaning to write + share.
A novel that visits you at THE most inconvenient moments + niggles away at your psyche.
You do not need to have it figured out,
but you DO need to have something to say.
Each month, we’ll gather on the FOURTH Saturday of every month, live, in OUR mythical AND very real, Venusian literary + arts salon. It’s part literary circle, part industry masterclass, part lineage of women who have been doing this for over four millennia.
We’ll read together.
We’ll write together.
We’ll talk about craft + our stories + our life + our experiences + our realities in the way that they deserve to be talked about: passionately, on the page, out loud + WITH EACH OTHER.
And woven through ALL of it, every month I’ll share the real, unfiltered truth about how publishing works. Traditional + independent. Agents + pitches. Platform + positioning. What the gatekeepers don’t tell you + how WE get to CHOOSE.
PARIS IS A WOMAN'S TOWN
One of my favourite books, published by Mary Margaret McBride, in 1939, is titled Paris is a Woman’s Town + Paris has always been where women came to write on their own terms.
Sylvia Beach opened Shakespeare and Company + published the book the entire English-speaking world said could not be published.
Natalie Barney held her Friday salons at rue Jacob for sixty years, gathering Colette, Djuna Barnes, Radclyffe Hall, Gertrude Stein + anyone else who needed a room where brilliance + passion was the only entry requirement.
Janet Flanner filed the Paris Letter for The New Yorker for half a century, writing the city into language so precise it still holds true now.
Christine de Pizan built her City of Ladies here too, in her imagination, in her study, in the Paris of 1405 where a woman with a pen was either invisible or dangerous. She chose dangerous. (+ SO WILL WE!)
The salon that WE gather in exists in THAT Paris.
The one outside of time.
The one where every woman who has ever picked up a pen is still writing, it’s where I go to write, it’s where MY fiction series is set, so when you join me for WRITE YOURSELF IN, you’re also remembering + joining an entire lineage of brilliant women THERE - in the imaginal + very real Paris - women who told + wrote + lived their stories, women who wrote THEMSELVES in.
WRITE YOURSELF IN is NOT a “write your book in 10 days” course.
It’s NOT content strategy sessions.
It’s MOST DEFFO NOT a “productivity” programme.
NOTE: It’s something far older + more future-focused than ANY OF THOSE THINGS.
WRITE YOURSELF IN
a five-month immersive experience
- while Venus is in her Evening Star phase -
where we will explore the act, + the art,
of writing yourself, + your story, into existence.
It’s where you start on your terms, at your pace, in your voice + you join a secret(ish) society of women, the ones that I call The Women of the Wild Rose, the ones who came before you, who are yet to come + who, like you, are remembering that YOU ARE A WILD ROSE in the here + now + they are ALL nodding, winking + raising glasses filled with various libations to YOU.
I won’t lie, some of them are also whispering under their breath
“thank fark for THAT, it’s about bloody time she remembered!” - Ha!
+ when you say yes, you’re claiming YOUR place as a woman who writes herself In.
The WOMEN WHO WROTE THEMSELVES IN
The required reading for WRITE YOURSELF IN is The Laugh of Medusa by Helene Cixous.
In it she leads us through feminist theory + dream-logic. Poetry + prophecy.
Yes, it’s a takedown of what she calls the phallocentric writing world AND it’s a push/butt kick towards what she calls écriture feminine - feminine writing - which is not really about gender + more about us - me + you - taking back language from the over-culture + letting your writing, your story, all that’s real + true for you, be expressed in YOUR language, YOUR own rhythm, in YOUR own voice.
She says that we’ve been “shut out of language, exiled from meaning, told our voices were excessive, embarrassing, irrational”
which is WHY the only way back is to WRITE OURSELVES IN.
So yes, we’ll LOVE on Helene in every salon AND every month, in WRITE YOURSELF IN, you’ll also meet TWO women across space + time,
who HAVE written themselves in.
They’re Venusian Wild Roses, women who wrote, performed, published, insisted, refused + reclaimed,
often against considerable opposition, their right to be the authors of their own stories, experiences + lives.
FYI: They’re not simply historical footnotes, they’re provocateurs, they’re women who are here to remind us of what has always been possible.
THE FIVE SALONS
MAY
The Desire to Write
We begin with the desire to write because it’s the whole mother-loving point.
We meet filmmaker + story teller, Agnes Varda + Violette Leduc, who’s memoir, La Batarde opens mid-sentence, mid-feeling, with no apology + no preamble. It begins in the middle of life, because that is where all honest writing begins, so that’s EXACTLY where we’ll start too.
JUNE
Architecture Is a Creative Act
We look at shape + form. The decisions you make about where to begin, where to end, what to leave in + what to cut, yes, these are technical choices + they’re expressive ones. They’re where your real + true voice lives.
We meet Janet Flanner who filed the Paris Letter for The New Yorker for fifty years + Marguerite Duras who’s book The Lover was rejected in its original form, so while she didn’t change the story, she DID change the architecture, + it became one of THE most celebrated French novels of the twentieth century.
JULY
The Editorial Eye
At some point in the writing experience, every writer must learn to read their own work with the clarity + capacity to see the gap between what is experienced + what is actually on the page.
We meet Natalia Ginzburg + learn how to discover a voice that is finally our own + Louise Brooks, who, when you first think of her, probably conjures images of THAT bob + while I can’t be certain, I DO think she’d have hated THAT. Her story is a wild + unflinching one AND her writing is so precise, funny + unsparing about the industry that tried to own her image + failed. Lulu picked up a pen + wrote back + FYI: So will we.
AUGUST
The Industry
Twenty years in publishing as a journalist, an author, a ghost writer, a writer for hire + a developmental editor means that I’ve seen + heard it ALL.
The deals that happened + the ones that should have but didn’t.
The women whose work found its readers + the women that the industry failed.
We’ll talk traditional publishing + independent publishing.
What agents actually look for + how to find the right one.
The self-publishing landscape + how to navigate it.
The questions to ask, the moves that ARE smart + the ones that only LOOK smart + how to tell the difference.
This is also the month with our dedicated Q&A session. The publishing industry is built on mystification. We are going to dismantle it.
We’ll meet Zora Neale Hurston, one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century who died in poverty + was rediscovered decades later by Alice Walker, who went looking for her grave + Nina Simone who wrote, recorded, + performed entirely on her own terms at considerable personal cost because the alternative was becoming someone else's version of herself + that was never an option.
SEPTEMBER
Write Yourself In
Five months of reading + writing + revising + understanding in the salons + now the thing you ACTUALLY came here to do.
We began with Enheduanna pressing her name into wet clay in Sumer. We walked through centuries of women who wrote, + built rooms + entire cities that the world refused to build for them + put their names on things that have lasted.
This month, you/we/us do the same.
WRITE YOURSELF IN is not only about finishing a manuscript +/or
launching a Substack or sending a pitch.
It’s about claiming your place.
Your voice, your story, your existence,
written in your own handwriting + on your own terms.
We’ll meet Colette, the woman whose work was published under her husband's name, but took her name back, because HER story is OUR story + we’ll FINALLY meet Christine de Pizan, poet, philosopher + the first professional woman writer in European history + the “official” architect of everything we have been doing together.
The Book of the City of Ladies, written in 1405, is a radical act of reclamation: a woman who read what the world had written about women + built something better from scratch. She populated the city with EVERY woman she admired, EVERY woman history had failed, EVERY woman who deserved to be remembered. She wrote them + herself in + SO WILL WE.
THE FULL WRITE YOURSELF IN EXPERIENCE
This is not a series of zoom calls that you log into, watch + then forget. I have no interest in THAT. It’s an immersive experience that will run throughout the remainder of the Evening Star Venus phase of this current 18ish month Synodic Venus cycle. (+ you can read ALL about that in my book, Venus.)
SATURDAY CLUB is Venusuian in theme + is always experienced alongside the Venus cycle because IF Venus calls you, (+ if you’re reading this, consider yourself a “Called Woman”) she is asking you to weave, un-weave re-weave the Venusian mysteries to re-tell + re-spell new realities for These Times.
Our last SATURDAY CLUB salons were in an imaginal underground Parisian speakeasy + we descended into the Venusian underworld which we traversed WITH the Queens of Tarot to self initiate + crown ourself mother-loving queens. This time, we’re ascending with Evening Star Venus. lf I were to take a guess, I’d say that we MIGHT be somewhere in Monmartre, + we’re exploring + experiencing + fully inhabiting authorship from the perspective of a Queen who has claimed her throne for the next five whole months.
It's a sensory, literary, conspiratorial + imaginal experience conjured, curated + created with ALL the care + delivered with BIG love by me, bestselling author, artist + magical minx, Lisa Lister, your Salonierre, (+ the women who are gathered inside it.)
When you sign up, you’ll receive your intake form.
Don’t fret, it’s short, I’ll simply ask a few questions to see where you are in your work, what you’re writing (or wanting to write), what keeps stopping you + whether you’d like to be paired with a writing partner for the duration of the immersion.
NOTE: I read every single one, OUR salons are shaped by who’s in it.
Each salon, we gather live at 5pm BST for two hours on the FOURTH Saturday of each month. Cameras optional. Participation invitational.
The recording is yours within 48 hours + if you can’t make it live, you can submit questions in advance. Nothing is wasted.
I create a digi-love ‘zine for each salon. (A PDF in which I live out my wildest Anna Wintour dreams.) Consider it a love note from “inside the city” - they’re usually between 25 + 50 pages, I can’t help it!) where I’ll share the Wild Roses of the month, the books, the films, riffs + heart prompts + notes from me about the writing + reality creation process. It will arrive sealed with a vintage red lipstick kiss.
+ between salons I’ll offer a weekly 55 minute, co-working session via zoom, for us to write + create TOGETHER.
WHAT’S INCLUDED
Five monthly live online salons, two hours each, FOURTH Saturday of the month at 5pm BST
Recordings within 48 hours, accessible through to March 2027.
Monthly digi-love zine based on the salon each month.
A dedicated industry Q&A in August: your questions, twenty years of publishing knowledge, nothing held back.
Optional writing companion matching: tell me where you are + what you need + I’ll match you up with a writing friend for the duration of our time together!
A private circle of women writing alongside you for the full five months
Weekly co-working sessions where we just tune in, say hi + then start working + writing together in a zoom room for 55 minutes - you’ll be AMAZED at what can happen when women come together this way.
A closing ceremony in September, because WRITING YOURSELF IN deserves to be honoured.
THIS IS FOR YOU IF...
You have a book, a memoir, essays, poetry, a Substack, or a story that has been waiting long enough + you are ready, finally, to write it into existence
You want to take your writing seriously + be in a room where every woman around you is doing the same
You are somewhere on the writing journey - beginning, stuck, mid-manuscript, nearly there
You want to understand how publishing works, from someone who has spent twenty years inside of it
You believe that your voice matters. Or you want to believe it + you need a City of Ladies + a monthly literary salons to help you remember how bloody magical + powerful + talented you are
You’re interested in writing to a Venusian rhythm, even if you’re not entirely sure what’s meant by that
You’re ready to claim your place in a lineage of women - WILD ROSES - who wrote themselves into existence
FYI: THIS IS NOT FOR YOU IF...
You’re looking for a shortcut.
You want templates, formulas + a done-for-you approach to getting published.
That’s not what we do here. (Although the August salon is going to contain a lot of super-practical elements so maybe I’m being thoroughly contrary + maybe it IS what we do here! Ha!)You are not yet ready to write. Come back when you are.
You don’t need to know WHAT you’re going to write, but you DO need to be ready to write.
To join me + to WRITE YOURSELF IN, choose either a pay in full or a payment plan below + follow the instructions.
If you keep scrolling, you’ll see that there are also 7 spots available to work with me 1-to-1 (the cost outlined for the “Editorial Circle” includes both WRITE YOURSELF IN + 5 sessions to have me read, edit, support, help ALL. THE. THINGS)
I’ve heavily discounted the cost of my time + expertise, so if you’ve approached me previously about wanting to work with me to write your book this is currently THE most cost efficient way to do it!
INVESTMENT
THE EDITORIAL CIRCLE
Seven spots. Five months. One-to-one, with me.
I have made seven intimate seats available in the salon, they’re obviously the ones with the best view + easy access to an endless pour of coffee + croissants.
If you want more than the monthly gatherings, if you have pages that you’d love to have experienced eyes on, a structure that’s not quite holding, a book you’re trying to understand from the inside, this is where you come.
Once a month, for five months, we meet for 50 minutes.
Just you, your work + twenty years of publishing experience in the room. That’s me, BTW.
Bring up to ten pages for developmental feedback. I will read them before we meet. Or bring your plot, your structure, your idea that keeps shifting shape every time you try to hold it still. We will work on the architecture together until you’re happy.
To be clear about what this is + what it’s not: I’m a professional developmental editor. I work with the big stuff, I care whether your structure is serving your story, whether your voice is consistent, whether the thing you keep circling in chapter six is actually the heart of the whole piece.
I don’t correct grammar. I don’t fix sentences. I ask the questions that make you see, feel + experience your own work differently + then I help you figure out what to do about it is you find.
What’s included in The Editorial Circle
• Five 50-minute 1:1 sessions with Lisa, one per month across the 5 month experience.
• Developmental feedback on up to 10 pages per session, or structural and plotting conversation: your choice each month, decided by what your work needs
• Honest, experienced editorial perspective from someone with twenty years in publishing as journalist, author + developmental editor.
• Full access to the Write Yourself In experience.
£1,388
Payment plan: 5 monthly payments
Seven spots only.
These will go to the women who know, without question, that they need + want them.
MEET LISA LISTER (That’S ME!)
YOUR SATURDAY CLUB SALONIERRE
I’m Lisa Lister, author, artist, storyteller, creatrix, mistress of magic + mystical minx.
My role (at least this lifetime, + on this timeline) is to be YOUR Wild Rose Salonierre – fancy French term for host + curator - who creates, curates + conjures spaces + places, books + stories, online + in-person salons + workshops, events + retreats that invite us ALL to remember OUR power + OUR magic through the mysteries + of the Women of the Wild Rose…TOGETHER.
+ I am SO excited that during THIS season of Saturday Club we will join together during Venus in her Evening Star phase + ascend TOGETHER, we’ll join in a literary salon with women from across four milennnia to express what’s real in our own language, in our own rhythm + in our own voice.
As Helene Cixous says: we’ve been shut out of language, exiled from meaning, told our voices were excessive, embarrassing, irrational and the only way back is to WRITE OURSELVES IN.
Now is the time.
This is the hour.
Ours is the magic.
Ours is the power.”
(I NEVER need an excuse to quote The Craft.)
FAQs
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Women of the Wild Rose is a secret women’s society from across lifetimes + timelines devoted to the Venusian mysteries, where art, archetype, movies, mythos, ritual, glamour magic + a whole lot of rebellion meet.
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Yep, absolutely. I’d love for us to gather in real-time AND…the nature of online/life/timezones/all the things means that it’s not always possible.
I’ll send an email out before each Salon so you can submit any questions if you’re not able to make it live.
The recording will be made available 48 hours later - sometimes sooner + there’s an open invitation to share any responses + experiences (+ ask MORE questions) throughout our 5 months together. -
In everything I create, I always wait until the doors are closed + then invite those who have signed up + stepped in to make a choice as to how/if they want to do that + in what format.
You’ll receive an email about that on the 4th November! -
This is a 5 month Venusian container, everything is created VERY intentionally, so no, there is not currently an option to sign up for the salons separately.
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Unfortunately due to the digital nature of this Saturday Club, after the start date there are no refunds available.
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Back in the day, ‘salons’, sometimes called ‘moon colleges’ (highly recommend sourcing + watching the moon college episode of The Musketeers - so good!) were when the most brilliant women, who were not allowed to go to university – do not get me started on THAT– would gather, in private, to discuss + create + share + process…well, ALL the things.
Some, those that were a little more secret, gathered - coven style - to ritualise + create ceremony + to hone their divination + oracular skills as priestesses, magic women + healers.
I’ve been offering SHE Salons + SHE Soirees, in person + online, since 2012, as a place for brilliant women to gather, to remember + ritualise their power, creativity + magic (+ to remember that they ARE magic) + SATURDAY CLUB is NO different.
Text and artwork © Lisa Lister, 2026
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this website or the program’s contents may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use, other than for ‘fair use’ as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, without prior written permission of the creatrix, Lisa Lister.
Due to this being a digital product no refunds will be given.