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April Meeting Minutes 2016

Hi Everyone, Today we held our April 2016 monthly meeting.

PRESENT: Ryan, Mike, Niomi, Jan, Dawn, Sharon, Mary, Jerry, Lina, Jill.

TALKING STICK: TS25 is progressing. All the NO letters have been sent out last week. The YES letters went out Friday. I have now called the 6 top winners to inform them. The letters to the other top honorable mention writers (with judges’ comments) will go out Monday. We were delighted to have so many submissions this year but it has, of course, made everything take a bit longer. Tarah has the cover mostly done. We are just beginning basic editing and then Tarah will get serious on the order of the book and the layout.

COMING WRITING EVENTS: Jerry is progressing on the Great American Story event for September. He is also progressing on the event at the museum in August where we will have a room of books for the whole month there.

April 22 at Central Lakes College, Verse Like Water to host the current US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera to celebrate National Poetry Month. Also he will be reading at Long Prairie/Grey Eagle that morning at 8:45. Verse Like Water is the visiting poet program at Central Lakes College. Email Jeffrey Johnson at JJohnson@clcmn.edu or call 218-855-8102 or 320-260-4959 for more information.

April 22-24, 2016, 2nd Annual Writers’ Weekend in Lanesboro, MN with Candace Simar. www.Candacesimar.com for more information. www.annavbb.com or 507-467-2686 to register.

April 23, 2016, 1-4 PM at Midland Hills Country Club, Roseville MN—10th annual publishing vendor fair, sponsored by Midwest Independent Publishing Association (www.mipa.org) is a chance to talk to publishing professionals, including editors, designers, printers, publishers, etc. Also on hand will be authors to talk about their writing lives, including Faith Sullivan, who will talk about her books and how she writes. Her latest book, Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse, was selected by the Wall Street Journal as one of the ten best fiction books of 2015.

Self-Publishing E-books and Print Editions—a free webinar on April 27, 2016, at 1 PM EDT. From: Publishers Weekly [mailto:PW_Daily=email.publishersweekly.com@mail14.atl71.mcdlv.net]

Subject: Join BookLife for this FREE Webinar on Self-Publishing E-Books and Print Editions.

PAST WRITING EVENTS: Jerry attended a Loft class with Kate St. Vincent on memoir writing. Here are a few tips that he learned: have a strong beginning, have a dramatic arc, watch tenses and point of view, use sense of smell and touch. An event is important but the person’s response to an event is more important.

MISCELLANEOUS: Niomi is back from Hawaii! Mike is now a master naturalist.

We had a discussion of commas and how the use of them has changed over the years. We decided that being correct in punctuation is very important. But someone also said that meaning can be more important than form. Sometimes you do need extra commas for pacing or for clarity.

Good to see everyone today. Several of us read and others critiqued. We kept talking out on the street, not wanting to stop! Hope to see you all next time.