Wrestling the Writing Together: Building Trust with Your Story Partner

As part of Tulsa LitFest and Indie Book Store Day, this panel brings together authors Donald E. Quist and Bailey Gaylin Moore for a candid conversation about collaborative writing as both creative practice and relational process. Drawing from their co-authored work across genres, Quist and Moore will discuss how collaboration reshapes voice, authorship, revision, and vulnerability on the page.

Attendees will gain insight into the practical and emotional mechanics of writing together—how trust is built, how conflict is navigated, how drafts evolve through dialogue, and how collaboration can serve as a radical alternative to solitary authorship. The panel will also explore collaboration as an ethical stance, one rooted in care, listening, and shared risk, offering writers concrete strategies for sustaining creative partnerships.

Bios:

Bailey Gaylin Moore is an Ozarks-based writer and serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the online nonfiction series, Past Ten, which asks contributors to consider where and who they were ten years ago. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Pleiades, Wigleaf, Willow Springs, Hayden’s Ferry Review, HuffPost and other journals. Her debut essay collection, Thank You for Staying with Me is out now.

https://www.baileygaylinmoore.com/

Donald Edem Quist is author of two essay collections, Harbors, a Foreword INDIES Bronze Winner and International Book Awards Finalist, and To Those Bounded. He has a linked story collection, For Other Ghosts. His writing has appeared in AGNI, North American Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, and was Notable in Best American Essays (2018 & 2025). He is creator of the online nonfiction series PAST TEN, and co-editor of . Quist has received fellowships from Sundress Academy for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Kimbilio Fiction. He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University of Missouri.

https://www.donaldquist.com/

Tulsa LitFest is brought to you by The Center for Poets and Writers, Tri City Collective, and Magic City Books.

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