By Linda Donaldson

Our next meeting of the Writers Guild will be Sunday, July 21^st from 1 to 3pm at Pearl S. Buck’s historic home – Green Hills Farm, 520 Dublin Road, Perkasie, PA 18944. We welcome all writers to join us as we share our work for friendly discussion and critique.

The Guild is excited to welcome author Paul Sullivan and his friend Eileen Gantley to our July meeting. Though Paul hasn’t attended our meetings for awhile, he has been writing and publishing nonetheless. His new book, A Thousand Tears, is about the Great Irish Famine of 1845 to 1849. We include a link here to his publisher’s author page listing Paul’s eight novels with them.

For our June meeting five members  brought selections. First, Jane Bleam shared an expanded version of her college nursing education story. Placing her experiences in context time and location wise, Jane succeeded in drawing her listeners in with examples of the lessons she learned.

Next Ron Price brought a personal story about retiring from a banking career and cleaning out his closet. After tackling the suits and shirts and filling up bags for the thrift shop, the prospect of culling his ties brought the process to a temporary standstill. The ties sparked many happy and momentous memories linked to each of them, and become a catalyst for Ron’s decision to keep and repurpose them into two quilts – one for each of his married daughters.

David Werrett shared a deeply philosophical treatise on the Universe, the instincts and gifts that we’re born with, and the influence in our lives of Angels. David sees his writing and devotion to art, sculpture and photography as manifestations of his purpose and examples of the endless possibilities the Universe presents us with.

The duality of maintaining an outward “perfectly well-behaved” persona versus an inner “evil alter ego” is the theme of a Meredith Betz memoir about being a “Preacher’s Kid.” Tired of being resented as the model of childhood behavior among her peers and their parents, Meredith unleashes her dark side in seventh grade stunning her parents and teachers. As always, Meredith tells all with warmth and humor.

The excerpt from John McCabe was from the latest version of his epic story [now entitled The Grey Pennies] describing nuclear testing in the 1960’s that exposed our soldiers to radiation that had life-long health implications. The innocuous, no-information, just-do-your-duty backdrop puts the actual risks in sharp relief as you sense the impending doom these boys faced.

Authors, we look forward to hearing your work at our July meeting. Please remember to bring 15 copies of any passage or poem you wish to share [up to 3 pages]. Add your email address to the top of the first page so other Guild members can contact you with their comments.

Don’t forget that the deadline has been extended for submissions to our Spring/Summer 2019 issue of the PSB Literary Journal. The new deadline is July 22^nd. The theme is Secrets.

As your editor, Anne Kaler would say –Keep  Writing!