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December 11th 2005

We held our Dec. JWB meeting on Sunday, Dec. 11, 2005 at Beagle Books in Park Rapids.

The January meeting will be on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006 from 1:30 to 4 pm at Beagle Books in Park Rapids.

Present: Tarah, Sharon, Russ, John.

TALKING STICK 14:

Sharon has completed mailing all the TS14 books to all submitters who did not pick up their books at the book release party. The party was a great success, lots of fun, lots of attendees.

LINES AND LIGHT:

Tarah and Sharon have their photography and poetry display up in Tri County Hospital in Wadena from mid November through mid January. There is a reception Thursday Dec. 15 from 4 to 6 pm. Please come!!

TALKING STICK 15 FOR 2006:

We have already been discussing TS15. We hope to do the same prizes as this year. We are already talking about possible judges. We will need to have a board meeting in February.

We hope to get the next book rolling in March of 2006. We don’t need to start quite as early as last year. We had our editorial board meeting in plenty of time to choose the winners so they could be announced at our annual party last year. It is nice to have the book release party in November, right before Christmas.

What will we do for a cover for TS15? We had such great compliments on this year’s cover.

BOOKS WE RECOMMEND:

Eccentric Islands by Bill Holm

Dove in a Window

On Writing by Stephen King

Dream Catcher by Stephen King

Night Shift

Starlight Motel

WINNINGS AND PUBLICATIONS:

We are all looking forward to reading Russ’ story in Lake Country Journal in the Jan/Feb issue. He won the short story contest and $500 recently. Hooray, Russ!!

WRITE A NOVEL IN A MONTH:

How many people finished? We need to find this out and report.

TIPS TO OVERCOMING WRITERS’ BLOCK:

Sit down and just write, anything at all. It is like taking a walk in the woods. Sooner or later you come across a deer trail and you can turn onto that trail.

Write a word, any word. What does that word make you think of? Write down that word, and another and another. See a pattern and a connection.

Approach your story idea from a new angle. Imagine your story idea as scaffolding. If you are stuck, you can leap over it and write something that happens after the part you are stuck on. Or write the difficult part in retrospect.

PLACES TO SUBMIT:

If any of your work has to do with illness or healing, send it to: The Healing Muse, Center for Bioethics and Humanities, SUNY Upstate Medical University, 725 Irving Avenue, Suite 406, Syracuse, NY 13210. Visit their website at www.healingmuse.org.

We had a short meeting, but a good one. Some of us read things we have been working on. Some of us read work from other poets that we admire.