Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
Tuesdays with Story
December 5, 2016

Contest time . . .

TWS alumnus Pat Tomlinson will be the judge for our next writing contest. Here’s the payoff, he’ll critique 50 pages of the novel the winner is writing. The winner, that can be you.

When will the contest take place? At our next Fifth Tuesday. That’s January 31.

So . . . tomorrow evening we need to develop the writing prompt that we’ll use for the contest. Come with your best ideas.

The maximum length for an entry will be 500 words.

Deadline will be midnight January 22. That will give Pat nine days to read the entries and make his selection of the best of the best.

Those who’ve participated in past contests remember there is an entry fee. That’s $10. The winner gets all the money and must spend it taking Pat to dinner at one of our finer dining establishments in the Madison area. Over dinner, you and he will talk through his critique of your 50 pages.

Pat has three novels out and a couple weeks ago got a contract from Tor for his fourth. Check him out at his website, http://www.patrickstomlinson.com/

Where we are tomorrow evening . . .

We’ll be at the Alicia Ashman Branch Library and again on December 20. We meet at the usual time of 7 p.m., but we do have to adjourn by 8:45 because the library locks the doors at 9:00. Food’s welcome, so bring cookies someone.

If you’ve not been to Alicia Ashman before, it’s in the shopping center at Old Sauk Road and High Point. For your GPS, the address is 733 North High Point Road.

And here’s who’s up: Pat Edwards (rough draft, What to Pack for a Hero’s Journey), Amber Boudreau (chapter 11, The Dragoneer), Kashmira Sheth (part 4, I Am From Here, Too), John Schneller (chapter 7, Final Stronghold), and Eva Mays (chapter 7, Dhuoda).

They have posted to our Yahoo group. We can accommodate one more submission, so if you have something short you’d like to have critiqued, go ahead and post it now. The first writer who does gets the open slot.

The editor . . .

Nora O’Reilly is our December editor. Send her your good stuff that you’d like to share with the group.