Photograph by Audra Melton
On McLendon Avenue in the heart of Candler Park, across the street from Gigi’s, there’s a new storefront with desks, comfy chairs, and shelves filled with books. It’s a workspace, a bookstore, and a venue all in one. Lostintheletters, a writing studio and bookstore, is the new center for creative writing operated by the long-running Atlanta literary organization.
The newly minted 501(c)3 organization is the brainchild of married couple Scott Daughtridge DeMer and Stephanie Dowda DeMer. “It’s a space for Atlanta’s readers and writers,” says Scott, the founder and executive director. The name comes from a mantra of his that kept him going in his early days as a writer. “I would just tell myself, You’ve got to get lost in the letters—whether reading or writing. Just block everything else and focus on that.”
It all began with a monthly reading series, inspired by his time living in New York City after college. When he moved back to Atlanta in 2012, he had trouble finding regular literary events. He saw DIY art spaces such as Young Blood Gallery and Eyedrum and decided to start one for himself. For a year, he hosted writers from Atlanta and around the Southeast for monthly readings at the now-closed Highland Ballroom. In 2013, looking to expand, he and his wife, along with a committed group of volunteers, presented the inaugural Letters Festival, a multiday event at the Goat Farm Arts Center in West Midtown.
Courtesy of Lostintheletters
The first featured writer was Roxane Gay. She was not a household name at the time, but would soon publish Bad Feminist, her breakout book. Thus began a Lostintheletters tradition: bringing writers to Atlanta right before they get big. In 2018, Carmen Maria Machado read from her in-progress manuscript of In the Dream House, a book that would soon expand the author’s reach after the success of Her Body and Other Parties, her debut story collection. In 2023, Justin Torres read shortly before his novel Blackouts won the National Book Award. “I’ve been amazed by the people who say yes to us,” says Stephanie, who serves as the nonprofit’s creative director.
“People who have written in their journal a couple of times a year can show up and be in the same conversation with people with advanced degrees who have books out.”
The festival became an annual event each November, and the reading series shifted to a quarterly schedule. Early on, they added workshops to the readings, hosted by the featured writers. After a hiatus in 2016 and 2017—when the couple moved to Richmond, Virginia, where Stephanie, a visual artist, pursued her Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University—Lostintheletters moved largely online during the pandemic after holding events in Atlanta and Phoenix. (Scott received an MFA from Arizona State University in 2019.)
When they returned to Atlanta in 2021, Lostintheletters relaunched its original programming and new “writing studio hours” on select Saturday afternoons. In his MFA, Scott had realized the importance of having “time and space to write.” His aim in founding Lostintheletters was to provide that to writers in Atlanta.
Stephanie’s practice as a visual artist was also an inspiration. “Visual artists say, ‘I’m going to the studio,’” says Scott. Writers, on the other hand, tend to find themselves at the kitchen table or on the couch, often getting distracted.
Courtesy of Lostintheletters
Courtesy of Lostintheletters
Now, after years of hosting events at venues such as Art Papers, Atlanta Contemporary, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and Whitespace Gallery, Lostintheletters will bring its quarterly readings, workshops, and studio hours to a permanent space in the Candler Park space that once housed The Flying Biscuit Cafe. (The Letters Festival, given its size, will continue to take place at a larger venue.)
“You don’t need to bring a piece you’ve already written,” Scott says. “People who have written in their journal a couple of times a year can show up and be in the same conversation with people with advanced degrees who have books out.” Recent workshop topics have included ecopoetry, genre-bending in fiction, and prose poems. The workshops are pay-what-you-want, with an optional donation of $0 to $40. “There’s always a free option,” says Stephanie.
Courtesy of Lostintheletters
During Saturday studio hours from 2 to 4 p.m., Scott shares resources he’s collected over the years: craft essays, writing prompts, and tracking systems to log progress or submissions to literary magazines. In the final 30 minutes, attendees discuss what they’re working on.
In daytime hours, the space will be open to the public as a reading room and lounge. In the evenings and during select hours on the weekends, the space will serve as a writers’ studio on a membership model, with books available for purchase from previously featured authors.
Stephanie looks forward to the consistency the new space will offer the organization and its audiences. The space will also allow for more spontaneity and fluidity. Lostintheletters hopes to host pop-up events such as film screenings and live music, and it will partner with visual artists “who explore language, text, and line in their work,” Stephanie says.
Photograph by Audra Melton
She also looks forward to having people drop in to read. “We all feel better when we’re reading,” she says. “There’s been recent articles about how people wish they could read more, but they’re addicted to their phones and have all these responsibilities. Well, here we are. Just come and open a book.”
This article appears in our September 2025 issue.
