Book Signing by Denise Kaminsky

Our own Denise Kaminsky will be signing her Nittany lion books at the PSU Hazleton bookstore on Saturday. She'll be there from 11 to 3. These cute books are about the Penn State mascot and if you're a fan, they would make a great gift for a youngster. Here's her latest book cover:






Our next meeting is November 7th at 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in downtown Wilkes-Barre. We are an open, multi-genre group. We'd love to see you there.

No meeting August 1st

There will be no Wordsmith meeting on Thursday, August 1st, 2013. But come on the 15th for a great experience.

Writing tips from experts. Check out this cool website:
http://www.freelancewriting.com/ask-the-experts.php

And the best advice on getting an agent is here. Plus, there are a lot of cool tools!:
http://www.querytracker.net/

It may be summertime, but writers never go on vacation. Good ideas pop up anywhere. Keep a notebook handy or use your phone or device to save those great ideas!

Meeting change for July and member news

Wordsmiths won't be meeting on July 4th for obvious reasons. We won't be making that meeting up so will hope to see old and new members at the July 18th meeting.
Members of our group have been very busy either writing, publishing or sharing their writing knowledge. Summer is a time when some folks just go on vacation, but writers often get inspired by the summer months. Perhaps it is memories of their childhood when lots of free time allowed them to give rein to their imaginations.
Both Susan Denney and Glenda Race will have articles in the upcoming September issue of Faces magazine. Read more about Faces magazine here: http://www.cobblestonepub.com/magazine/fac/
Denise Kaminsky will have her third Nittany Lion picture book coming out this summer. Her books are offered at Amazon and Barnes and Noble and are in many local bookstores.
Jack Dunn will join Denise Kaminsky in offering teen writing workshops at the Kirby library on Mountain Top this summer. Here's the link for more information on the "Beneath the Surface" workshops:http://www.kirbylib.org/

Learning Writing from the Web

Mentors for writing can be hard to find. But there's lots of good advice out there on the Web.

Here's a few useful links for writers:









Mapletree Publishing has come up with a list of useful sites:
http://www.mapletreepublishing.com/Information/writing_links

The Writer magazine:
http://www.writermag.com/

Good info for writers of children's lit:
http://www.write4kids.com/index1.html

Harold Underdown writes an amazing blog for children's writers. Here's an example article:
http://www.underdown.org/slush.htm

Help for poets at Poetry Forge:
http://www.poetryforge.org/teaching.htm

Query Tracker: the ultimate resource for finding a literary agent:
/http://querytracker.net/

 An oldie but a goodie--Writer's Digest magazine: http://www.writersdigest.com/

Time for New Projects

Many of the Wyoming Valley Wordsmiths have finished a big project and are getting ready to take on another. It's an exciting time to be a writer with so many ways of getting writing out to the public.

This past meeting was a bit of this and a bit of that.

Tom Mooney brought us a short short story also known as flash fiction. Jack Dunn also read part of a short story and Denise Kaminsky read a query letter about a completed project which she is now trying to sell.

Denise has set up a busy book-signing schedule for her two Nittany Lion books.

Susan Denney was excited to share that she has seen the preliminary page layouts for some articles she wrote for Calliope Magazine which will appear in their May issue. 

We hope spring will inspire more members to join us. And we always welcome new members.

Our next meeting is March 21st.

Free Poetry Workshop

Here's something you don't see every day in the Wyoming Valley. Wilkes University is hosting a free poetry writing workshop. And they have chosen a very fine poet to teach it.

Tim Seibles, a nominee for the National Book Award in 2012, will be presenting in the Kirby Hall Salon from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Mr. Seibles has published in a number of the best literary journals and is a professor of creative writing at Old Dominion University.

You can read a few of his poems using the Amazon "look inside" feature here: http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Animal-Tim-Seibles/dp/0983294429/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1/175-3373085-2599231

Even more interesting, his book was published by the Etruscan Press which is a part of the Wilkes Creative Writing Department. According to the Times Leader, three Etruscan Press publications have been finalists for the National Book Award.

So think of spending your Valentine's Day afternoon thinking about poetry! 

What We Do

We are a critique group. We begin each session with a list of successes and news. If members have something to share about projects completed, sold or published, we do it here.

Then the critique part of the evening starts. The usual plan is for each member to bring five double-spaced pages for critique. The member brings enough copies to pass around so that the other members can make notes as they read.

That's what we usually do. And at this week's meeting, two members did just that. But we are a flexible group. One of us read an outline for her newest children's book about the Pennsylvania State Nittany Lion and we gave her suggestions on how she might improve the story line. One of us read a set of puzzles for possible submission to children's magazines and we gave feedback on those and gave her ideas about possible markets. Another member read a brainstormed list of possible children's book projects and the other members commented on those ideas and whether the projects were worth pursuing.



So basically what we do is support each other in our writing goals. It's a format that works.

Photos copyright Susan Denney. Members pictured are Denise Kaminsky, Jack Dunn, Glenda Race and Tom Mooney.

Wordsmiths Featured in the Times Leader

Mary Therese Biebel wrote a great feature for The Times Leader in the January 25th edition of The Guide. It featured the Wyoming Valley Wordsmiths. You can read the article here.

Jim Spock is interviewed about his award-winning play. And Susan Denney is interviewed about the group and what it does.

We'll wait and see if the great PR brings new members into the group.  It's great to have one of our own featured.

Success!

Here's a big shoutout to Wordsmith Glenda Race who has just finished an assignment for Faces Magazine. If you're not familiar with it, it's a social studies magazine for ages 9-14. It's published by the very prestigious Carus Publishing Group whose best-known magazine is Cricket.

This article is a direct result of Glenda's winning a scholarship to a Highlights Foundation workshop on writing for children's magazines.

Glenda's article is about the Nigerian film industry. Congratulations to her!

Welcome!

Wyoming Valley Wordsmiths is a critique group of writers from the Wilkes-Barre area of northeast Pennsylvania. Our interests are diverse as are our writing styles. We welcome all genres but concentrate on fiction.

We come from many backgrounds and include professional journalists, published authors, educators, and students. All of us are interested in making our writing better. We've seen a tremendous amount of success in the few years we've been organized. We've completed manuscripts and published articles, stories, and books.

We welcome new members. Our meetings are held on the first and third Thursdays of each month at the Barnes and Noble Wilkes-Kings in downtown Wilkes-Barre. Our meetings begin at 7:00 p.m.

Feel free to contact us through this email address for questions and to be added to our mailing list: susandenney@gmail.com