Wednesday, April 15th, the Sarasota Writers Group meeting.

The Sarasota Writers Group welcomed new FWA member Wendy Dingwall, author of Celtic Curse: An Yvonne Suarez Travel Mystery. Wendy launched her own publishing company, Canterbury House Publishing, Ltd., and is also a past president of the High Country Writers Association in Boone, North Carolina. Returning for a second meeting was Simona Pipko, author of Baltic Winds, and a former attorney in the Soviet Union. While living in New York City and teaching at the New School for Social Research and New York University, Simona wrote articles for various publications including the International Lawyer and ABA, Law and National Security Intelligence Report. Simona read her first article published in eMagazine which will be included in her upcoming 4th book. Also joining us for the first time was Ty and Helen Jodouin. Ty has two science fiction books available, Voyage to Oblivion and Rogue Planet. We welcome Wendy, Simona, and Ty and his lovely wife Helen, and hope they find our eccentric group not only entertaining but constructive as well. We had 18 attendees, 7 of whom are FWA members.

We kicked off our meeting after our usual meet and greet session with comments about a very nice newspaper article in the North Port Sun by Marissa Williams about Rod DiGruttolo and myself at the recent friends of North Port Library Book Fair. Cathy Marine, Maris Soule, and Jane Ann McLachlan were also at the Book Fair, representing the Sarasota Writers group.

Our first reader was Jenny Oberg, who read a delightful piece about her recent zero-dark-thirty drive to Immokalee to watch the annual Hot Air Balloon festival, followed by Ernie Ovitz, who is on the brink of publishing his first book, The Seventh King. Ernie elected to read his upcoming Toastmasters Presentation, which incidentally, was about his book. Don Westerfield followed and warned everyone ahead of time to get the hankies ready. Joanne Dunlap was back, and is she ever back. Great to hear her great writing once again, followed by George Collias who read a short story from Faulkner, A Rose for Emily, reminding us all what a great short story sounds like.

Up next was Masrisa Mangani, who always stimulates the grey matter with phrases like "pinking tourists" while describing growing up in Hawaii. Simona then read her first article and we had to carefully disengage from a political discussion about the material to one about her writing. We do not discuss politics or religion during our meetings as all are welcome to present their writing, but we will fervently discuss how well someone writes about any subject. 

 Andrew Parker, who read the final first chapter of his rewritten Bitch Trailer Park, a unique story only Andrew could have written. Bill Elam delayed his trip home by a day just so he could attend our meeting, and read a piece called "Frozen Chosin," about the infamous U.S. Marine battle in Korea.

Another great meeting behind us, we wrapped up with a quick discussions about the simple use of commas, and said goodnight. Next meeting: May 6th, 2015

George