Writers' Meetings
March Meeting Minutes 2023
Today we held our March meeting.
PRESENT:
Sharon, Ryan, Marlys, Erin, Jan.
TALKING STICK:
We have received submissions from 130 writers. We got quite a few for the Creative Twists. They are all being copied and we will have our Editorial Board meeting in April. We have our judges and the instructor all chosen. Our book release party and workshop will be held on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023 at Jack Pines Resort near Osage MN.
WRITING EVENTS:
Ryan has had good success selling his young adult book Maxwell Cooper and the Legend of Inini-Makwa by Simon Hargreaves. The book is a finalist for the Midwest Book Awards. Winners will be announced in May. Hooray, Ryan!
Spring Fling is April 15th at the Akeley Community Center at 210 Pleasant Ave in Akeley MN from 11 to 4—Chili Cookoff, Ryan will be there selling his books from 10 to 4. He is working on sequels. There will be Arts and Crafts vendors at this event. 507-215-3038.
Poetry Slam at Fozzie’s in Bemidji MN at 7 PM on April 20, 2023. Information 218-444-7570 or www.watermarkartcenter.org.
March 23-25, 2023 (Thursday-Saturday) UND Writers Conference, a literary festival on the prairie. 54th UND Writers Conference, in person and online. www.undwritersconference.org. Six featured speakers. This year’s theme is “The Healing Arts.”
Missouri Review, the 2023 Perkoff Prize opened January 13. deadline is April 2, 2023. The Perkoff Prize is a tri-genre contest that awards $1000 and publication each to writers of the best story, set of poems, and essay that engage in evocative ways with health and medicine as judged by the editors. https://missourireview.com.
Most of us brought things to read and others critiqued. This was one of those days where none of us wanted to leave and we spent a lot of time talking about getting published, word choice, books, writing events, etc. Hope to see you all next time!
February Meeting Minutes 2023
Hello Everyone,
Today we held our February meeting.
PRESENT:
Ryan, Sharon, Mike, Marlys, Erin, Dawn, Mary.
TALKING STICK:
Submissions are coming in slowly. So far, we are not getting too many creative twists but hope to get more.
WRITING EVENTS:
PRLAAC—No one was able to attend the February meeting. Mike did tell us some of the highlights of their minutes. They are doing a survey to promote Region 2 Arts Council.
Our Ryan is a finalist in the Young Adults category for the MN Book Awards. Hooray, Ryan!
Marlys will be attending a writers’ retreat in Brainerd on Sunday Feb 26 with Candace Simar.
Mike plans to attend the Rosemount Writers festival in March.
Northwoods Writers Conference in Bemidji will be held June 20-25.
University of ND writers is March 24-26. You can attend online. Mary always attends this.
Dawn is continuing her Scientists and Writers event.
Everyone brought something they were working on. We took turns reading and critiquing. Three of us used this month’s words to create poems or stories. Excellent meeting! Hope to see you all next time.
November Meeting Minutes 2022
Hello Everyone, Today we held our November meeting.
PRESENT: Sharon, Mike, Jan, Niomi, Dawn, Erin
TALKING STICK:
In December, we will be sending out our call for submissions for Talking Stick 32. We need to do more work on our List with a Twist idea. We have discussed doing a fourth genre with its own prize. Writers can either submit for the regular genres and/or submit a poem or short story using the word lists. We could probably have two lists to choose from. We will work on this before the next meeting.
MISCELLANEOUS WRITING INFO:
Sharon and Tarah are working on Mike’s fifth book, this one on hunting. We just got back our second proof.
Sharon is taking an online poetry class taught by LouAnn Muhm. This is a 10-week course using the Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser.
Erin has been using Two Sylvias Press for a new writing prompt each day.
Mike has a lot of book-selling and reading events coming up in the next few months.
No one was able to attend the last PRLAAC meeting. They have changed the meeting date and it hasn’t been working for any of our members.
Dawn attended a workshop with Brian Malloy through Witness Writers.
We spent time reading things we have been working on. Then others critiqued. Two of us used the word list for this month. We do enjoy those word lists. We hope to see you all next time!
October Meeting Minutes 2022
Hello Everyone, today we held our October meeting.
PRESENT: Ryan, Jan, Erin, Marlys, Dawn, Sharon
TALKING STICK INFO: Last month we had our Candace Simar workshop and Talking Stick 31 book release party. We had good attendance, good food, sold books, and received donations. The day went very well. It was so nice to see our writer friends again after two years of not being able to have book parties because of COVID. Thanks to Candace for a great workshop.
OTHER BOOKS: Sharon and Tarah are working on Mike’s next book. Richard wants to do another poetry book. Niomi is working on her novel. Sharon hopes to do a fourth poetry book.
MISCELLANEOUS: Sharon is taking a 10-week online poetry class with LouAnn Muhm, using Ted Kooser’s book Poetry Home Repair Manual.
Last week Marlys attended Lake Superior Writers Book Club where Candace Simar was a presenter. Ryan attended and sold his books at the Deep Valley Book Festival in Mankato on October 1 and also the Twin Cities Book Festival on Oct 15.
The League of MN Poets has an event coming up on Nov 4-6 at Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria.
There is a poetry slam Thursday, October 20, 2022 in Bemidji. 6:30 to 9 PM. Watermark Art Center. Email
lgrunzke@watermarkartcenter.org for more information.
Try Text to Speech in Word to have the computer read your work back to you. Not sure if this is available on older Word programs but it can be a helpful tool.
We did not have anyone present to report on the PRLAAC meeting this month. We hope to next month.
We spent some time reading things we are working on and others critiqued. We had fun again with the list of words that we send out each month. We are sad winter is arriving but perhaps we will have more time to write! Hope to see you all next time.