July Meeting Minutes 2026
Hello Everyone, today we held our July meeting.
PRESENT:
Sharon, Mike, Erin, Marlys, Jan P., John P., Niomi.
TALKING STICK:
Talking Stick 35 is finished and books have been ordered. We ordered less this year. As usual, we will give out one free book to each submitter who was published in this volume. Instead of us mailing out to the others who were published, we are going to have Amazon mail them for us. This should save us a lot of time and effort for ordering more books, storing them, packaging them, addressing them, hauling them to the Post Office, etc.
Saturday Sept. 19, 2026 at Jack Pines Resort near Osage MN will be our Writers’ Workshop with Laura Hansen from 9 to 12 and the Talking Stick 35 book release party starting at 1 PM. Get signed up! There will be books for sale.
OTHER BOOK/ART EVENTS:
Northwoods Writers’ Conference—Erin did attend some of these sessions in Bemidji in June. This was a smaller event than usual. Last year’s event was cancelled due to bad weather.
Hackensack Art & Book Festival—Saturday August 8 from 9 to 3. www.northwoodsartscouncil.org for more information. We will be there selling our books. Looks like Sharon, Marlys, Niomi, and one of Niomi’s daughters will be there.
Writing Workshop on Mallard Island at Rainy Lake in early August. Mike will be attending this for a week. Ernest Oberholtzer Foundation.
Taste of Dorset, Sunday August 2, 2026 from 11 to 3. Mike will be selling books there near the book store along with Nate Jorgenson and another writer who has a children’s book.
North Dakota Book and Arts Festival Saturday Sept. 26, 2026 from 10 to 5 at Harold Newman Arena at Jamestown College. Niomi will attend this to sell her books.
Hackensack Farmers Market on Tuesdays from 9AM-2 PM, book sales inside. Located at the Hackensack Hub. Mike has attended this event. Kathleen Vashro,
612-819-2787, Hubhackensack@gmail.com for more info.
Blue Cottage Agency will have a booth at the Crow Wing County Fair with books for sale. The fair runs from August 4-8, 2026.
MISCELLANEOUS:
PRLAAC/Heartland Arts meeting for July. Mike was able to attend. Topics of discussion were Long Lake Theatre, the Monarch Butterfly event, noon hour concerts, Art Leap, Park Theater, Nemeth Art Center, Headwaters Center for Lifelong Learning, etc.
Books for our members—both Marlys and Erin are interested in doing books later this year. We are having initial discussions and will get working on these after the book party in September. Mike is also working on two more books, one more of cabin stories and one more for hunting stories. Both of these may contain recipes for outdoor cooking. We also have 2 or 3 other writers interested in having JWB publish their books.
We had a good time reading things we have been working on and having the others offer suggestions and friendly critiques. Welcome Jan P. and John P. Jan P. has two books out (Rabbit Moon and Changing Woman’s Hair) and is working on a third in the series. It was one of those times that we hated to quit visiting and end the meeting. Hope to see you all again next time!