July Meeting Minutes 2022

Hello Everyone, today we held our July meeting.

PRESENT: Sharon, Dawn, Marlys, Jan, Erin, Niomi, Mary.

TALKING STICK PROGRESS:

     Talking Stick 31 is in the final proofing stages. We are ordering one more proof next week. Then we will order our big batch of books, hopefully to receive in August.

     The Book Party and workshop—we are signing people up for the Candace Simar workshop. We have only about 10 for the workshop so far, so let’s get signed up. We have about 30 already for the book release party. We will send out the invites again soon.

     In late July or early August, we will by paying half the fee for the book party.

BOOK EVENTS:

     Look up League of MN Poets. They are having a bunch of contests right now for poetry submissions.

     Erin attended the Northwoods Writers event in Bemidji and did in-person auditing. She said it was a great event as usual.

     The Northwoods Arts Council Book and Art Festival will be held on Saturday Aug. 13. Dawn and Sharon will be there to sell books. They are having some poems on display this year—Sharon will have one of her poems there. John T will have two of his poems there. Candace Simar will be there with a presentation.

     Mike won his event at MIPA for Cabin Fever. Hooray, Mike! We will be starting on his next book soon—this one will be about hunting.

NEXT TALKING STICK:

We have been talking about doing something slightly different for TS32. We will give one or two lists of words. If a writer wants to, they can use those words in their submission. We’ll call this Words with a Twist.”

DISCUSSION:

We had been noticing that many of the local publications where we used to be able to submit are now no longer in existence. We really miss them and we are glad we are still able to continue, so far, with the Talking Stick. We listed Dust & Fire from Bemidji and the Lake Region Review from Fergus Falls. We also mentioned that some of us had been published in Lake Country Journal, LakesAlive, and Northwoods Woman. Those magazines are still in existence but it seems like they have changed and perhaps don’t publish as much as they used to. We are glad there are still a few local places remaining where we can submit.

We had a lively discussion, read things we were working on, and critiqued. Hope to see you all next time!