Meeting Minutes December 21 2023

Meeting attendees: Becky, Vickie, Judy and Michelle

Contests

The 2023 Edwin M Church award winner is our own Becky Rupp for her story "Muse"  So happy for her.   Link to the story can be found HERE  Judy confirmed that the contest will continue next year and will be expanded to multiple categories for youngsters involving pictures and prompts.  The adult category prompt will be determined by an open mic night with music and discussion.  All dates and details are still being determined.  Watch this space!

Also, the generous family of Edwin M Church have donated $35 to the Swanton Writer's Group to be used as we see fit.  Any ideas please contact Becky HERE or Michelle HERE.

Discussion tonight focused on advice for good story telling and generated a recommendation for the short story "You Were Perfectly Fine" by Dorothy Parker.  Read it HERE

Workshops/Events

See our Newsletter for more events upcoming.  January 9th Becky will be at the Lanford Library in Hyde Park giving a talk on the history of food.  Find more events at the Vermont Humanities council website.  

The Vermont Studio Center offers writers and artists in residency programs, talks etc.  Find more information HERE

Prompt Pieces

Michelle read  "An Atheist's Christmas," in which friends met in a coffee shop and debated Christmas and belief; Becky read "Elf," about Elf on the Shelf and the uncanny valley; and Vicky read a seasonable piece about climate change.

Our prompt for January is RESOLUTIONS. 

Next meeting is on Thursday, January 18, 6 PM at the Swanton Library. Hope to see you all there!

SWG December Newsletter

 The next meeting of the Swanton Writers Group will take place on Thursday, December 21, at 6 PM at the Swanton Public Library.

The Writing Prompt for this month is Christmas or an equivalent seasonal holiday. Try a poem, an essay, a memoir, a short story and come prepared to share – or bring a selection from your current work. All writers welcome!

IN THE NEWS:

Subscribe to the Vermont Arts Calendar! This is a statewide, crowdsourced directory of arts and culture events around the state. Check it out HERE

See upcoming events at Phoenix Books HERE There’s a virtual presentation by Raeleen D’Agostino Mautner on Tuesday, December 5, 7 PM, on her book 45 Ways to Live Life Like an Italian.

Who’s writing what at the Vermont College of Fine Arts? On Tuesday, December 5, at 7 PM  Writing Faculty members will be sharing their selections of their work. Available via Zoom. It’s free: to register.  Go HERE

From Vermont Public, a live reading of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory by actor Dan Butler will take place on Tuesday, December 19, 7-9 PM. Tickets are free, but must be reserved.

Looking for some poetry before Christmas? The Fletcher Free Library (235 College Street,  Burlington) is hosting The Poetry Experience on Saturday, December 23, 1-3 PM. This is a local writing/sharing circle that meets every 2 nd and 4 th Saturday. Just drop in – poets, writers, and creative people of all ages are welcome!

Celebrate Jolabokaflod! On Christmas Eve in Iceland everyone traditionally gets a new book –and then cuddles up with a cup of cocoa and reads. Jolabokaflod – which translates as “Christmas book flood” – dates back to World War II. Read all about it HERE

BEST BOOKS FOR WRITERS or Good Picks for Jolabokaflod

Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer, longtime copy editor at Random House, is a perfect delight of a style manual. (A copy editor, says Dreyer, “is to prose what a cobbler is to shoes: a mender.”) He starts by advising everyone to stop usingsuch words as “very,” “really,” and “actually” for a week - which, he says, will make you “a considerably better writer than you were at the beginning.”

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper, a lexicographer at Merriam Webster, is a fascinating look at both the making of dictionaries and the evolution of the English language. English, Stamper points out, isn’t solely a product of the Latin, French, and German speakers who invaded the British Isles; it’s also the result of Shakespeare’s fart jokes, Lewis Carroll’s word inventions, and 16-year-old Peaches Monroe’s inspirational description of her eyebrows as “on fleek.”

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.”

Ernest Hemingway

Happy Holidays to all!