Eleven participants attended online, and eight were present in the library meeting room, for a total of nineteen (our thanks to our librarian for the total). Nora Perry led the meeting in Sheila’s absence (although Sheila was present online from England.) Librarian Christine Wong managed the technology with assistance from Matthew McAyeal and Nora. Jean Harkin, Sheila, and Nora took Minutes. Nora made announcements and introduced Judy Beaston to speak about the website and this month’s contest/ezine.
Judy announced that the website is currently unavailable for administrators (fine for the visiting, but can’t be edited), so that contest votes could not be tallied. (Sheila added that we really need help fixing the website. If anyone knows anything about WordPress, or knows someone who knows something, please volunteer… please!) Judy said that results will be circulated when the website is fixed. Meanwhile, she congratulated all of this month’s contest entrants as winners and listed the entries, with descriptive blurbs, and authors as follows:
JANUARY CONTEST:
- “Tontine for Two” (non-voting entry by contest host, Gary Romans.)
- “A Heavy Question: by Peter Letts
- “A Win for a Child and His Cat” by Sheila
- “Board Games” by Jessie Collins
- “Life Won, Lives Lost” by Lyndsay Docherty
- “The Path to Perdition” by Von Pelot
- “This Wasn’t Supposed to Happen” by Karin Krafft
- “What If the Other One Won?” by Ria Russell
- “When One Door Closes” by Judy
- “Winning and Losing” by Ruth Leibowitz
- “Winning Words” by Jean
Judy announced the upcoming contests:
- February, “They were a Perfect Couple until. . .”, (host Ric)
- March, “Embrace the Unknown,” (host Karin) and
- April, “Art in Life, and Art coming to Life” (host Mary B)
Entries are due the first Sunday of each month, by midnight. Maximum wordcount 1,200 words. No minimum. Send entries to contest @ portlandwritersmill . org (remove spaces) and go to https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-contests/ for more info.
SPEAKER:
Nora introduced our speaker, Erika Giles, who is a Writers’ Mill member and author of Becoming Hungarian, a Memoir. Amazon described this book as “a fascinating story of resilience and discovery that will inspire anyone who has struggled with their identity and tried to come to terms with the past.”
Find notes from Erika’s excellent talk here: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/25/erika-giles-on-memoir-research-publishing-and-more-jan-2025/
Erika said that group members may contact her for further information by email at erikagiles@comcast.net and through her website www.erikagiles.com.
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:
After a short break, Ria and Jean made some book recommendations to the group. And Jean offered to give away a free book on marketing with the purchase of her novel for $10.
- Create a Story Published by Chartwell Books (Ria)
- Keys for Writers by Ann Raimes (Ria) &
- The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (Ria)
- How To Promote Your Book by Jan Yager (Jean)
Ria has read and highly recommends the three books above. She is planning to read the following so, so I’m adding them to this list:
- “How Can I Find a Literary Agent: and 101 other Questions asked by Writers”; written by Chip MacGregor with Holly Lorincz
- “Step by Step Pitches & Proposals: A Workbook for Writers,” also written by Chip MacGregor with Holly Lorincz.
She points out that Holly Loriincz is the owner of Lorincz Literary Services. She has works on Amazon as well, including a few in the Biography/Memoir genre. Apparently, her agency is all about helping writers create, polish and publish their works (for a price), which you can obtain by emailing Ms. Lorincz directly or contacting her literary services agency.
CRITIQUES:
Nora mentioned we have done group critiques of works by members in the past, spending half an hour or more on a single piece, but lately no one has requested such a critique. At December’s meeting some members suggested they might benefit from less in depth critiques, where a brief excerpt of something is read by the author, followed by a question they would really like answered. Authors of entries in this month’s contest entries to read were given the opportunity to read portions of their submissions and ask one specific question for critique, so we can see how this would work. If you would like a critique of this kind sometime, just bring your work along and we’ll see what we have time for
Sheila and Jean volunteered.
Sheila read from “A Win for a Child and His Cat” and asked if the story would be suitable for children but also enjoyable for adults. The group seemed to think middle grade readers over age 9 would be right. Readability checkers online were recommended, but some of these require you to create an account or pay after a certain number of uses. They also have lots of banner ads, so users should be careful where they click. :
- https://app.readable.com/text/
- https://hemingwayapp.com/readability-checker
- https://readabilityformulas.com/readability-scoring-system.php
- https://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp
- https://www.wordcalc.com/readability/
- Common Sense Media gives useful information
- I’ve not tested this, but one member said if you select the word count option in the Google Docs tools menu you will find three indications of the reading level of the document you’re creating.
- In more recent versions of Word, there is a readability and accessibility checker https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-your-document-s-readability-and-level-statistics-85b4969e-e80a-4777-8dd3-f7fc3c8b3fd2
Jean read from “Winning Words” and asked if any changes should be made to ensure this was an imaginary story, not an historic myth. One suggestion was accepted, to change the name of the island in the story, as, by chance, the name chosen was that of a real island.
WRITING EXERCISE:
Nora noted there was time for a writing exercise, and she reminded us of former speaker Nancy Linnon’s recommendation of Natalie Goldberg’s book, Writing Down the Bones. (Goldberg also has some wonderful card prompts and courses through Shambala Publications.). She presented the group with this exercise.
Choose 1. Write for 10min. Stay with the details.
- 1. A memory of bread and butter
- 2. A memory of drinking out of a bottle
- 3. A hill you once knew
- 4. A recollection of mist
- 5. A moment in a library
Sheila, Matthew, and Ria read aloud what they wrote, and we all loved the beautiful phrase “pirate skeletons jumping out at them.”
Sad Announcement
Before the close of the meeting, Sheila made a sad announcement to the group that one of our members, Robin Layne Wilkinson, had passed away the previous day, on January 18. If any of you would like to share brief memories of her for Sheila to send to her son, please just reply to this email. Thank you.
Nora adjourned the meeting at 3 pm.
Further Notes
Next meeting: Sunday Feb 16, when popular author, speaker, and writing motivator Minnette Meador returns to talk about point of view and research.
Next contest: deadline Sunday Feb 2, “They were a Perfect Couple until. . .”,
Sheila will add minutes and notes from this meeting’s speaker to the website when we regain access to it. Meanwhile, find
- schedule of upcoming speakers at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/schedule/
- upcoming contest info at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-contests/
and PLEASE help us find website help! Thanks.
The website is running again. Yay! Hence being able to post this