June Meeting Minutes 2026

Hello Everyone,

Today we held our June 2026 meeting.

PRESENT: Mike, Jan, Dawn, Sue, Sharon, Niomi.

TALKING STICK 35:

We now have our first proof of TS35. Sharon and Marilyn have each read it. Niomi will also read through it. We will be reading through a few more times and order at least one more proof. We now have almost all the contracts back. We are starting to get writers signed up for the poetry workshop on Sept. 19, 2026.

WRITING EVENTS:

     We usually try to attend the monthly PRLAAC (Heartland Arts) meeting in Park Rapids but no one was able to attend this month’s meeting.

     The Hackensack Book Art Festival will be held Saturday August 8. Niomi will be able to attend this year. Dawn will not be able to attend this year.

     This coming Saturday, there is an Author’s Fair at the Eagles Club in Park Rapids MN. June 27 from 10 to 2. Some local authors will be there. There is a fee to attend.

     Mike has been attending many book selling events, as usual. Books are selling very well. Book stores are pleased with sales.

     Sue talked to us about her Bemidji group putting together another book. This one would be about people coming to the north country.

     Jan’s book club members each read her poetry book Love is a Transitive Verb and they discussed it at their last meeting. Jan enjoyed reading some of her poems to the group and also answering questions about her writing process. This is a good way to market your book.

MISCELLANEOUS:

     We are done with Niomi’s book A Midwife’s Journey. It is now available for sale on Amazon and Ingram Spark.

     Erin, Marlys, and Sue are all interested in publishing their own poetry and/or story books.

     Mike is working on another book of Hunting stories as well as another book of Cabin stories. He may insert some recipes in amongst the stories.

Four of us wrote poems using the eight words that were sent out. We came up with completely separate ideas. We took turns listening and commenting and critiquing. We also ended up in another conversation about AI. We don’t like it if students use it as they will probably never learn how to think and write on their own, never learn about spelling or punctuation. Some of us have to find out ways to change settings on our computers so AI will stop trying to write email responses for us. We did decide that if we write something ourselves, then it might sometimes be worthwhile to have AI review it—especially for technical writing—and see what suggestions AI might make. We would still want things to sound like us.

We had good writing and good conversations today. Hope to see you all next time!