Club Notes: Shawano Area Writers

The Shawano Area Writers met May 20 in the Udder Room at Farm Inn. There were 11 members in attendance — Dennis Vickers, Irma Timmons-Arndt, John Mutter Jr., Manuel Moraleda, Twilla Beyer, Wendy Goerl, Lee Pulaski, Tom Thorstenson, Trudy Bosman, Terry Misfeldt and Barb King.

Trilby Beauprey McIntosh will be greatly missed by the group. She had served as secretary for three years.

First to be discussed was the 2021 George Putz Memorial Student Writing Contest awards ceremony held May 23 at the Mielke Arts Center at 1 p.m. Anyone who wanted to help set up needed to be there around noon. It was also decided that Fiona Hoffman from Gresham would receive her $2,000 writing scholarship at that time.

The annual dues of $5 were collected from each member.

Misfeldt brought up the idea of doing a workshop before each meeting for those who might like to learn skills like fleshing out a character or writing conversation that moves the story along. Members of the group could give the hour lesson. He wanted us to think about the suggestion and come came with ideas.

Next up was the voting-in of new officers, because the last group of officers had served four years instead of three due to COVID-19 keeping us from meeting. The new officers are Dennis Vickers, president; Lee Pulaski, vice president; John Mutter, treasurer; and Barbara King, secretary.

Vickers announced that the next meeting would be held June 17, the third Thursday of the month. The location was not decided at this time. Everyone will be advised of the location before the next meeting.

The Writers then went into the readings. Wendy Goerl read a section of her new photo essay book entitled “COVID County Fair.” Goerl has been taking photos of the carnival rides at the fair since the 1990s and has expanded to take in all aspects of the Shawano County Fair. She has 3,460 images of the fair.

Lee Pulaski read an excerpt from his 10th Zachary Gagewood mystery novel located in Gresham, entitled “Dine Out and Die.” Alice, a rather forceful newcomer to the town, is discussing with Zachary the fact that no one wants to back her plan of putting a library in town. First, she wanted to put it in Zachary’s bookstore, then she tried getting the town board to put it in the newly restored ballroom. Alice can’t understand why no one is willing to follow her plans. She seems to have forgotten she called the village board doddering old fools.

Trudy Boseman showed us how she is keeping a journal and posting small pictures with the writings. She also read a poem called “Memories.” Every Wednesday, Writer’s Digest puts a poetry prompt on its website, and Boseman likes to see what she can come up with.

Barb King read the prologue from her mystery novel “The Children in the Garden.” The year is 1981 and 7-year-old Linda is impatiently waiting for her mother to pick her up after school when a tall thin man comes up to her. He calls her by her name, but Linda says she can’t talk to him because he’s a stranger. He convinces her he isn’t a stranger, giving her a red plastic heart ring. Linda takes the hand of the man and goes to his truck. Linda’s mother, never noticed the truck pulling out of the parking lot as she pulled in or her little girl crying and pounding on the window calling, “Mommy.”

Irma Timmons-Arndt read her story “Two Lucky Ducks.” She had gone into the South Forty and spotted two fuzzy ducklings in a box. She whistled and clucked, and they came over to her. She would have liked to adopt these two but remembered the last encounter with ducks. Her husband had gotten 30 ducks for their pond. Every day he counted the ducks, and every day there was one less, until they all were gone. Timmons-Arndt called these two lucky ducks because she resisted her urge to take them home.

Dennis Vickers recited the hilarious poem he had written for his brother-in-law’s 60th birthday. It retold the time his brother-in-law was dancing on a bar in Cuba and fell off, breaking both ankles. Vickers said the poem with a Cuban accent, and when he was Facetiming, he wore a sombrero and had a cigar in his mouth.

Manny Moraleda talked about the trip he and his wife took to Holland, Michigan. He also gave each woman in the group a bookmark of delicate flowers made from melted wax, that he had made.

After the readings, the meeting was adjourned.