A great turnout Wednesday with many of our seasonal visitors joining our first meeting in February for a full house! Thanks to Kerri for grabbing a chair out of her SUV for the one extra chair we needed! As always, it was a fun “Greet and Meet” session before Rod used his imaginary gavel and got us underway. It must be like herding cats. He started by asking who had not had the opportunity to read at the last meeting as we had run out of time then. They would read first, going to the front of the list. Yours truly left the reading list from last meeting on his PC desk... Oh, well. Rod handled the situation with his typical grace and aplomb and after we got the announcements out of the way, we started on the list where we left off.
The brief announcements included Susan Haley, the leader and one of the founding members of the group, giving recognition and congratulations to Cecile Bell on her marriage to Douglas Kennedy, who graciously accompanied Cecile to his first meeting; Kerri Diefenwerth on completing her masters assignment in Maine (!); myself; and poet Jim Kelly.
Lois Stern presented the details and contact information about the Tales to Inspire (TALES2INSPIRE) contest. The web page is at: http://www.tales2inspire.com/HOME.html). The details are on the blog and on our Facebook page at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/FWA-Sarasota-Writers-Group/232280536832439 (You do NOT have to be a member of Facebook to see the page!)
Lois can be reached at tales2inspire@optimum.net for more information about the contest.
Joanne started the session with an impromptu teaser about an upcoming poem featuring a handsome, red-headed fireman who met her in the dark as she searched for the soda machine. De-clawed cougar my eye! Rod gave a challenge to the group: write a 250 word piece using only dialogue. An exercise that some may have done in the past, but drew plenty of enthusiasm and we expect to see the responses in future meetings. Should be fun, especially with this eclectic group. Bill Elam had contact information about Print on Demand publishing using Amazon.com's service at Createspace.com. Russ will also put together info for a presentation sometime in the future about e-publishing.
Patricia LaBarbera announced a new editor's group to meet the first time this Friday (Feb 4) in Sarasota at “Word of Mouth” Restaurant at 1:00pm. Susan Davis recommended Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird for new writers, to Kerri's enthusiastic support, and we wrapped up the discussion part of the meeting.
Susan Haley got to read first with a beautiful short story dealing with a saving two siblings in a forest fire. They happened to be wolves. Good to hear from Susan again, she has chosen to sit and listen in the recent meetings rather than read her material. A great dialogue followed, and soon afterward, Ben came to the front of the room to read his rewritten first chapter of Newearth. The polish shows as the story smoothly develops with new rewrite. Bill Elam read two pieces: First, a flashback, backstory piece about romance between young war-time lovers, then the piece called The Chosen. Well written and well received!
George Mindling read a short excerpt from his book, Sleeps Two called Metamorphosis, showing the column writing style rather than the fiction genre recently undertaken. Rod read a humorous short piece from the inimitable Ed Lyman about a one-slice piece of bread sandwich and peanut butter, among other ingredients. Lee Taylor Frank read a rather remarkable piece of poetry written in 1988 that was well received by the group. Again, discussion was spirited and enthusiastic.
After a short break, we resumed with Joanne reading the 5th chapter of her autobiographical “Memoirs of a Sea Hag.” The harrowing story of being caught in 20 foot swells in a sailboat was graphically and emotionally captured by her writing. Good job, Joanne! We're lucky no one needed Dramamine. Finally, Kerry got to wrap up the evening with the prologue to her memoir “Homemade Rodeos, Cocoanut Heads, Marshmellow Alligators, Growing Up Floridian,” and read her newly written chapter Winning Opal. Again, we can hardly wait for more. We understand she may have found a new “rocking” writing office.
We wrapped up at 9:00pm, and reminded everyone we will come back in two weeks (the 15th) and do it again.
George
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Peter Frickel recently posted his Blog. It can be found at:
http://peterthinks.blogspot.com/
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