Magic Hour Writers

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Sunday, September 29, 2013

Meeting Minutes September 12, 2013

ATTENDEES:
Cathy Dziubla
Bernardo Gonzalez
Pam Gonzalez
Luneil Morrow
Joan Pulsateri
Suzy Stueben
Judy Whitcomb

NEW MEMBER:
Welcome to Magic Hour Writers  Suzy Stueben who joined our group this week.  She brings Zilla, the little garden gnome who just can’t garden.  Glad you are with us, Suzy.

MEMBER NEWS:
Pam’s new magazine for the church she works for will be out by Sunday 9/15 that is “Back to Church” Sunday.  Celebration Magazine will be published quarterly.  The magazine will contain more personal stories than the church’s weekly publication such as:
      ·         A story about a teacher who gave up computers for lent
·         A selection written by a teenage girl
Pam works with a retired editor who is a church member.  She plans on bringing copies to share to our next meeting.

Bernardo has been approached by a new commander of his platoon to create an email newsletter for the platoon. The newsletter will contain information about events, military news, etc.  Another important feature will be information about job fairs and other employment opportunities.  Some service personal have employment issues when returning to non-military life.

Suzy had an interesting trip with a friend who invited her because she was at the top of her friend’s “crazy-enough-to-do-it” list.  The trip was to the Mansfield Ohio State Reformatory.
The reformatory was opened in the 1800s on what had been a civil war camp.  It has been the site of movies such as the Shawshank Redemption and Airforce 1.  The architecture was very interesting with a huge discrepancy in style between the warden and other prison personnel’s area and the prisoner’s. There are Ghost Tours offered there where people may even stay overnight.  Suzy’s group didn’t do that but she had a great experience anyway.

WRITING:
Luneil shared a story that she is planning on submitting to a Chicken Soup publication.  The story was about the time her daughter had a major stroke and was in a coma at a time when Luneil’s husband was becoming very ill.  It was a beautiful story. Our group gave basically grammatical suggestions for editing.

Cathy then read a short essay that she wrote a while ago about two conjoined twins that subsequently died after their birth.  The uplifting essay framed her reaction to a newspaper article that told about the twins.  Cathy’s work focused on all the reasons the twins should have lived, although briefly. 

Suzy shared the further adventure of Zilla. In this section, Zilla’s efforts are aided by the family’s children.  The twin boys spent most of the time running around the garden while Zilla decided that there should be a rest spot in the garden under the shade of a half dead tree.  All this occurred as Purr, the cat, was enjoying a saucer of milk at the tea party.

Judy read from her Emma and Guenever story.  Although she had read it before, she hadn’t done much with it in a year or so but started to work on it again recently and had revised it.  She is hoping to turn it into a chapter book for middle grade students.  Pam suggested that she thought the use of “Mom and Dad” stood out from the tone of the language used.  With the help of suggestions from the group, Judy decided to change it to “Mum and Da”.  Bernardo did a sketch of Emma that Judy thought was right on.

COOK BOOK DISCUSSION
We reviewed the current state of the cook book.  Everyone is going to try to fill in the gaps.  We hope that all members of MHW will be represented with at least one entry.

We also discussed some options for getting the book into print.  The only conclusion that we came to is it will be costly.  More future discussion is necessary.

Judy shared the picture of Luneil’s Doxie the Dog that she did.  Everyone liked it.  In view of Bernardo’s artistic ability, we suggested he do some of the illustrations for the book.  They don’t all have to be the computer graphics Judy does.

For the next meeting, Judy will do a dummy book of what we have at that point.

Miscellaneous
·         Next meeting, Judy will bring her computer and demonstrate Dragon Dictate and Scrivener (a writer’s organizational writing program)

·         After the meeting a few members discussed meeting more than once a month.  We will discuss that at the next meeting.

Our next meeting is scheduled for the night of the 5th Annual Indiana Writers Consortium Banquet so members need to decide if we will change the meeting date in October.
 
jlw

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