May 18th Chapter Meeting Notes

May's SEMO Chapter Meeting opened with President Janet Cannon welcoming everyone and inviting those who attended the April Missouri Writers' Guild conference to share some of what they learned at the conference.

Janet shared some of what she learned from C. Hope Clark's Early Arrival Seminar about how the "shy writer" can succeed by using a calendar to mark off days you wrote (proving to yourself you are successful and dedicated!), using positive language to talk about your writing, and making small and measurable goals you can see so you don't give up on the big goal you want to attain.

Bill and Sharon Hopkins talked about a workshop they attended that explained how to make your web presence more effective. Social media, web pages, Amazon author pages, using tags and key words, and Google analytics reports oh my! Lots to learn in that department!

Marybeth Niedercorn discussed a little about what she learned about how to figure out what small presses want from a writer and from their manuscripts.

We also celebrated the winners of several MWG contests: Sharon Hopkins' book Killerfind won Best book in the President's Contest. One of her short stories, "Rear View Mirror" won third place in the Short Story contest. Marybeth Niedercorn's "Demon Hawg" won first place in the Humerous Short Story category. Janet Cannon's "Blonde Curls and Scurvy Pirates" won first place in the Flash Fiction contest and her inspirational Essay "Dance: Driven by the Inciting Incident" won an honorable mention. Plus, our chapter won Basket Wars! (Marybeth accepted the trophy.) We think we had more members there than any other chapter as well! All in all, our chapter really stood out at the conference this year.

The group as a whole then discussed several topics. Last year's anthology did not have enough entries to make a full-sized volume, so we are going to put out a call for more members to submit and do a two-year volume. We decided July's meeting will be a social/idea sharing meeting at Steelcrest Winery. The Hopkins will get back with us on what weekend will be the best for us to meet there.

Several people also wanted to get started on workshop/critique groups. A sign-up list was circulated. An email will also go out through semowg to ask for others who want to be a part of the workshop/critique groups. Hopefully we'll be able to get these together in the next couple of months.

We also announced our summer and fall lineup of speakers (except for October, which we don't have finallized just yet!) And here it is!

June 29 - Dr. Frank Nickell on regional history
July ?? - Social day at Steelcrest Winery
August 31 - Margot Dill on blogging
September 28 - Peter Green - on working with editors and publishers
October 26 - ??

Janet Cannon then closed the meeting. We all snagged a few last cookies, talked a bit more, then went home.

BASKET WARS!

On our maiden voyage as participants in the Basket Wars competition at the Missouri Writers' Guild conference, we won the bidding! Our basket's theme was, "Everything a Writer Always Wanted but was Afraid to Ask For." It contained generally mundane items but descriptions that allowed for...let's say...other possibilities. For example, gardening gloves that were red so that, "the blood would blend right in," and boxes to "hide evidence in plain sight." Then we had fake mustaches, fake evidence, and a rubber duckie villian. All sorts of fun to put together, all sorts of fun to watch people ooh and ahh over. We even had one person ask for the description list she thought it was so funny! Now, what will we do NEXT year?

April 20th Meeting Notes

April 20, 2013 SEMO Writers’ Guild Meeting

Cape Girardeau Public Library

In lieu of President Jan’s late arrival, VP Marybeth called meeting to order.

The first item on the agenda was if there were any donations to be added to the Basket War basket for the MWG conference. She asked if there were any suggestions on names for the basket, but there were none. So, Jan, Marybeth, and Donna chose a name “Everything a Writer Always Wanted but was Afraid to Ask For.”

Next, speaker, Marilyn Hutchings, Reference Assistant at the Cape Girardeau Library, was introduced. She shared two handouts on ‘Found’ poetry. One from Annie Dillard and one that Marilyn wrote. She noted one of the problems with people reading poetry is that they think it has to have a meaning, and usually a hidden meaning. Sometimes, however, she pointed out that there is no hidden meaning.

One form of poetry she shared was ‘Found’ poetry, where an idea or image is taken from another’s writing and thereafter forming another poem. With this kind of poetry you don’t have to start from scratch. You can take someone else’s words and take bits and pieces and refashion and remake it into a poem. She stated that Found poetry is “a word collage in art!”

She suggested that writers interested in this form of poetry, to visit the “Found Poetry Review.” They publish twice a year. They have prompts on their website that you can take bits and pieces to create your own poem. They also have a blog.

Marilyn also shared some poets who took poetry to a different level: Some were David Lehman who wrote The Evening Sun, in which he wrote a stream-of-consciousness poem for each day of the year. Another was John Caddy, Morning Earth, who wrote poems in his journal about the first thing he experienced each morning. She also shared Christian Bok’s Eunoia, in which he wrote lipograms, and used each vowel for each chapter when writing his poems.

Next, in celebration of National Poetry month, several of our members and guests read poetry.

Sam Deusinger

Bill Hopkins

Bill Whitlock
Richard Flentge
Marybeth Niederkorn
Rick Lettau

Our next meeting in May will be Saturday, May 18. This is a week earlier than our regular meeting, due to Memorial Day weekend. 

 

--Submitted by Donna Essner