Writers’ Mill Minutes April 16 2023
We had around 7 in-person members and 7 online for Ruth Leibowitz’ inspiring and surprising talk on writing prompts, where to find them, and how, when and why to use them, including advice on how to critique, how to encourage other writers, and how to help yourself know more about your characters. Ruth gave her presentation over zoom, and we’re so pleased that she was able and willing to do that despite having COVID. Since Sheila’s presentation last month also took place over zoom due to COVID, we’re wondering if the virus has it in for the Writers’ Mill. Writers take care!
Some members were able to share their responses to Ruth’s prompts during the meeting. Any of you (including those who shared) who are still willing to share what you wrote, please send it (with a reminder of which prompt you were writing to) to admin and Sheila will post it on the critique page of our website: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/critique/
The meeting started with two housekeeping issues:
Firstly, Matthew pointed out we had no critique leader for May’s critique. Robin volunteered, but we really need MORE VOLUNTEERS. Please reply if you’re willing to take a turn sometime. And please check the “notices for the upcoming month” to see more places where we need volunteers.
April Contest
Gary announced contest winners for the April contest, with the THEME: “Please, sir, I want some more” (from Oliver Twist)
- FIRST (most votes) – Lyndsay Docherty for “Dickensian Twists & Turners”
- SECOND – David Fryer for “Following a Legend”
- THIRD – Robin Layne for “No, You Can’t Steal That Sample”
Other Entries were:
- Bird Food BY Joanne DeHaan
- Food Over the Years BY Peter Letts
- How Things Change BY Jessie Collins
- The Artichoke Cult BY Robin Layne
- The Day They Forgot to Feed the Pets BY Sheila Deeth
- The Wendell Family Reunion BY Judy Beaston
- “Yes, but where do you put it?” BY Jenny Anton
AND the entry from our host, Gary Romans: “When Morton Met Angie”
If you haven’t already read the monthly e-zine (which means virtual magazine) created from these entries, you should make sure to visit our website. Judy has updated the “contest” heading to read “contest/ezine” to encourage you. Even if you don’t enter the contests, the ezine is a free gift to you from your fellow writers, and we appreciate any comments you care to leave on the entries. (After Ruth’s talk, we should ALL be better at leaving helpful comments now!) Find the foodie April ezine at: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/april-2023-contest-page/april-2023-entries-voting-page/
When the next contest goes live, you will receive an email with a link to May’s contest page. At the bottom of the page, you get the opportunity to choose up to three favorite entries. The one with the most votes then takes “first place” and the author gets the privilege of choosing a topic for an upcoming contest.
Upcoming contests
The deadline is always the end of the first Sunday in the month; wordcount limit 1,200; genre any; and entries should be sent to contest @ portlandwritersmill . org (remove spaces!):
- MAY –Deadline is Sunday, May 7th
- HOST – Mary Baylor
- THEME: Soundtracks of Life
- CHALLENGE MONTH – optional challenge: Make your writing especially sensory rich
- Music permeates our lives on many levels and is one of the founts of some of our deepest memories AND is the essence of the premise of whatever you compose for our Ezine/Contest! PLEASE do read the entire contest information both on the UPCOMING CONTEST page https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-contests/ and the MAY 2023 CONTEST PAGE
- JUNE – Send entries between May 8th and June 4th
- Host: Judy Beaston
- THEME: Lost and/or Found
- “And/Or” – lost and found — OR lost forever — OR a special FIND (without first being lost) More ideas found on the UPCOMING CONTEST page — the point is, of course, to HAVE FUN!
- JULY – Send entries between June 5th and July
2nd
- Host: Karin Krafft
- THEME: I thought my generation was very lucky until…
- Hmm… What kind of lucky? you might ask. Well, ask it and then write about what is revealed. Many additional sparks and ideas are included on the information for this month’s contest currently found on the UPCOMING CONTESTS page.
Writing Prompts
Ruth’s talk on writing prompts included opportunity to discuss what does and doesn’t work for us, how to ignore the prompt entirely, how to respond to other people’s writing, and much much more. Notes can be found at: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/17/the-world-abounds-in-prompts-using-prompts-to-stimulate-and-deepen-your-writing-by-ruth-leibowitz/
Notices for upcoming month
- Don’t forget to send your musical (soundtracks of life) entries to contest @ portlandwritersmill . org.
- Next meeting is May 21st when Joshua
Williamson will be visiting the library to talk to our group and another
library group.
- For those who don’t know… Joshua Williamson is a Portland-based author who has lent his talents to Image Comics, DC Comics, video games and more. He wrote The Flash
- Matthew will have a piece for critique, and Robin will lead the critique.
- We need VOLUNTEERS to lead critiques. What’s involved?
- Sheila sends out the critique piece with questions – questions from the author, or questions just to guide you as you read.
- The critique leader’s job is to lead a fifteen minute discussion, based on the critique piece and the questions. The author stays silent during this part, so they can hear how their writing affected its readers.
- At its simplest, all you need to do is ask the questions and look around in hopes someone will answer. Sheila and various other members will always be willing to speak up to fill any silences.
- After quarter of an hour, the author is “allowed” to speak, to answer questions, and to ask questions of their own.
- And that’s it.
- We do all we can to make things EASY FOR YOU. Please volunteer to make them EASY FOR US!
- We’ll need VOLUNTEERS to help with this year’s anthology too. The deadline
for submissions is the end of the first Sunday of September, which really isn’t
as far away as it seems, and we hope you will ALL volunteer to write something:
- Remember, your contest entries are NOT PUBLISHED, since our website is private. Anything you send to the anthology will be PUBLISHED, since the anthology goes for sale on Amazon,
- all contest entries are welcome to be submitted to the anthology. Just read the comments and polish your writing, then send it to anthology @ portlandwritersmill .org (remove spaces)
- Things you’ve written not for the contest are also welcome.
- There’s no theme (a volunteer will choose one based on the entries we receive)
- No more than 5 entries per person.
- No more than 5,000 words in total per person.
- We’ll need VOLUNTEERS to help with:
- Editing (edits will be sent to a chief editor, who will decide what edits need to be sent to the author. Authors approve the edits then the chief editor checks them again)
- Ordering (rather like creating a playlist, your job is to choose what order the entries should appear in to give the reader an enjoyable, smooth read)
- Illustrating (your job will be to ask members for photos or images that fit the themes you find in the anthology, then to label and store the images in such a way that the formatter can access them easily to choose which ones will be used)
- There are other tasks too. If you feel you have a skill that we could use, please just reply to this email.