Hello again, all! As Jerry pointed out, there will be nothing in your inboxes for weeks…and then you get a flood! Well, anyway, at least all the news is good…
ANNOUNCEMENTS
PARTY ON: Please RSVP yes or no to The Pencils! 4th Annual Pirates of Five Mile River Anniversary Party! You can do this by e-mailing Carol McManus. Games and plenty of surprises…there's a lot of you attending so far. It's going to be a great afternoon!
NEW LITERARY JOURNAL: I've already sent out an e-mail regarding Tammy's new magazine, Whatever Literary Journal. They're soliciting submissions from Connecticut Writers. If you were at the meeting, you received a printed packet with the submissions guidelines I got from the website. Consider submitting!
SUBMISSIONS WORKSHOP: It's that time…many of you have requested that we hold our Submissions Workshop again—a "how-to" of getting your work out to markets. The last time we did it was in 2004, and not only have we gotten an influx of new members, there's several of you who said you'd be interested in attending a second time. I can run this as a lecture, a seminar, or just a discussion with question and answer, and I'D LIKE TO PRESENT THIS SOMETIME IN SEPTEMBER OR EARLY OCTOBER. Suggestions and thoughts welcome! Want to do it at someone's house on a Pencils! off-night during the week? Want to make it a weekend with lunch? How about a Friday night thing? GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK, GANG!!
SUBMIT, SUBMIT, SUBMIT: Who wants to think about February? Well, the only reason I am is because that's when we have our ANNUAL REJECTION SLIP PARTY. This is your reminder: SUBMIT, SUBMIT, SUBMIT now! That way you'll have something to burn…or not…by then…
NEW PRESS RELEASES: New press releases with updated website and contact information will be going out this week/early next week to the local papers.
THE CHILDREN'S SECTION: The next time we meet in Borders, we may be in a different spot in the store, hopefully to the art section or something of similar size. The children's section, which is adjacent to where we meet, is just too distracting (and that's all I'm going to say).
Finally, WELCOME NEW MEMBERS!! Carol, Claudia, Nick…Maria, I know you've been here only once before…WELCOME. We hope you liked what you saw and you'll come again.
We had great attendance this week, but with only five readers, which gave us plenty of time to discuss everyone's work in more depth. Special thanks for keeping within our suggested page/space limit! It's workin'!! Keep it up, folks!!!
1. Kaye kicked off the meeting with a flash fiction piece called "Sandstories," which she had written for an assignment for class up at Goddard but is now going to send out because, why the hell not? "He reaches into his cooler for a cold pineapple juice. He watches as the sea reclaims the seagull, the crab, the panicked fish, and the pelican. And he smiles. Because tomorrow, he will begin again."
2. Newcomer Nick was next; he presented a piece called "(Negative) Sex" (which initially had been part of something larger). "The next day Richie saw the hickey on my neck and asked me if I touched her tits. I lied and told him that I did. Neither of us had touched a breast before and neither of us did that summer in 1959. But we talked about it a lot."
3. Roger—welcome back, you've been gone forever!—brought us another chapter in his book How My Retirement Went South called "Hazy, Hot and Humid." "Every time we checked the seven-day forecast on The Weather Channel, it was like watching a rerun—"Highs in the 90s with lows in the 80s and afternoon boomers."
4. Joyce read Chapter 10 of her novel Venus Ascending. "Estelle looked with hope at the priest who had baptized her, blessed her at her confirmation and communion ceremonies, and bound her with Murray in marriage. His face had crinkled over the years, and his back was bent, but his eyes were as caring as ever."
5. Maria—her second meeting—presented a short piece called "Flowers for My Edna." "Bath time found Edna kneeling at the tub, soaping up washcloths as she scrubbed and sang away the dirt and grime of the day. Then we'd snuggle up to her sample shape waiting to hear our bedtime story."
QUOTES OF THE NIGHT
Roger: (To Joyce): You don't deserve [a copy]. You were late. It's not like you got out of work late, or anything!
Kaye: We're discussing the significance of the word 'tit' in 1959.
Roger: See what you missed, Tom?
Jerry: (looking at cell phone): Burgeoning…to grow or develop quickly, flourish.
Kaye: Jesus Christ, you have a dictionary on your phone?
Tom: And this is ONLY the beginning!
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