| Thirteen participants attended online and eleven were present at the library, for a total of twenty-four. Sheila Deeth led the meeting from her online Zoom perch in Tennessee. The guest speaker Eric Witchey was present in the library and was on camera. He requested that the meeting not be recorded. Sheila announced that we are still having problems with the newsletter and that we may have to try a new email address—please watch out for emails via MailChimp from news @ portlandwritersmill . org.Karin took minutes. Thank you!!! |
| May Ezine News |
| Sheila was the host of May’s contest “Plot.” The awards areas follows: THIRD – A tie betweenKarin Krafft for “The clue is lost in the plot.”Robin Lane for “Tree, Man and Child” SECOND A tie betweenDavid for “The Baby and the Wormhole”Judy Beaston for “Finding Lena” FIRST –Robin Lane for “Like a Salmon, I swam Upstream. ”Part 2.OTHER ENTRIESGraphs – By Peter LettsLittle Word – Many Uses – By Jessie CollinsMake it Shallow – By Nora PerrySearching for a Plot (poem) – by Jean HarkinThe Plot Dilutes – By Lyndsay Dochertyand Sheila’s non-voting entry Plotters and Pantsersof the World Unite |
| Upcoming Contests |
| June – “School Days” hosted by Matthew.July – “Relationshipsin a Flash” hosted by Jean.August – “Scheming” Clay Davis Find out more at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-contests/ (password, PlotMay24 will change on June 1st to SchoolJun24). Entries to the contests are due the first Sunday of the month. Send them to contest @portlandwritersmill . org (remove spaces) Word count six to 1200 words. |
| Anthology |
| The anthology submissions are due the same date as theAugust contest submissions, which is the first Sunday in August. You can send the same submissions to the anthology and the contest/ezines. There is no prompt/theme, and word limits are as follows:No more than 5 submissions per memberNo more than 5,000 words total per memberSend entries to anthology @ portlandwritersmill. org (remove spaces) Please be thinking about whether you could volunteer to helpwith the anthologyCollecting entries into a single file withconsistent format and styleEditingCollecting or providing imagesOrdering entries into a smooth readChoosing a titleChoosing a cover imageFormatting (ebook and/or print) |
| NEXT MEETING |
| The next meeting will take place on16th June, which coincides with Father’s Day. The topic is “Agents, editors and publishers: what they do, and why you might need them.” Hilary Deeth (post-grad work in publishing) and Alan Deeth (recently signed with an agent) Deeth will be the speakers at that meeting. |
Character Emotion and Word Choice with Eric Witchey
Sheila then introduced this month’s guest, Mr. Eric Witchey, who is a well published author all around the world, and a well respected writing teacher – definitely a writer helping writers! Find him at https://ericwitchey.com/index.html Notes from this amazing talk on character emotion and word choice can be found at: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/08/character-emotion-and-word-choice-with-eric-witchey/