Friday's On the Edge meeting and Saturday Critique group

I got permission from the poetry group, On the Edge, to include any information about their events and meetings on this blog. As many of you know, On the Edge grew out of WSJC when it began as a critique group for those members interested in writing and submitting poetry for contests and/or publication. The group is now a chapter of Missouri State Poetry Society; and as such, it maintains contact with poets all over Missouri, and takes part in the MSPS Summer and Winter contests. It's a great opportunity for poets to grow through sharing and critiquing each other's work. We also encourage members to attend such events as the state conference each year and other retreats and conference such as Lucidity Poetry Retreat held in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in April. If this appeals to you, contact Birma Castle at
birmacastel@yahoo.com for more information. The event is held at the Best Western Inn of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs which also gives us a special rate on rooms and has a very good conference center which we use for meetings. This years date are April 20-22. The cost of the conference is $35.00 registration and $18.00 for the awards banquet held on Thursday evening.

The other thing I wanted to let everyone know about is Saturday Writers. We had some good critiquing and some interesting discussion on several subjects. One of the things that came up was how to deal with that pesky backwards apostrophe when letters are dropped from the beginning of a word when writing on your computer. We had noticed that there was no way to automatically have the apostrophe turn toward the absent letters rather than towards the actual letters as if it were the beginning of an internal quotation. Annette Rey came up with a way of tricking her computer by typing any letter then an apostrophe then continuing the word. Save that then go back and delete the first letter and save again. Voila, a correctly placed apostrophe. Thank you, Annette. It is a little thing, I know; but one that drives us English majors and compulsive types crazy.

February 12 WSJC meeting

While our numbers were few, we had a very interesting meeting and a lot of laughter as Verna led us through a writing exercise called writing in the round. Each person chose a genre and a title, wrote their opening line and passed their creation to the next person. By the time we got our stories back there had been many twists and turns and some downright diabolical inventions resulting in strangely cohesive, often funny results. Hopefully some can be developed into material for publication.

It is a shame that the weather and flu cut down our attendance. We did decide to sponsor a multi-age level contest with several categories to be decided on next month. I am hoping to get this contest advertised at the county's Middle schools and high school for the youth division at at several of the colleges in the area. While there will be entrance fees, we want to keep those reasonable to encourage writers to try to get involved.

We hope to see writers next week, with copies in hand, at our Critique group. Remember to bring double spaced typed copies of a book chapter, short fiction or non-fiction or an essay. We do look at some poetry, but most of those interested in poetry critiques can join On The Edge, our twice monthly poetry group which is a member group of the Missouri State Poetry Society. See you next week at the Festus Library. February 20, 2010, at 10:00 a.m.

Hello to all the writers in Jefferson County, Missouri. We have created this blog in order to get news out to members and hopeful writers in this area about events, contests, and opportunities to publish. We are hopeful that members will contribute writings and opinions to this blog so we have opened it to all persons on our email list. We would love to see poetry(sorry, Dennis), short fiction and non-fiction stories, short essays, etc. published here.
We also hope that this sight will serve as a bulletin Board to keep members aprised of upcoming events such as the Lucidity Poetry Retreat that is coming up in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, April 20-22, 2010. Registration is $35.00 and the awards banquet is $18.00. The retreat takes place at the Best Western Inn of the Ozarks which gives the poets attending special room rates for the retreat. Contact Birma Castle, director of the retreat at birmacastle@yahool.com. She will e-mail you all the details and contact information. This is a great time to meet other poets and have work critiqued by serious poets.

Our regular meetings of the Writers Society of Jefferson County take place on the second Saturday of the month in Conference Room B at Jefferson Regional Medical Center from 9:00 a.m. until noon. We also have a critique that meets on the third Saturday from 10:00 a.m. until noon at the Festus Public Library. Hope to see you at some og these events.