Meeting Minutes June 13 2010

I'm baaaack....and I'm in a bit of a rush so read fast.

We had another small group this weekend, which was a shame because Clare had some interesting prompts. He used objects this week. A lacrosse ball with a hole in it, a snake head with feathers behind it, wooden spoons for making music, a raccoon tail, and a woman's ceramic spittoon. Yes, they have those! We had as much fun joking about the objects as we did writing about them!

We welcomed two new members this week. Amanda writes young adult fiction and is currently submitting a novel for publication. David Chesterton has self-published 3 novels and is working on 2 more. He is also the grandson of G.K. Chesterton, writer of Father Brown mysteries among many others. David is also a fabulous artist, but I'm biased since I know him fromt the Orangeville Art Group!

Ron announced that he is looking forward to a trip to tour Normandy with friends from England. He is getting closer to getting his book on the wars published! Stay tuned for more news.

Gloria announced that she was the First Prize winner at the Elora Festival on June 6th. Congratulations! She was also Honorable Mention at the Eden Mills Festival and at Words Alive in Sharon, Ontario in September.

Alberta introduced herself as the sister of the First Prize Winner. Ruth told us she is the friend of the First Prize Winner. Jayne added that she is sitting at the same table as the First Prize Winner.

Jayne also told us that she attended Bloody Words Crime Writing Conference on May 28 - 30 this year. She showed us the program which contained such people as Linwood Barclay, Ross Pennie and many, many others. Keep an eye out for this next year.

Richard had some good news regarding our Anthology. He has been in touch with Allen from the Orangeville Citizen. The newspaper will happily support us in our venture and is helping us to seek even more funding from the community. The Citizen will help us out with any book signings and publicity in In the Hills and Country Roads as well as the paper itself. Richard said he would write a proposal to send to Allen Monday since he would be meeting with a prospective supporter then.
We agreed that there would be no cap on the donations we would accept, but anything over and above publishing costs will be donated to the Headwaters Hospital for the Children's Library. Richard will contact Catherine Matzig to give her the heads up about our plan.

Our resident Camera Guy also volunteered to shoot us all. Richard plans to bring his camera to the July 11 meeting to take headshots of all the contributors for the book. And possibly anyone else who is in need of a good headshot. Put on your Sunday finery and look your best.

Retreat.... Just a reminder that the retreat is this weekend June 19 at Eramosa Eden. We only have a small group attending this year and will take any late comers. The cost is $10 and you have to supply your own lunch. Check the Eramosa Eden website for directions or email the group if you need a ride. www.eramosaeden.org.

Patricia told us that there was a presentation of music scholarships in her father's name recently. While she was there, she met Barry Shainbaum who lives in the Dundalk area. He has written a recently published book about celebrities and would like to come talk to us about writing. It took him 200 submissions to get it published. So DON'T QUIT!!! You can check him out at www.barryshainbaum.com.

Richard reminded us that he was the winner of the ratings game on C. Patrick Schulze's blog. He will get a copy of Manuscript Submissions from Patrick. (And he will probably share if we all ask REALLY, REALLY nice...) Congratulations again, Richard.

Nancy read a new part of her story "Till We Meet in Heaven." Very powerful.

Richard talked to us about movie scripts since he does consultations for movies. He had a copy of one called Midnight Rambler by Frank Caruso. Richard told us that if you want to do good dialogue, write a screenplay. You have to be precise and not too wordy. At one point he had sold the movie rights for The Camera Guy, which has since lapsed. There is a partial copy of the screenplay floating around somewhere though.

Gloria told us that she has written 2 movie scripts. She and Alberta used to own a theatre for 5 years. She read her First Prize Winning story Seventeen Crows.

Nancy also reminded us that there is a Brian Henry workshop coming up Oct 2 in Orangeville. More details to follow. You can check out Brian's newletter the Quick Brown Fox.

Ruth read her poem Inspiration, which inspired us all to write!

Ron read a section from his book called Battleground, which talks about visiting Juno Beach 60 years after the war. He interviewed 17 Queen's Own veterans on the beach and had comments from them. We learned that the movie Saving Private Ryan is as close to real as any movie version has ever come. There is a lot of debris still on the beach and in the water.

Clare wrote poetry! He read a poem called Fool's Gold about the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

We had a lot of fun with Clare's interesting objects and everyone wrote some great pieces.

Our next meeting is June 27th. Diane will be leading. Oh, that's me. Better get some ideas together by then!
Keep writing!