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November Writers’ Meeting

Hi Everyone,

Our next meeting will be on December 16, 2012 from 12:30 to 3PM at Bella Caffe in Park Rapids MN.

PRESENT: Jerry, Elisa, Niomi, LuAnne, Sharon

TALKING STICK: We recently had a board meeting to start discussing our next book, TS22. We have the date scheduled for our next book release party, Sept. 21, 2013, again at Blueberry Pines. We are starting to gather information on various instructors for a workshop that morning. We are also contacting MN writers for our celebrity judges. Tarah is looking at artwork for the next cover.

NANOWRIMO: We hope Nanowrimo is going well for everyone involved. We were hoping to see Deb for an update–we hope we will have some information on that by the December meeting. Elisa is doing the November Novel this time. Some of the rest of us had done it in the past and enjoyed it a great deal.

WRITING EVENTS: Niomi reported on the Alison McGhee event at the library recently. She really enjoyed it and wished more people had attended. She spent some time talking with Alison about her writing process. Alison said something like this when asked how she is able to write as an 11 year old: I am all the ages I ever was. We are all the people we ever were. The Loft in MPLS is sponsoring a Crime Mystery Thriller Conference April 28 and 29, 2013. www.loft.org for more information.

LOCAL EVENTS: PRLAAC (Park Rapids Lakes Area Arts council) is continuing their work to transform the old Armory building in to the Armory Square Center for the Arts. There will be room for: the performing arts, home of the Northern Light Opera Company, concerts, community events and programs, home for the Nemeth Arts Center, classrooms for arts education, offices for arts-related organizations, room for conferences, trade shows, private parties, healthy living activities and more. We are hoping that perhaps someday we can hold Book Release parties there and have various classrooms with several workshops offered at one time.

MISCELLANEOUS: Our own Niomi won first place for creative nonfiction for “Thirteenth Summer” at the Brainerd Writers Alliance Fall Festival held Oct. 27. She also got honorable mention for her poetry, “Remembering Hawaii.”
Our own Jerry served as judge for fiction and presented the awards for fiction at this same Fall Festival.

GOOD BOOKS: Horizontal World by Debra Marquart

OUR OWN WRITING: Several of the writers took turns reading things they are working on and the rest of us gave thoughtful comments. Both Niomi and Elisa are working on memoirs that sound excellent. LuAnne has been writing spiritual poems. Jerry is working on another story for his Good Shepherd book.

This was one of those meetings where everyone just clicked with everyone else and we hated to stop talking and leave. A good group, good writing, good conversation.

Hope to see you next time!