Writer’s Mail
February 19, 2014
First and Third Meeting February 18, 2014 at Barnes and Noble
Cindi shares part of her novel North Road. Lisa notices there’s a lot of introspection, but she would like to learn more from the narrative and dialogue instead. Andy suggests changing the POV to first person. Pat liked the interplay between characters at the dinner scene but she agrees that she should get to the end faster. Millie thought some of the descriptions were beautiful. Overall, there’s a little too much telling and not enough showing. Jerry suggests cutting the last sentence.
Andy reads from two short stories. The first story; Millie and Lisa thought it was interesting. Lisa wonders if it should be longer. Pat asks a question about word choice. Ruth wonders why one character doesn’t have a bigger reaction to being slapped. Cindi wonders if the character can go without the slap and instead throw something to the ground. As for the second story; Lisa thinks there’s a section that could get cut right away. Pat wonders why the clone would be clothed. Jerry has a problem with the face of the clone. Pat wonders how the clone is able to speak at the end. John wonders if the first line could be skipped altogether.
Amit reads from an untitled work. Jerry and Pat wonder whose story it is. The first person we meet is not the main character, but his daughter and fiancée are. Pat thinks the garden scenes and the kitchen scenes were really well done and very descriptive of all five senses. Bob thinks the first paragraph was much too short and needed more lines to breathe and set the tone. Jerry notes a conflict between father and daughter and another between the church and best man that never gets resolved.
Judith reads from My Mother, Savior of Men. Sometimes we just need to make up new words. Andy wonders why chapter nine was so short because it just seems like a summary. Judith describes it as a bridge. Pat wants more description of the furniture the main protagonist is making in juxtaposition with the craziness of his family.
Jerry shares a section of Capital Crimes. Pat asks a question about the use of one word in particular. Amber asks a question about the stutterer. Millie likes the part with the wife, showing the character has a sensitive side.
Who’s Up Next?
February 25: Ruth Imhoff (chapter, Motto of the Hound), Ryan Wagner (poems), Deb Kellerman (chapter), Carol Hornung (scene, Ghost of Heffron College), Jack Freiburger (??).
March 4: Lisa McDougal (chapter 12, Tebow Family Secret), Cindi Dyke (chapters, North Road), Bob Kralapp (short story, “Hole in the Wall”, Part 2), Millie Mader (chapter 51, Life on Hold), Ruth Imhoff (scene 2, Flame of Souls), and Jerry Peterson(chapters 30-33, Capitol Crimes).
March 18: Lisa McDougal (chapter, Tebow Family Secret), Kashmira Sheth & Amit Trivedi (chapter 2, novel), Cindi Dyke (chapters, North Road), Pat Edwards (???), Andy Pfeiffer (chapter, The Void), and Judith McNeil (chapter 9, My Mother, Savior of Men).
Local Author’s Slam at Mystery to Me Bookstore – This Weekend!
http://www.mysterytomebooks.com/
Come listen to local authors read from their work this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at Mystery to Me Bookstore in Madison (1863 Monroe Street)! Full schedule is on their website, but here are some names you might be interested in:
Carol Hornung of 2nd and 4th reads at 3:00pm Saturday, February 21
Alex Bledsoe, who spoke once at Fifth Tuesday, reads at 4:00pm Saturday, February 21
Spike Pederson of 1st and 3rd reads at 4:15pm Saturday, February 21
Fifth Tuesday . . .
Lock our next Fifth Tuesday in on your calendar now . . . April 29 at Mystery To Me Bookstore.
First-and-third group hosts. We will gather at our usual hour of 7 p.m., and, yes, this is a potluck event, so plan now for the food you will bring to share.
We do have a writing challenge for the night and here it is: Coffee shop stories . . . Write a story, poem, essay or film scene in which a coffee shop is involved. The coffee shop may be the immediate scene or be nearby or be referred to in some way. You decide. Max length: 500 words.
This writing challenge is a competition. The best piece will earn its author a critique of the first 50 pages of her/his writing project and dinner on the town with our judge. Madison novelist Andrea Thalasinos – An Echo Through the Snow and Traveling Light, both published by Forge Books – will read all the entries and select the winner. She teaches sociology at Madison College.
There is a $5 fee to participate that you can pay when you walk in the door at Mystery To Me.
A critique you might pay $100 or more for and you get it for only a $5 investment, that’s something worth going for. So start writing your coffee shop mini-masterpiece now.
Deadline Approaches for Short Story Contest
The Wisconsin Public Radio program To the Best of Our Knowledge is running a short story contest. If your story is one of the top three, it will be turned into a radio play that will air on TTBook.
Big point number 1: Your story must be sci-fi. It must be based on real science, and it must be set in the near future.
To get you going, here are some themes ideas you might use, all suggested by TTBook: communication, energy, computing, robotics, biomedicine, drones, spaceflight, nanotechnology, ecological concerns, food production, reproduction, end-of-life, and surveillance.
Your story must run no less than 500 words and no more than 600, so it can be read aloud in three minutes.
Big point number 2: Your entry – only one – must be submitted by midnight March 1.
To get more info on the contest and to submit your story, go to http://www.ttbook.org/3-minute-futures
Book Scented Candles!
Like the smell of old books? Want your house to smell like Dumbledore’s Office, the Oxford Library, or the Shire? Check out these candles for book lovers on Etsy shop Frostbeard!
Great word . . .
From Word Spy Paul McFedreis:
glowface
Meaning: noun. A face lit up by a device screen or computer monitor; a person whose face is lit in this way. – verb. Also: glowfacer.
– glowfacing pp.
Example Citations:
“It’s a Glowface world. That’s the term my author father coined to describe people who always have their faces buried in a computer screen… Suddenly, from one corner of the world to the other, glowfacing emerged. What first seemed like a harmless phenomenon is now changing the way we interact.”
– Cody Matera, Why I Will Never Get Sucked Into My iPhone, Dot Complicated, May 22, 2013
“So long live the touch screen and long live the Glowface.
– Kate Stevens, Why we’re all going to be Glowfacers, AxiCom, June 27, 2010
Earliest Citation:
“He looked geeky, like we all do, staring at the little screen, a slight LCD glow on his face. All of his showmanship died, sadly, when he converted over to Serato. I am saddened by this, but am also a victim. All I am saying is this *might* be a ticket out of LCD glowface hell.”
– Dave Diem Martinez, Wacom Dips Toe In Club Scene With Nextbeat Wireless DJ Controller, Gizmodo, March 16, 2009
The last word . . .
“If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.” — Peter Handke
Tuesdays with Story 
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