November 19th 2005

Today, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2005, we held our November meeting and we had our book release party for Talking Stick 14.

Present for the meeting were:
LuAnne, Russ, Sharon, Tarah, Niomi, Jerry, Joseph, Marion, John, Ted and Roy.

50,000 WORDS, WRITE A NOVEL IN A MONTH:
We have 17 people who are involved in the Novel in A Month group. They are now starting the 4th week.
Here are a couple of tips the writers shared: List your characters and their names and ages so you can easily refer to the information when you need it. Keep old magazines from years past so you can see hairdos and clothing from different years. Bring an unusual object into your story.

TALKING STICK 15:
We plan to have the same three categories next year and the same prizes. We think we can use the June 1 deadline rather than May 1 and still have the winners by the annual party deadline.

MACROSTIE ART SHOW:
Last year, there were 30 artists who brought sculptures or paintings. 30 writers were then chosen to write a page about the object. This will be held again in April 2006. This is held in Grand Rapids.

WRITING TIPS:
Write in first person first. Then go back and change it to third person.

SUCCESSES:
Russ won the $500. prize for first prize in the Lake Country Journal short story contest. Hooray, Russ!!! It will be published in the January/February 2006 issue.

BOOK RELEASE PARTY:
We had 25-30 people in attendance. What a great turnout! Thank you everyone for attending.
We shared information about the book and our group and our publications. We discussed our plans for next year’s book. We plan to have the same three categories and the same prize money again.

We received so many thank yous and compliments about this year’s book. Thank you all for taking the time to write and tell us what you think. We appreciate you!!
We sold lots of books and had great food — fruit, cookies, breads, cheese and crackers, hot cider and coffee. It is always fun to meet new writers. Some of them came from as far as the Twin Cities. Anyone who wanted to could read their published poem or story. It was great to listen to the authors read their own work.

Thank you all for your support of the Talking Stick books!!

Sharon and Tarah