Abilene Writers Guild Meeting Minutes
October 27, 2005
Center for Contemporary Arts Building
Barbara Rollins called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. and invited the members to offer feedback on how the workshop could be improved for next year. No one gave specific comments, but several expressed their satisfaction with this year's program.
Financial Report:
Current balance is $3,115.35. Workshop expenses were $3,391 (although not all receipts have been collected yet), and the income from the contest totaled $4,095.
Announcements
- Bring unwrapped gifts for CPS children to the November meeting. This is a great cause and a way to serve the community and promote writing, education, and literacy with gifts of books and education toys.
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Everyone needs to sign up to help with refreshments for our monthly meetings. For more information, contact Sue Davis. This is a great time for writer-to-writer conversation time.
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November meeting will be on the 3rd Thursday to avoid conflicting with Thanksgiving. Be prepared to come on November 17.
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There will be no meeting in December.
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Members Only contests will begin in January and the categories will mimic those of the annual contest. The first entries will be due January 10, 2006. Watch the newsletter for more information.
Brags and Sags
- Ginny Greene received a rejection for one of her submissions, but the editor liked it enough to recommend another place to send it.
- Jan Carrington won honorable mention in a Writer's Digest contest. Congratulations, Jan!
- Karen Witemeyer received word that her story has been officially accepted for Cup of Comfort for Christians and will be released in March 2006.
Program
As is customary for AWG, this month our program centered on a debriefing session from the annual contest and workshop. Several members volunteered to read the judge's comments from their entries and some even shared their work. Laura Thaxton, Ginny Greene, Cheryl Vorhauer, Brandon Davis, Sharon Ellison, Barbara Rollins, and Barbara Darnell each shared some of their judges' comments. Barbara Rollins also picked out a few comments to share from some of the non-winning entries.
We also briefly discussed the idea of clarifying the contest guidelines for novels to indicate that the one-page synopsis should be double-spaced.
Anyone interested in posting their entry on the AWG webpage is encouraged to do so. Beware, though, that some publishers will consider such a piece as published even if it has limited exposure on a "members only" site. However, this is a great way to advertise for your writing and offer people a sample of your style and flair.
Minutes respectfully submitted by:
Karen Witemeyer
AWG Secretary