“It
was a dark and stormy night....” Apologies to Edward
Bulwer-Lytton, but for Florida, it was a cold and rainy, if not
really stormy, night and I was surprised to see 17 names on the
sign-in sheet. I expected the turnout to be quite a bit smaller. Die
hard writers, this group.
We
greeted new guests Mary and Jim Hanna from San Francisco, and Dennis
Quinn, from Massachusetts via Alabama, who is also a seasonal
resident, but hopefully, they will be full time members while they
are here in our odd little corner of paradise.
First,
my sincere apologies to everyone for unintentionally skewing our
calendar, and our schedule, by slipping everything back in January
due to the scheduled meeting that would have been held on the 1st!
I wouldn't have made it to any writers meeting on New Years Day,
and I'm sure there wouldn't have been as much of a turnout on the
unofficial National College football day as we had this last meeting.
I scheduled a meeting on January 29th to fill the gap and
everything scheduled behind that went in the proverbial dumper. We
resume our regular schedule on Wednesday, the 5th, and
will meet on the first and third Wednesdays of each month as always.
Rod
DiGruttolo handled the duties as MC and allowed me to make several
announcements, including a reminder about the upcoming Dearborn
Street Book festival in Englewood. While we are past he deadline for
writing entries, table space may still be obtained at
www.facebook.comDSBookFest.
Due to
the short week turnaround, and my being out of town for three days,
this blog will be uncharacteristically truncated. We opened with
Bill Elam reading “The Physician”, Don Westerfield reading his
“The Man Who Never Was – along with the poem “High Flight” –
and George Collias, who has a screenplay in the oven, followed by the
delightful Kathleen Schwartz and her bi-polar cat.
Jim Kelly brought
more than enough copies of his great poetry, and a story about the
fifth graders he so diligently works with. “Lightning looks like a
strip of death,” a marvelous comment from one of his young
understudies, followed by Cathy Marine and her next chapter of her
non-fiction “Wings in the Water.” Suzi Lynch read for only the
second time, and once again enthralled the group. “Wonder what I
would have thought of myself at that age?” and nuances –
twenty-five at a time... Great stuff.
Jenny
Oberg continued the reading with “Observations at a Red Light,”
followed by George Mindling with an excerpt from a published
Waterline article from years ago. We wrapped up the evening with the
introduction to Rod DiGruttola's sinister character “Horace.” I
have the advantage here of having read ahead, chapter 4 is a real
change for Rod, and is outstanding stuff. I can't give anything away
here, it'll come out at the next meeting, Wednesday, Feb 5th. If I left anything out, my apologies yet once again.
George
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