July Meeting Minutes 2017

Hello Everyone, Today we held our July meeting.

PRESENT:  Sharon, Niomi, Deb, Ryan, Dawn, Jan, Mike, Jerry.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Fellow writer Louise Bottrell (1936-2017) died recently. She had many items published in the Talking Stick books over the years. She was a member of at least two different writing groups, one in Duluth and one in Walker. She has two items published in this year’s Talking Stick book and we are dedicating this volume to her. Her friend (and our JWB member) Niomi read some of her work at her funeral and donated money to JWB in her name.

TALKING STICK 26: We are progressing nicely on TS26. The editing is mostly done. We showed the group our first proof.

OTHER BOOKS:  We are also doing a poetry book for Jan and we are lined up to do a book for Jerry’s friend Doug.

There was a book launch today in Wadena for Elisa Korenne’s book 100 Miles to Nowhere and for Lina Belar’s poetry book Rural Score. Too bad it was the same day as our meeting as some of us would have liked to attend.

Don’t forget—our Mike Lein won the Humor Award from the Midwest Book awards with his book published by JWB: Firewood Happens. His second book, Down at the Dock, is now available at many local stores plus Amazon.

BOOK EVENTS OR PLACES TO SUBMIT: We were invited by Dorset Books to join their author event on Saturday, June 24. Mike attended to sell his books. Niomi, Tarah, and Sharon sold the Talking Stick books as well as their own books. We have really enjoyed working with Joan at Dorset Books. They have a beautiful store. We had a good day even with a little rain as we were under a canopy.

Brainerd Writers Alliance call for submissions is now open. Deadline 8-30-17. Visit their website: www.brainerdwriters.com for more details. Fall festival and book fair 10-28-17.

Hackensack Annual Art and Book Festival, Saturday 8-12-17, from 9 to 3—always a fun event. We will be there selling books, along with Mike Lein. Special presentation by Faith Sullivan. www.northwoodsartscouncil.org.

Candace Simar and Angela Foster will teach a class on 8-3-17 in Brainerd. Call Angela 612-242-8911. This is on writing Scene.

Farm by the Lake has a free concert series for most of the Sundays this summer as well as an annual festival on 8-27-17with authors, book signings, arts and crafts, classic car display. farmbythelake@gvtel.com. On 8-13-17 there is an inspirational event and music.

First City Poetry reads—in Bemidji, a series of events with featured poets. mgmuirhead@midco.net.

MISCELLANEOUS: Mike attended the July PRLAAC meeting in Park Rapids and reported on it. There are many events planned for the near future in PR. Mike mentioned the Wild Rice Festival and a musical with Northern Lights Opera. We do hope to keep sending someone to their meetings and keep up on what is going on in PR that we can be a part of. Niomi will attend in August.

We will check into joining MIPA again for this year in case there are any books we publish that we might want to enter. We will see if any of us want to be judges again.

The Hubbard County museum would like us to set up our Reading Room for the month of August. We will check on this and try to get some people lined up to get this done. Sharon will call Megan at the museum. Jerry will pick up the remaining books from last year’s MIPA event to add to the Reading Room.

The Bookends events in Wadena on the Second Saturdays are still going on with Jerry overseeing the events. This will continue through November of 2017. In August, we will have Peter Geye. In September, we will have Charles Baxter. November is Pete Hautman. We aren’t sure about October yet. These take place at 11 AM at the café.

Most of us have been too busy to write anything! Dawn read something that she wrote back in college. Jerry read an intro to his collection of stories Animal Life that he hopes to start working on again. The rest of us read some things from the TS26 proof book.

It was a good meeting and it was good to see everyone. A couple of us had a brief discussion regarding perhaps starting up the annual writers’ retreats again. Hope to see you next time!