May 31st Meeting Minutes

 Southeast MO Writers’ Guild Minutes

All in attendance were welcomed and guests and new members acknowledged. A reminder was given regarding the mini-conference planned for July 19, 2014 at the Cape Girardeau Public Library. A signup sheet was passed around for position openings to assist in the conference.

Donna announced that a Missouri Writers’ Guild leadership conference will be held on October 18, 2014 in Jefferson City. The board of directors will meet with delegates from MWG chapters throughout the state to discuss the future of MWG as well as ways to generate income in order to put the Guild in a stable financial position. Other items on the agenda will be benefits to members, how to generate more interest in the Guild, the conference, and volunteering. She asked members to consider items they would like to see addressed at the conference. Ideas/suggestions can be emailed to Donna at semowgpres@gmail.com.

Next, guest speaker, Randy McWilson, was introduced. His presentation pertained to the difference in screen writing versus fiction writing. McWilson teaches at the Cape Central Career and Technology Center in Cape Girardeau, and teaches screen writing and film  He is also a science fiction writer and a screen writer (film) who is attempting to break into TV.  A trailer he created for his novel series entitled, “Back to Normal” was viewed.

McWilson emphasized that there are profound differences in screenwriting and novel writing.  Screen writing is mostly “Show, not tell,” while novel writing is a lot of both show and tell.  An informative Powerpoint presentation entitled “Show v. Tell” was presented. 

A link to McWilson’s PowerPoint can be located via his Dropbox link:  https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63498754/Screenwriting%20vs%20Traditional%20Authorship.ppt

McWilson’s credits and accomplishments can be located on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5815966/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 .

The meeting was adjourned. Dr. Carl Bloom, a Southeast MO State University literature professor will be the guest speaker at the July meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Samantha Deusinger

Secretary