FEBRUARY 4, 2016

MEMBERS PRESENT:

Sharon Palmeri, Beverly Stanislawski, Sharon Buckman, George Miga,  Ruthann Graczyk, Marilyn Kessler, David Wilgus, Bob Philpot, Mary Ellen Beecher, Paul Mulligan, Amy Brailey, Marjorie Peterson, Luniel Morrow, Adam Sedia

OLD BUSINESS:

A vote for approval for the January 7, 2016 meeting was first given by MARY ELLEN BEECHER and seconded by DAVE WILGUS.

NEW BUSINESS:

SHARON PALMERI passed out a paper to the members pertaining to a discussion on last month’s additional education sessions.  The handout contained information on topics that could be discussed at our meetings.  The basic topics included plot, theme, dialogue, point of view, creating the story, poetry, children’s writing, self-publishing pros and cons, book layout and design.  Other topics were added to the original ten, such as, legal issues and historical writing.  Several of the members have volunteered to discuss some of these topics. 

LITERARY NEWS:

RUTHANN GRACZYK announced that there would be a SCBWI Conference in Naperville from April 29^th to May 1^st.  Registration for the Wild, Wild Midwest Conference began on February 1^st.

READINGS:

PAUL MULLIGAN read three pages of his short story, “A Costly Fare.”  This story, the first of a series of eight short stories, begins with middle aged Adam Newberry facing his weakness for beautiful women.   Struggling to remain faithful to his wife he meets a beautiful younger woman on a train ride into the city.  Managing to avoid running into her again he accidently runs into her at a hotel meeting with a client.

BEVERLY STANISLAWSKI read two of her romantic poems.   The first was a free verse poem entitled, “Love Song.”  This poem told of the beginning of a beautiful romance and the love that was found only to end as the vows “grew faint.”  The second poem, written in a new poetry type called Octetra, was entitled, “Dance of Love.”  This told of basically the same enduring love but in a different way, ending with, “We lost the tune that made us dance.”

DAVE WILGUS continued with his novel  entitled, The Joshua Henderson Story.  In this part of the story Chad and Cindy are taking their new son to the Cleveland Clinic.  Due to the baby’s constant crying and a previous diagnosis of jaundice they are suspecting a possible liver problem.

ADAM SEDIA read his three stanza rondeau poem entitled, “You and I.”  This beautiful poem tells of young lovers, a bride and groom, listening to a raging storm in the midnight sky , ending with, “from our embraces , never doomed to die, as you and I.”

AMY BRAILEY read the first two pages of her novel, Jon Everett and the Hall of History. The story begins with Jon falling asleep in his history class.  He is suddenly awakened as his head hits his desk and his friend, sitting next to him, begins to laugh.  Mr Everett, his teacher, asks him to stay after class.  After receiving a not so smart answer from his student the teacher assigns him some special homework for the weekend.

MARY ELLEN BEECHER continued with three pages of her memoir, Out of Control.  In this part of her memoir she tells of another problem she is having with her son.  After buying her son a car so she would not have to always be “driving Miss Daisy” around, she gets a phone call from her son asking her to pick him up.  Her son admitted he went with a friend to buy drugs, leaving his car at work, while his friend deserted him after taking his money.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:00 P.M

Respectfully submitted:

SHARON BUCKMAN