The actual location is a languid, somewhat crammed alcove of Webster's Bookstore Café, 128 S. Allen St., but the worlds explored within are as colorful and expansive as the human imagination.

"It's kind of like 'Massacre in Lollipop Land,' " said Jacob Thompson (graduate-ecology) to an aspiring poet about his piece.

"I like it a lot better now, looking at it that way," he added, alluding to a new interpretation that has been introduced.

Thompson belongs to a small writers' group that meets every Thursday night at 7 in Webster's. The group is a hybrid of two similar ones that used to meet at Barnes & Noble, 365 Benner Pike, and Encore Books, which was located in the Hills Plaza.

State College resident Glenn Liddy, a professional artist and 1990 Penn State alumnus, founded the current group three years ago as a way of getting people to read the novel he was writing at the time, which ran over 200 hand-written pages.

"I got really good feedback considering how raw [the novel] was," Liddy said.

He has continued the group because he finds the experience valuable.

"It's nice to not only have an audience who will read what you've written, but who will also invest time into it," he said.

Liddy added the writers' group analyzes an individual's work page-by-page. This is more beneficial to the writer, he said, than giving the piece to a friend who might simply say, "it's good," and nothing more.

This in-depth analysis lasted for over an hour and a half Thursday night, although that time included several branch conversations about everything from Tolkien to American Pie to Italian cannibal movies from the 1970s and '80s. Liddy patiently allowed the informal meeting to dip into these side topics, but casually tried to bring the discussion back to the work being discussed when they get too far off track.

"But I try to stay out of [the coordinator] role," he said. "The group can govern itself."

This relaxed attitude aptly describes the way the writer's group functions. Every Thursday, anyone in the group who cares to submit their writing hands out enough copies for everyone who showed up that night, which typically ranges from four to seven people, but has reached as much as a dozen. There are no submission requirements for inclusion in the group.

Liddy said the original Webster's group consisted of only four writers, but they wrote and critiqued on a much more intensive basis.

"We're a little more laid-back now," he said. "If you force people to write, they're less likely to write. ... If they show up every week and see other people writing, that inspires them to write."

On Thursday, the group discussed a full chapter of a novel Liddy is writing, in addition to a chapter submitted by a 13-year-old scribe from her own novel-in-progress and the previously mentioned poem by Penn State alumnus Persaram Batra.

The 13-year-old warned Batra that she might harshly criticize his poem. He let her, as it is the function of the group to criticize each other's work when necessary.

The group of six argued several different interpretations of the piece. Batra felt afterward that most of them failed to grasp the meaning of the poem, but that their feedback was beneficial to his writing. "It's helpful, because it shows me that I need to make [the meaning] clearer," he said. "I like hearing everyone's point of view. Sometimes I think they're right and I do what they say."

The girl's and Liddy's chapters were also discussed in great detail, both in terms of the chapters themselves as well as how they relate to the works-in-progress from which they came.

The writers' knowledge of each other's characters is so extensive that they can freely joke with each other about their characters' idiosyncrasies or humorously speculate on what will happen to them eventually.

"I feel kind of behind here," Mia Rohart (graduate-counselor education) said in the midst of a particularly in-depth character discussion. Thursday was Rohart's first night with the writers' group.

Liddy proceeded to fill her in on his story so far so that she could keep up with the discussions taking place.

"Mia showed up at a really good time, because [after the most recent chapter] the book is kind of starting anew."

Liddy said aspiring writers are encouraged to join at any time, regardless of how far into the semester it is. The lure of the group, he said, is twofold: "The joy of company and growth as a writer."