| With thanks to Nora for taking the minutes and Judy for the Contest results. Please blame Sheila’s inexperience with Mailchimp on her tablet (and blame distracting puppies) for problems with the format this email. Many thanks to Alan and Hilary for their talk. You can find the PowerPoint presentation here: |
| https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Querying-and-Agents-presentation.pptx |
Housekeeping
- 7 attendees on Zoom: Karin, Lyndsay, Peter, Jessie, Zita, and Nora
- 9 attendees at the library: Sheila, Ric, Pati, Matthew, Jean, Ron, Kimberly, Joe, Judy
- 2 speakers in attendance: Hilary and Alan Deeth
Meeting started at 13:04
- • Welcome to all, including new attendees.
- • For online folks, please mute microphone when you have background noise.
- • For folks in the room, please minimize side conversations and speak toward the microphone when talking/asking questions for the group.
Special Request
A request from Matthew: his latest Carl and June book is almost ready to be published. He asks if one of us could help him as an illustrator. This is the story where Carl and June are on the farm. Offering to help will give you preview of the completed story!
E-Zine & Anthology
Find the monthly ezines on the website. They’re private (password-protected) so not considered published material. So send us your submissions!
June’s theme was school days, host Matthew
- 3rd place: Lyndsay for School Days with a Difference
- 2nd place: Sheila for Best Days of Your Life
- 1st place: Judy for Fantasy from Reality
(See below for other entries)
Upcoming prompts: July theme is relationships (in a flash!) hosted by Jean; August is scheming hosted by Clayton; September is TBD. Word limit is 1,200. Deadline is always the first Sunday of the month.
Send submissions to contest @ portlandwritersmill . org
See portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-contests for more info
AND NOTE
First Sunday in August is also deadline for Writers’ Mill anthology submissions. This is considered published work. No theme. Rules are: maximum 5 stories, maximum 5,000 words between them. Send NOW to
anthology @ portlandwritersmill.org.
JUNE RESULTS
- MOST VOTES—Judy Beaston for “Fantasy From Reality”
- SECOND MOST VOTES—Sheila Deeth for “Best Days of Your Life”
- THIRD MOST VOTES—Lyndsay Docherty for “School Days With a Difference”
Other entries/authors
- “Double Vision” BY Jessie Collins
- “Happy School Days in Malaysia” BY Karin Krafft
- “Like a Salmon, I Swam Upstream” Part 3 BY Robin Layne
- “School Daze” BY Mark Knudsen
- “Student Teachers” BY Peter Letts
- “Teacher Inspiration: Second Grade and Beyond” BY Robin Layne
UPCOMING CONTESTS
JULY — Deadline is Sunday, July 7th
THEME: Relationships in a Flash
Compose stories/essays/poems about some kind of relationship. Suggestions include family, science, culinary, philosophical, political, literary, animal, close (friend, partner, children). WHILE you’re at it, why not challenge yourself to keep the word count to FLASH length of 800 words or less (yes, flash can be longer, but this is the suggested challenge)
More details can be found on the website—look for the JULY 2024 CONTEST PAGE
AUGUST – Deadline is Sunday, August 4th
THEME: Scheming
MANY ideas and further details found under UPCOMING CONTESTS on the website
SEPTEMBER Telling Yourself The Truth
OCTOBER’s Theme will be arriving soon. Keep checking the UPCOMING CONTESTS page to stay informed and start writing your entries early.
Alan and Hilary on Agents, Queries, Submissions, and More
Find notes from Hilary and Alan Deeth’s talk at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/08/agents-editors-and-publishers-with-hilary-and-alan-deeth/
Read these before Sunday July 21st
July’s meeting, Sunday July 21st, with Walt Socha, looks “Beyond Plot,” at “one guy’s experience in adding the internal character arcs during the rewriting of his book.” Walt recommends we read some seriously good books beforehand:
…read Jonathan Gottschall’s “The Storytelling Animal” (available at the library)
…or listen to any (or all) of his Youtube lectures (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Jonathan+Gottschall)
…read Lisa Cron’s “Wired For Story” (also at the library)
…or listen to any (or all) of her Youtube and/or TED talk lectures (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Lisa+Cron)
…sign up for newsletters from Lisa Cron and Susan DeFreitas (https://wiredforstory.com/ and https://susandefreitas.com/ at bottom of page)