Tuesday, January 15, 2008
January Meeting
Greetings everyone,
It’s hard to believe this will be my final announcement to you for our up-and-coming meeting, but so it is. In shifting gears, in light the notice I just sent you, our focus at Saturday’s meeting will be how to interject humor into our writing. Our speaker will be Freda Gower Ward, the Pinellas group leader. The title of her presentation is “How to turn ordinary life into humor.” She is not a stand-up comedian, but rather, will be showing us how to take ordinary life events and give them a humorous twist. True story. Freda wears many hats, one of this which is that of realtor. She was bringing a client to a pre-arranged 10 am appointment at an open house. She rings the door bell, and a 300 pound, beer-bellied man cracks open the door wearing nothing but his boxers and says, “Uh. We’re having sex.” Imagine. Now you’ll have to come to the meeting to see how she turns that every day event into something humorous.
Humor and laughter are vital to our health but also can be important to our stories, be it children’s stories, memoirs, coming of age, mysteries, or thrillers. She likes participants to go home with something meaningful. I know there many of you are working on manuscripts. All of our writing, or much of, comes from the creative spin we give to what’s ordinary. If there is a scene where you’re asking yourself, “How can I interject some humor?” or “Is it appropriate it to bring in humor?”, bring to the meeting three, double-spaced, unnamed typewritten pages. She will read from them, and we will all have a chance to add a different slant to the scene.
WHAT: “How to turn ordinary life into humor.”
WHO: Freda Gower Ward
WHERE: Barnes & Noble (Carrollwood)
11802 North Dale Mabry Hwy.
Tampa, FL 33618
813-962-6446 (store)
WHEN: Saturday, January 12 from 10 am to noon.
Lunch follows at Nikki’s
REMINDER: If you would like to know how to put some humorous pizzazz into a scene, bring your pages to the meeting.
Julia ThornbroughGroup Leader – Hillsborough
Local Author Makes Good
Kudos to our very own Steve Mather. Back in April when we held our monthly meeting, Bo Savino, Editor-In-Chief of Aisling Press (fka Koboka Publishing) came and devoted the entire day and heard forty-two people pitch their manuscript. Today Steve Mather is the proud recipient of a publishing contract from Aisling Press. It is for his thriller, Three of a Kind. Steve, I’m sure this is the start of many great publishing possibilities for him. Way to go!
Julia Thornbrough
Group Leader – Hillsborough
