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February 15th 2009

Today we held our Feb 15, 2009 Jackpine Writers’ Bloc meeting at Bella Caffe in Park Rapids MN. The next meeting will be on Sunday March 15, 2009 from 12:30 to 3PM at Bella Caffe in Park Rapids MN.

Present today: Sharon, Jodi, LuAnne, Rosy, Vern, Mike, Susanna, Mark.

TALKING STICK 18
We have a March 1, 2009 deadline for this book. Hurry up and get your submission in! We have chosen our 5 person Editorial Board members and we have set the date for March 15 at 3:30, right after our next regular monthly JWB meeting.

MEETING PLACE
We discussed the possibility of moving back to Beagle Books for our monthly meetings instead of Bella Caffe. We like so many things about Bella: plenty of room, coffee readily available, lunch if anyone wants it, no stairs. However, it is noisy, and people so often leave the door open between us and the coffee area. It is very distracting. Beagle does stay open later now on Sundays now. We would have to be in the basement there, and the stairs are hard for some people. Jen says she could have coffee ready for us. We will check further on store hours for both places before we make a decision.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF JWB
Cindie has resigned as Treasurer for the JWB. She was the last one of the original 5 people who started the group. She still wants to be part of the group, but she needs more time to pursue other things. So, we have reorganized the board. Sharon is Secretary/Treasurer. Scott is President. Other board members are: Jerry, Marilyn, Jen. Jen will be setting up workshops and contacting judges. She and Beagle Books have been great supporters of our group.

TALKING STICK 17
We sent TS17 into MIPA to enter in some of their annual award categories. This is Midwest Independent Publishers Assn. We are entered in Two Color Covers and the Fiction/Misc categories. We used to enter the MN Book Awards, but they no longer have a category that suits our anthology.

WRITING EVENTS
No one has attended any writing events lately. Many of our writers take the winter to just write by themselves.

FUTURE EVENTS
We had a recent board meeting and we have many ideas. We would like TS20 to be a Best of all the other Talking Sticks. This will be challenging because the Editorial Board members for that year will have to read all the books. And we may have trouble contacting some of the writers–if they are in the older books, we may have lost contact with them. We will be doing another 20×20 at some point. Also, we are still thinking of doing a writers’ retreat weekend sometime in the next few years.

WRITERS’ SUCCESSES
Jodi got second place for her Angel Horses story. Congrats, Jodi! Other writers mentioned sending submissions to Northwoods Woman, a new local magazine.

MISCELLANEOUS
Try www.visualthesaurus.com if you are looking for a word you need.

Several of our writers read things they were working on and received helpful criticism. We had two new writers join us today and we hope to see them again.

See you next time!