A national organizing committee forms, with novelist Barbara Raskin as its president, and takes the idea to writers in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Baltimore, Oklahoma, Philadelphia and Boston. 1981-1982 Organizing . Organizing Committees are formed in cities around the country. In 1982, the local committees elect delegates to the union's founding convention. 1982 Democratic Process .
Writers charter the union and ratify a constitution that insures democracy.
The organizing committees are reconstituted as NWU locals. Delegates elected by locals set the union's direction at annual assemblies. The NWU membership elects a national board to oversees those goals. Locals retain autonomy in local affairs. Feminist writer Andrea Eagan is the National Writers Union's first NWU president.