We meet at 4:30 PM for a one-hour critique session. (See below for details on participation in our critique sessions.) Since our meeting room is just down the hall from the hospital cafeteria, and since there are numerous "to go" options for food just outside the hospital, we try to open the room early for those who want to join us for dinner and fellowship. There is a 30-minute break between the critique session and meeting start time as well.
From 6:00 PM to about 8:00 PM, we open the public portion of our meeting with prayer and a Bible devotion. Next, we cover the latest good news and reports from our members. If we have learned anything new about the writing life and/or business of writing, we share that as part of our new business.
After the business is taken care of, we may have a speaker from outside the group, we may work on a writing exercise, or we may receive a presentation from one of our own members. Our speakers have included authors like Jan Watson who won the 2004 "Operation First Novel" award from the Jerry B. Jenkins Writer's Guild, the publishers from "Kentucky Monthly" magazine, our local poet laureate, and many more.
In our writing exercises, we have a lot of fun and always learn something new, even if it's just that it's hard to read a fill-in-the-blanks story while laughing, and that knowing parts of speech is worth the humorous result at the end. As for our members speaking to us, we believe in spreading our wings and practicing what we have learned about writing and speaking in the comforting presence of our fellow Christian writers. Our members have spoken on topics such as personal journal writing, how to speak about your writing, how to write book reviews, and much, much more.
Finally, as part of the meeting, we will collect an offering to help our speaker/scholarship fund since the dues paid by members are mostly applied to production of our group newsletters. In addition, we exchange of prayer requests--especially those regarding our writing and/or writing ministries--and ask that if you put one in, you please take one out before you leave. If we have had a speaker, we will have some time at the end of the meeting for attendees to purchase any wares the speaker may have provided for sale.
CRITIQUE SESSION NOTES: The monthly critique exchange is one of our greatest membership benefits and it has helped improve the writing of our members and started many of them on the road to being published--and paid. Visitors may be invited to share work they have brought with them if members have already had the opportunity to share their work and receive critiques. Visitors are also welcomed and encouraged to sit in during our critique sessions to learn how we work in them, and they are even encouraged to share their opinions. After all, writers are readers too. More information about critiques, such as what to bring and why we prioritize time for member critiques, can be found on our detailed critique page. Choose Critique Groups from the side menu or just Click Here.
If any or all of these activities sound interesting to you, we welcome you to join us on any 2nd Saturday throughout the year. We look forward to meeting and visiting with you and learning about you as a writer whether you are just starting out or have already been published multiple times. We gather to learn from each other and to walk together down the road from creation to publication, whether that means publishing a memory book for our grandchildren or writing the next great best seller. We hope you will join us soon.
P.S. If there are some activities you would like to see increased or decreased as part of our meeting format, please get in touch with us by e-mail, or attend our annual planning meeting in January to help us brainstorm the upcoming year. We welcome and encourage as many ideas as we can gather.
