Author: Virginia

Minutes of the Denver Branch of the National League of American Pen Women

October 3, 2020

Members Present: Atlanta Sheridan, Diane Chambers, Kay Taylor, Kelly Ann Compton, Andrea Antico, Ann Klaiman, Ray Cober, Linda Volin, Karen Gonzales, Cindy Massey, A. Marie Kriss

Diane opened the virtual meeting on Zoom at 9:35am.

Inspirational Reading: Diane read some humorous quotes about quarantining during this time of Covid 19.

Introduction of Guests:

Diane welcomed the guests and asked each of them to introduce themselves.

Sydney Popovich said that she and her husband write together and that she is looking for a place to both grow and contribute.

Adrianna Voss, a children’s author, wants to be around other writers.

Sharan Volin, Linda Volin’s daughter, joined the meeting from Montreal.

Approval of Minutes: Ann moved to accept the minutes as written and Kelly Ann seconded. The minutes were approved unanimously by the members.

Treasurer’s Report: Kelly Ann reported an expense of $117.46 to pay for Zoom. The balance in our account is now $841.08. Kay approved the motion. Andrea seconded. It passed unanimously.

Committee Reports:

Website: Virginia, our web-mistress, reported that the theme does not have to be changed on the website. She has made calendar updates through June, 2021 and she will update the calendar as needed. Karen asked that the awards presented to Andrea Antico and Laurel Becker be noted on our website.

Virginia checked into updating an outdated part of the site called the theme. The theme controls the basic look and functioning of the site. It turns out that the theme does not have to be changed at this time, although it will need to be done in the future.

All calendar events have been posted until June 2021. Further details will be filled in as soon as they are received. Routine maintenance and updates continue to be performed.

Membership: Linda Volin and Aimee Guerts are in the process of becoming members of our branch of Pen Women. Diane did not place a notice on Denver Meetup for this meeting. Many men responded to the Meetup notice the previous month.

History:– Diane noted that Aimee Giest has expressed an interest in being the group’s historian.

Outreach: Diane reported the DSA is excited about winning the tapestry contest and that they will receive the tapestry panel sometime in the near future. Diane picked up the remaining tapestry boxes from Kelly Ann, which included the panel designed by Salida High School. Ann will deliver that section of the Tapestry to the school. Ann was delighted to inform the group that the same art teacher who helped students at the school to design the panel is still teaching at the school.

Programming: Diane announced that today, Caitlin Berve, a Boulder editor, will make a presentation on how to write effective descriptions and settings. In November, Trai Cartwright will make a presentation on “How to Turn your Book into a Screenplay.” Kay reported that Anthony Powell, the artistic director of Stories on Stage, will present in January. She proposed several questions for him to address including how stories are chosen, how the actors rehearse their readings and what his greatest challenges are in producing the shows. She asked that members attend one of the monthly shows virtually or view one on the Stories on Stage website. Ray volunteered to try to contact a friend of his who is a Pushcart Poetry winner for a future meeting. Ray and Karen will brainstorm some ideas for our December meeting.

Wednesday Evening Critique Group – Atlanta reported that so far four members have expressed an interest in joining the group. The group is usually capped at eight. Atlanta hopes the group will convene within a few weeks. There was some discussion about doing a separate poetry critique group but it was agreed that poetry should be critiqued within the larger group which has worked well in the past.

Old Business: Diane asked if anyone attended the Midwest Pen Meeting. No one attended it from our branch. Diane will send a notice to our group giving notice of the next meeting of the Mid-West group.

New Business: National is has a new Facebook page where members can get additional exposure for their work. Pen Women Press is being revived. National is seeking editors, layout artists and others interested in working on a publishing team for the Press. Diane also alerted us about an internet scam which is being promoted using Pen Women as a guise.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:19 am.

Respectfully submitted by,

Kay Taylor

Minutes of the Denver Branch of the National League of American Pen Women

September 5, 2020

Members Present: Atlanta Sheridan, Diane Chambers, Kay Taylor, Kelly Ann Compton, Andrea Antico, Beverly Chico, Ann Klaiman, Ray Cober, Nancy Peterson, Karen Gonzales, Sue Luxa, Laurel Becker, A. Marie Kriss

Diane opened the virtual meeting on Zoom at 9:35am.

Inspirational Reading: Diane read a poem from the book, Women’s Voices of the 20th Century, by Sheila Phelan Wright, a former member of the Denver branch. The poem was entitled From the Past I Come. Diane chose it because she thought it expressed how we are all trying to transport ourselves into the future.

Introduction of Guests:

Diane welcomed the guests and asked each of them to introduce themselves.

–Aimee Guerts told the group that she was hoping to find a group of writers to inspire her in the craft of writing.

–Sydney Popovich said that she and her husband write together and that she is looking for a place to both grow and contribute.

–Adrianna Voss, a children’s author, wants to be around other writers.

–Linda Volin is a poet and an author of preteen novels.

Approval of Minutes: Ray moved to accept the minutes as written and Ann seconded. The minutes were approved unanimously by the members.

Treasurer’s Report: Diane noted that there were no activities affecting our existing funds and that the balance remains $958.54 in the account for the Branch. There was some discussion about the monthly Zoom fee of $15.62 currently being incurred. Kelly Ann moved to enroll in a yearly Zoom account which is currently being offered at a 30 percent discount. Kay seconded the motion. It passed unanimously.

Committee Reports:

Website – Virginia, our web-mistress, consulted with a web professional to take a look at the site, and assess what needed to be done. She has worked with him before. He made a list of things that needed to be done and did not charge for this. A new e-mail form has been added to the “Contact Us” page. It’s designed to challenge and catch suspected SPAM. All broken links and plugins (apps) were updated. Virginia is currently attempting to update and replace an obsolete but vital part of the site. It involves getting three applications to work together. She has consulted the creator of one of the applications, and as of this report, is waiting for an answer.

Membership – Diane reported that word is getting out about our group. She surmised that it might be due to notices she has placed on Colorado Writers’ Cafe Meet Up or maybe the need more writers are feeling to connect with other writers during the pandemic. She also noted that Zoom meetings might be more attractive to potential new members because driving is no longer a barrier. Kelly Ann explained the rules and benefits of membership in Pen Women. Guests were asked to contact either Diane or Kelly Ann with additional questions about membership.

History – Diane asked for a volunteer to assume the position of Historian for the Branch. Aimee said she might be interested in assuming this role if she joined the group.

Tapestry– Diane gave a brief history of the project for the guests. She reported that one of the panels was to be awarded to a Denver Public school which won our Tapestry contest. Ann offered to deliver one of the five remaining boxes of panels to Salida HighSchool. Karen suggested that folks watch the informative Tapestry video on our website for more background on the project.

Programming – Diane announced that in October, Caitlin Berve, a Boulder editor, will make a presentation on how to write effective descriptions and settings. In November, there is a possibility of Trai Cartwright presenting on “How to Turn your Book into a Screenplay.” Members liked that idea. Diane will contact Trai. Karen contacted the Lighthouse about making a presentation to the group. The Lighthouse needs more information on exactly what topic we would like presented.

Wednesday Evening Critique Group – Atlanta described the role of the critique group to help members get feedback from others on their writing. The following people expressed an interest in being notified about joining the group: Laurel, Adrianne, Sydney, Diane, Atlanta, Ray, Aimee, and Kelly Ann.

Old Business – Karen said she did not attend the last Mid-West NAPW meeting and therefore had nothing to report. Diane will send a notice out the group about the next meeting of that group so that others might attend (virtually). Diane mentioned that the Pikes Peak Branch of Pen Women has split with National due to conflicts.

New Business – National has a new Facebook page where members can get additional exposure for their work. Andrea was congratulated for being a semi-finalist for the CIPA EVVY award for her children’s book, The Sugar Plum Tree. The book can be found on kindereads.com.

Announcements– Laurel Becker received the American Fiction Award for children’s Literature for her book, Tales from Weaver Pond.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:30.

After the meeting Ann Klaiman presented a poetry workshop to the group. A summary of her workshop follows:

Member Ann Klaiman lead our Zoom group of 19 writers through a poetry workshop.  Her introduction included definitions of poetry, including “Poetry is writing that doesn’t go all the way to the right-side of the page,” and a recommendation to ignore the current advice that,”Rhyming is typically considered outdated, unless you’re really, really good.”  Rhyme if you want to.  The remainder of the workshop focused on writing a free verse poem (which, incidentally, doesn’t use rhyme).  At the end of the session, Diane recommended sending completed poems to her (dianechambers@hughes.net).  If you send one to her, or to Ann (aeklaiman@aol.com), by next Monday, September 14, Ann will share the grouping of poems amongst the poets who sent one.  Anyone who would like a copy of the workshop’s handout can request one from Ann.

Respectfully submitted by,

Kay Taylor

National League of Pen Women Denver Branch

Minutes of the Zoom Meeting on August 1, 2020

Present: Ann Klaiman, Raymond Cober, Andrea Antico, Beverly Chico, Atlanta Sheridan, Kay Taylor, Diane Chambers and guest Aimee Geurts

Atlanta opened the meeting at 9:45 am.

Inspiration – Ann read an inspirational piece from Amy Wallen in Dear Writer: An anthology of letters of encouragement from successful women writers to fellow writers, in which the author compared the art of writing to neurosurgery. Beverly noted that it reminded her of the current research she’s doing on medical head wear.

Atlanta told our guest about the role of a provisional member in our branch. Ann added that one way to become a member of the National Pen Women group is by submitting news articles for which one is paid. She also mentioned the three subjects of writing, art and music which Pen Women undertake to be members. She added that Virginia Campbell is a composer and that composing music is her area of expertise as a member of the national group.

Minutes of the July meeting were approved.

Treasurer’s Report – Diane reported that as of the close of July the branch had a balance of $958.54. The July report was approved.

Website -Diane noted that Virginia took down our old calendar on our website and that she was in the process of figuring out how to put up the new improved calendar.

As an aside Ann noted that she had received a note from Carol about getting three poems published and that Ann’s review of Carol’s second book of poems had been received without any revisions.

Membership – Diane reported that she received numerous responses from our posting on Colorado Writers’ Cafe Meet-up and had expected 8 to 10 guests. She sent the zoom link but she said there might have been a problem getting on the zoom link for the meeting. There was a brief discussion about having men as members since several men had responded to the Denver Meet-up notice. Diane noted that the National Association of Pen Women does not permit male members but that our branch had accepted Ray, a notable exception.

Tapestry Update – Diane reported that the Award letter had n=been sent to the winner of our contest and that the school is excited to be getting the prize, a section of the Tapestry.

Programs – Andrea has been volunteering to coordinate the monthly branch pro-grams. Since no one else volunteered for this position, Andrea said she would re-view the existing list of programs. Atlanta will look into the cost of an unlimited Zoom account for future meetings.

Diane explained how we did in-person meetings in the past. She’ll continue to try to set up Zoom meetings for the group. Diane also noted that there has been some interest expressed in setting up Wednesday evening critique group sessions possibly to begin in September. Andrea suggested looking into other plat-forms on Google or Microsoft. Ray suggested the possibility of using Skype. Kay will check with Anthony Powell, the Artistic Director of Stories on Stage, about doing the January program. Diane suggested that Ann consider putting on a poetry workshop for our chapter.

Announcements – Diane gave news form National. She reviewed the rules and benefits of membership. Diane added that there was some great news to report concerning National. The gallery of the Pen Women’s Building in Washington D.C. has been featured on the First Friday Dupont Circle Art Walks. Some 650 people visited the Pen Women’s building to view paintings exhibited there and to listen to concerts and lectures held there. These events bring much needed revenue to National. In addition 220 new members joined the group in the last two years. Lastly, Diane announced that after 20 months or arduous work the National organization influenced the District of Columbia to pass a new law giving property tax relief to the NLAPW for the Pen Arts building, for as long as the League is the owner and operator of the property and uses the building for the purposes and activities of the League. The law is retroactive to 2016. This relief will greatly aid the financial state of Pen women and allow them to keep the much revered building housing the organization. Diane reminded the group that the Bi-ennial celebration of the National League of Pen Women has been postponed from April, 2020 to April, 2021.

The next meeting of the Denver Branch will be Saturday, September 5th on Zoom. Diane will send the link to the meeting

Diane will send the link to the meeting out the morning of the meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:40am.

Respectfully submitted:

Kay Taylor

National League of American Pen Women—Denver Branch

Minutes

7/11/2020

I. Diane called the meeting to order at 9:51 AM.

II. Members in attendance: Diane Chambers, Karen Gonzales, Ann Klaiman, Ray Cober, Atlanta Sheridan, and Kelly Ann Compton

III. Inspirational sharing: We need someone to volunteer to take over this part of our meetings. For today, Diane read from “Beauty of Life” by Khalil Gibran on our need for laughter.

IV. No Guests present.

V. June Minutes were approved.

VI. Treasurer’s report was approved.

VII. Committee Reports:

a. Website: All broken links and plugins (apps) were updated. Before updating any plugin, it is now checked for compatibility. The PHP (hypertext processor) needed to be updated, so Virginia did that. Plugins that were not being used, or were no compatible, were removed or replaced. The title “Peace Quilt” has been corrected to “Tapestry for Peace” and the video for the tapestry has been installed directly on to the tapestry page. Virginia also set ups search engine optimization to improve search engine results. She also set up Goggle Analytics to tell us about site visits, what pages were looked at and other stats. She will continue making the needed changes.

b. Membership: Diane has posted our information on the Colorado Café Writer Meet-up and one person is interested so far.

c. Outreach: Tapestry—Diane sent Denver School of the Arts their award letter with a picture of the tapestry in box #6. She e-mailed the DSA teacher and cc’d the secretary. – Kelly Ann still has three boxes. She cannot open and view the tapestries within them. She is still uncomfortable about having people come in her house, but will let people in to get the boxes if they want to look at the tapestries.

d. Programs: Diane received only one response from the worksheet she sent out regarding program ideas. We discussed ideas today: Karen will investigate the cost of having someone from Lighthouse come speak to us. (Having Lighthouse speak to us was Sue Luxa’s idea.) – Atlanta suggested that we pull together local resources we could direct people to for various writing, editing, and publishing information. – Ray suggested that we exchange links with other writers’ groups. Karen will set up exchanging links with the Colorado Alliance of Latino Authors. She will let Diane know about their websites. – Two programming ideas were brought up. The first one is a sharing of our knowledge and talent. Members could share their expertise via workshops or sharing during a meeting. The other suggestion was to have Wednesday critiques available for members. The member being critiqued would send their manuscript to everyone via e-mail. – We also discussed that we will probably be meeting via Zoom the rest of the year. It was suggested that maybe we could do an outside meeting where social distancing would be possible.

VIII. Old Business: Karen needs to find information on the Midwest group meetings. She needs to find their schedule. Kelly Ann will contact the Pikes Peak Branch and see how they are handling meeting during the pandemic. — Ray wondered if we could use Zoom to open up a Q&A session. – We returned to the idea of Wednesday evening critiques. If we do this, it was suggested that the critiques be for 40 minutes and occur at 7 PM. We might consider purchasing Zoom access for $10/month.

IX. New Business: No new business

X. Branch Announcements:

a. Ray has entered the Harper Collins writing contest. It is a contest for books geared toward Middle School grades. The winner will be announced in January 2021.

b. Karen’s book is being critiqued with 3 seventh grade boys. Her book is for ages 7-10. Her book needs to be 100 pages. It currently is 10,000 words and 50 pages.)

XI. The meeting was adjourned at 11:02

Respectively submitted by,

Kelly Ann Compton

Co-Secretary