March 20th 2011

Today we had our March meeting. The next meeting will be held on Sunday, April 17, 2011 at Bella Caffe in Park Rapids MN from 12:30 to 3PM.

PRESENT:

Jerry, Mike, Tarah, Sharon H, Deb, Joyce, Carol, LuAnne

TALKING STICK 20:

We had the largest number of writers submitting than we ever had before. Just a few more than last year. 170 plus writers. We will cut our meeting short today so that some of us can attend the editorial board meeting and make the choices for the book.

BOOK PROJECTS:

Richard’s third poetry book is on the way to the printers. The book for Cindie for the Bemidji group is nearing completion and is in their hands for final comments. Now we are embroiled in TS20.

WRITING DEADLINES:

The Lake Region Writers/Otter Tail Review deadline is March 31, 2011.

GRANTS:

We have submitted a grant application for a grant from Region 2 for help with our 20×20 event. Next we will work on MN Power and Itasca Mantrap.

VERN THOMPSON:

We lost one of our writers recently. Vern died on March 13. Sharon and Tarah attended the funeral. Many of our members helped with the flowers. It was a lovely service and many many people were there. We could see that Vern was very well loved. We will miss Vern so very much. He had a wonderful deep rumbling reading voice. We will miss his stories and his input at meetings.

WRITE A NOVEL IN A MONTH:

We have often participated in the November Write a Novel in a Month program. Deb taught a class on it last fall and had a good number of participants; most of them finished their novels. Now there will be one in July. We will send out the information as soon as we get it.

LIFELONG LEARNING:

In September and October, there will be two days that they will have poets. John and Marsh will show that real men write poetry too. And Laura and Penny will read for Women’s Hearts. We will let you know the dates as soon as we know them.

Hope to see you next time!