October Meeting Minutes 2025

Hello Everyone, today we held our October meeting.

PRESENT: Ryan, Sharon, Marlys, Erin, Niomi, Sue, Jan, Dawn.

TALKING STICK BOOK:

The Book Release Party for TS34 and Candace’s workshop both were very successful. We had lots of good comments. We sold lots of books. One of the best parts of the day was that 3 of the original members of the JWB group were in attendance. At the beginning of the book party, they came up to talk about how it all started out. Sandra Hughes Eberhart, Linda Henry, Cindie Ekren.

All the books have now been mailed out. We have also been selling quite a few books on Amazon and some donations are coming in.

MISCELLANEOUS:

Sharon and Tarah are now working on a book for Dawn Tanner. This is a book of essays about her travels around the world, usually investigating animals or birds that are nearing extinction.

We will also be working on Niomi’s novel and Richard Sederstrom’s next book of poetry.

Erin also wants to do another book of poetry.

We had the meeting minutes from PRLAAC (Heartland Arts) for September. They discussed Art Leap, Heartland Concerts, Nemeth Art Center and the Whiskey Creek Film Festival.

We had the meeting minutes from Heartland Arts for October also. Mike attended this meeting and told them it was a good year for selling books. The group discussed their Noon Hour Concerts, the success of Art Leap, Heartland Concerts, Headwaters Center for Lifelong Learning, the Christmas Concert, Armory events, etc.

WRITING EVENTS:

The Lake Country Journal had a poetry contest called The Sweet Life in 2025. There will be a reading on Saturday Nov. 8 from 1 PM to 3 PM at Central Lakes College Library. Free and open to the public.

Book Release and Author Reading and sale for the North Country Journal, to be held this Thursday Oct. 23 at 5:30 PM at Bemidji Public Library. Beltrami County Historical Society.

History Mystery, the Fate of Emma Davids will be held on Friday October 24 and Saturday October 25. Doors open at 5, drama begins at 5:30. This is at 130 Minnesota Ave in downtown Bemidji. Adults $10, BCHS and discount $7, K-College $5, pre-K free.

Ryan will be on a panel of authors for Bethel University via zoom. This will be regarding young adult manuscripts.

Niomi asked us for suggestions for the title of her novel. Her book is about a Mennonite midwife. She read us a synopsis of the novel and we discussed a few options.

We took turns reading things we have been working on and others critiqued. We had a good day of reading, listening, and discussing writing—something we all love to do. Hope to see you all next time!