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April Writers’ Meeting

Hi Everyone,
The next meeting will be held on Sunday, May 19, 2013, at Bella Caffe in Park Rapids Mn from 12:30 to 3PM.

PRESENT:
LuAnne, Niomi, Mike, Jerry, Scott, Sonja, Elisa, Sharon, Deb, Betty.

TALKING STICK 22: We had 164 submitters with 334 submissions. We selected 87 poems, 29 creative nonfiction and 25 fiction from 100 authors for TS22. The layout is mostly done by Tarah and Sharon is starting to proof. We have sent out most of the acceptance letters and the rest should go out this next week. Tarah got the art she wanted for the cover and will be working on that.

WRITING EVENTS: Jerry attended a reading at the Loft by Nona Kennedy Carlson from her book Boom. Also Heid Erdrich and Kate Hibbard read. He really enjoyed the event.
Sonja enjoyed the Writers’ Boot Camp in Brainerd recently with Angela Foster and Candace Simar.

COMING EVENTS:

Garden Party at New York Mills Cultural Center on this coming Thursday, 4-25-13, at 6PM. This is a silent and live auction. Go to www.kulcher.org for details.
Flower and Garden Show at the Armory in Park Rapids this coming weekend. Friday April 26 from 6 PM to 7:30 PM is a welcome reception for vendors. Saturday April 27, they are open to the public from 10 AM to 5 PM. Sunday April 28, they are open to the public from 11 AM to 4 PM.
We don’t know for sure what all is involved for this Flower and Garden show–but anything with art and flowers is a welcome sight this time of year!
Camp Nanowrimo–Deb is now involved with this. It involves 5 or 6 writers in a chat room and writing together. We will send out information on this as soon as we get it.
June 1 is the deadline for Lake Region Writers. Send in your work!
Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference 2013. This takes place in Bemidji July 14 – July 19. It is a week long event that you can attend–for application requirements, go to www.bemidjistate.edu/writersconference or email writersconference@bemidjistate.edu or call 218-755-2068. Visiting writers include: Ron Carlson (Sharon loves his work!), Camile Dungy, Geoffrey Brock, Danielle Evans, Joni Tevis, Jericho Brown. There are evening readings and events planned also.

NEWS AND IDEAS: Scott suggested: Check out www.selfpubbookcovers.com. Here is a place to buy a book cover for your book. Any graphic design, you can submit art work, you can make changes, make wrap-around, customize one of a kind. Once you buy it, no one else can.
Elisa suggested: Check out Danny Iny’s How to Create a Loyal Audience. Also check out Guy Kawakaki’s book Author Publisher Entrepreneur. I’ll send out more info on these when I receive it.
Jerry is now the President of the board for New York Mills Cultural Center. We hope we will be able to plan some events with our group and theirs–like readings.
Jerry suggested: If you are stuck on your current writing project, you could write Glimmers. These are short scenes, just glimpses of something. Create characters, dialogue, the setting, as much as you want. Keep them. These are useful to pull out later when you need something in a longer piece.
Sonja told us that she “decapitates” her poems. When she starts to edit them, she removes the first part and gets right into the heart of the poem.
Sonja suggested that Sharon could write up a list of things that “turns off” our editorial board on submissions. If writers would like to see this, you could let Sharon know at the email address below. We would be glad to work on something like that.

MISCELLANEOUS: We had more people than usual at the meeting–we were afraid we would run out of time. It was great to see all of you! And you can always tell when we have had a great meeting–no one wants to stop talking and leave! When the meeting was done, all of a sudden we had about 4 mini conversations going, all of us excited and enthused and still wanting to share ideas.
When we began our meeting, there were a few drops of rain in the air. When we went outside, we found that we had been plunged back into winter. We saw the largest, wettest snowflakes that any of us had seen in years! It was an amazing snowfall that lasted for quite a while. Grudgingly, we had to admit it was quite beautiful.

Hope to see you next time!