Conference Meets June 23rd

I am tempted to say that "you don't want to miss the speaker at the next Conference meeting" but the big picture is that we have had excellent, informative, fascinating, educational, inspiring, entertaining speakers since our first meeting.

So here it is - our next meeting is June 23d at the Hill Country University Center from 6 to 7:30 PM and our speaker is someone you DON'T WANT TO MISS.

Cassy Burleson, co-editor of “Her Texas: Story, Image & Song” (Wings Press, March 2015), is a product of the Bush and Burleson families of Texas and is from Groesbeck. She’s published poems and interviews in Whetstone, Stone Drum, Green Fuse, Beall House of Poetry and WordFest; a chapter in the 2009-2010 Langdon Review; many journalistic articles and reports; and has published academic research related to her 16-year longitudinal study of the effects on Jasper of the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. She edited and published a chapter in a book called “School to Work” that was listed among the Top 10 in education books sales at Jossey-Bass and wrote a chapter in “A Handbook on the Community College in America.” She’s been a newspaper reporter, magazine feature writer, editor, photographer, designer, public relations practitioner, textbook/video curriculum editor, consortium director, securities fraud investigator, and fundraiser, and has enjoyed 16 years as a senior lecturer of Journalism, PR & New Media at Baylor University. She’s also been a Kellogg Fellow, teaching briefly in France, Germany, Belgium & Great Britain. She received the Distinguished Professor at Mary Hardin-Baylor in 2001 and a Mortar Board award at Baylor in 2010. She was 2014 president of the American Studies Association of Texas and serves as an Economic Opportunities Advancement Corporation (EOAC) board member in Waco.

Also I am looking for someone(s) who would critique the work of a writer who is in prison. The sample I have is typewritten, and I will scan and email the chapter he sent to those interested.  He told me he has written 5 full length novels in the fantasy fiction genre.  I don't know his crime or sentence, all I know is that he has been locked up 17 years, is black, probably under 40, and I like him. Tell me if you would like to read it at rcdeming@gmail.com  I saw him last Saturday; he said his biggest challenge as a writer is getting typewriter ribbons and paper.  If you are interested in sending him a critique, I will give you his address and some guidelines for communicating with him.  As you might guess, there are no writing critique groups in prison.

And There's More!  Megan Willome's  The Joy Of Poetry was just published, and she will be sharing ideas with us on how poetry can improve your writing in our new segment 10 Minutes on Poetry.  Invite friends who enjoy or write poetry to join us.  Megan presented a program to us on writing for magazines; those of us who were at that meeting left wanting to hear more from her.