by Linda Donaldson, Editor

A merry dozen members gathered for the April 17^th Writers Guild meeting, and celebrated the inaugural issue of the Pearl S. Buck Literary Journal, Spring 2016.

For those for whom life gets in the way, here is a brief summary of our meeting last Sunday at our Cultural Center.

We began with a discussion of the new blog post of the Literary Journal. Anne K. Kaler and I explained the concept of “following” the blog and encouraged all to become followers and share the blog on their Facebook page.

Anne discussed the term “developmental editing” and its application to one’s own work to help structure and coalesce lengthy stories or novels with complex plotting. Here’s a link – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_editing . One topic that came up concerned “universal themes” and we began listing them: Love, Loss, Sacrifice, Redemption, Hate, Revenge, and Quest or Journey. Surely, you can think of many more.

Next we opened the meeting to critique writing excerpts. Anne said that from now on all stories and poems shared at meetings will be limited to five pages or less, if possible, so readers can get through the selections, leaving time for discussion.

The group carefully critiqued three short stories, a fiction piece by Betsy Kennedy, a memoir by Beverly Sce and another memoir by Meredith Betz. Lots of lively comments, suggestions and reminiscences took up the remaining time.

Our next Writers Guild meeting is  Sunday, May 15^th from 1:30pm to 3:30pm at the Cultural Center. Email editor@psbwritingcenter.org with excerpts you need copied. Bringing your own? Try to provide 12-15 copies so we don’t have to share. Add your email address at the top near your name, so attendees can email feedback later.