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June Writers’ Meeting

Today we held our June meeting. The July meeting will be held on Sunday July 15, 2012 at Bella Caffe in Park Rapids MN from 12:30 to 3 PM.

PRESENT:
Scott, Richard, Betty, Marlys, LuAnne, Sharon

TALKING STICK:
TS21 is in the final stages of proofing and editing. We hope to order a couple of sample books in the next week or two. We will be experimenting and doing this book through Createspace and Amazon instead of our usual printer Morris Printing in Nebraska. We believe this will save us time and money.
Sharon will soon start focusing on the Book Release Party and Workshop on September 15. Flyers will be sent out soon.

RECENT EVENTS:
Jerry and Sharon and Tarah went to the Wadena event on June 2. Sadly, we did not sell many books. This was the third time this event had been held but the first time we had attended.
Tarah attended the Bemidji book sales event on Friday, June 15. There was quite a bit of traffic but she was not very successful with book sales there either.
Blank Canvas held a book signing and selling event for 9 writers on Saturday June 16. This was well attended and a pretty successful sales event. We hope they will do this again! Beautiful location, great snacks, good writers and customers. Sharon, Tarah, Jerry, Richard, Marion and several other local writers participated.
Marlys attended a recent event in Bemidji involving poetry readings and a workshop on historical poetry. She enjoyed this very much. Sean Hill and LouAnn Muhm were some of the poets. If you are interested in historical writing, here are some links:
www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/newspapers
www.beltramihistory.org
www.beltramihistory.org/links
Sharon and Niomi recently attended one of the Sunday Classic series at the Y Steak House. They enjoyed an excellent meal and listened to Candace Simar and Colin T Nelson read from and discuss their books. Sharon and Niomi greatly enjoyed this and plan to attend some others. Will Weaver and Nate Jorgenson and Wm Kent Krueger and Jill Johnson will be some of the other authors spotlighted over the next few months. Call 218-732-3782 for tickets and more information. This runs from 4:30 till 7 PM.
Betty recently attended a Writing Memoir class in Bemidji with Laurie Hertzel. She enjoyed this immensely.

EVENTS COMING UP:
Northwoods Art & Book Festival in Hackensack on August 18, 2012. Many authors and books. Great event. Also crafts and art.
Also for Hackensack, they request poetry submissions for their Fifth Annual Poetry Display/Recognition. Contact Sue Ready for more information at suready@yahoo.com. Six Works of Merit and six People’s Choices will be awarded.
On July 28, 2012, attend the Ror Schach Music and Arts Festival at Hubbard County Fairgrounds in Park Rapids MN. From 11 AM to 1 AM. Camping available. For more details, go to www.rorschachmusicfest.com.

PLACE TO SUBMIT:
Brainerd Writers Alliance invites writers to enter their state-wide contest. Deadline August 15, 2012. Entry fee, prizes, Fall Writers Workshop on October 27, 2012.

FAVORITE POETS:
We asked today’s attendees to list their two or three favorite poets. Here is what we came up with:
Billy Collins
Joyce Sutphen
Edgar Allen Poe
Carl Sandberg
John Barryman
Louise Gluck
Jeffrey Chaucer
Robert Frost
Emily Dickinson
Rumi
Rainer Maria Rilke

Inspiring favorite poems included:
The Fog by Carl Sandberg
Wild Plum at Night by Orrick Johns
Crystal Moment by Robert Tristram Coffin

Try poetry.org to read more poetry.

MISCELLANEOUS:
Scott had an interesting idea. He had found an old journal with some of his earlier poems and songs in it. He came up with the idea of:
Nothing is Written in Stone: Recapturing old Words and Releasing New Writing
He showed us examples of some of his earlier writing that he had more recently redone, reusing them, turning them into something else and telling us the reasons why he changed them, what he liked of the original pieces. He says you need to keep your old writing–keep the original draft. The original draft was the spark and will have lines you still love.
Scott, this sounds like a workshop you need to put on!

We also spoke of blogs. Betty said that Laurie Hertzel did her writing by doing some of it through a blog. We discussed that if you put something on a blog, it is considered published. Some places to go to start a blog:
Wordpress.com
Googleapps
Microsoft 360
Blogger
You can put this on the Cloud with some of these programs and it is kept private. Or you can let some friends know and they can get in with a password. Or you can totally let it out to the public.
Having this on the Cloud seems like a good way to keep it safe, stored in a place other than your computer. This would be great for a private journal or a writing project, as long as you kept it closed and private.

Great meeting! We were afraid because of Father’s Day that we wouldn’t have too many attendees, but we had an excellent meeting–one of those times where none of us wanted to quit talking and leave.

Hope to see you next time!