There is provided an optical writing image forming device including: a positioning section positioning an optically written display medium including a pair of electrodes with at least one of which formed by a group of plural sub-electrodes, a display layer, and a photoconductor layer; a display layer initialization section applying an initialization voltage between the pair of electrodes and irradiating initialization light over the entire region of the photoconductor layer; an optical writing section; a head position identification section; and a writing information erasing section, based on information identified by the head position identification section, erasing in a time-series writing information in the display layer corresponding to the group of the plural sub-electrodes by selecting the sub-electrodes in sequence so that an image writing head does not obstruct light emitted from the initialization light source while the image writing head light source is being returned to a standby position.