Calendar of Events 2024

WRITERS GUILD – MEMOIR CLASSES – BOOK DISCUSSIONS

 Note: Registration Fees for all PSB Writing Center Classes, Zoom Webinars, Discussions, programs, etc. are Non-Refundable unless  is cancelled.

WRITERS GUILD ZOOM MEETINGS

Our Writers Guild Zoom meetings for 2024 are held the third Sundays from March through October from 1 to 3pm.  We will not be holding in-person meetings.

The Pearl S. Buck Writing Center’s 2024 Writers Guild will zoom meet on the 3^rd Sundays, monthly from March 17^th through October 20^th, from 1-3 to share and critique our writing works-in-progress. In a friendly atmosphere, we encourage, support and challenge our adult writers to improve, whether they are experienced writers or beginners. All genres of literature are welcome from novels and short fiction to memoirs, essays and poetry by all levels of writers.

$80 Registration for the total of 8 Zoom meetings required (*see below for details)
[March 17^th, April 21^th, May 19^th, June 23^rd (4^th Sun this month only), July 21st, August 18^th, September 15^th, and October 20^th]

*We have a 2-step Registration Process for our Writers Guild Zoom Meetings:

1) Please send Cindy Louden your complete email and street address and your Home/Cell Phone number.

2) When I receive that information, I will forward your information to our PSB Volunteer Associate, Nancy McElwee, who will call you asking for your credit card information to process and return a receipt.

Registered Guild members must send writings via email for editing consideration and distribution to lindadonaldson@verizon.net 2 weeks prior to each meeting. Please identify your writing with your name and email address. Linda will forward all the submitted Word documents as attachments to the group. This will enable all members to read and be prepared to discuss at our next upcoming Zoom meeting.

On behalf of all the editors, we welcome your participation and look forward to meeting you at our first 2024 Zoom meeting on March 17th from 1-3pm. 

A Zoom link will be sent to registrants prior to the Sunday afternoon of the Zoom meeting.

Keep writing! The Writers Guild Editors:

Linda Donaldson – lindadonaldson@verizon.net, Cynthia L. Louden – cllouden@verizon.net, Dr. Anne K. Kaler – akkaler@verizon.net, Susan E. Wagner – swagner001@gmail.com

Visit our blog at www.psbwritingcenter.org  become a follower and you’ll receive an email notification of any new blog posts. Many past issues of our Pearl S. Buck Literary Journal – containing writing in a wide variety of genres – can be accessed from our blog.  

If you have any additional questions about any of the Pearl S. Buck Writing Center offerings, contact its Chair, Cindy Louden, at clouden@pearlsbuck.org or call 267-421-6203.

MEMOIRS: WRITING OURSELVES, FINDING OUR TRUTH

Instructor: Linda C. Wisniewski

In her autobiography My Several Worlds: A Personal Record,  Pearl Buck wrote “… there is no such condition in human affairs as absolute truth. There is only truth as people see it, and truth, even in fact, may be kaleidoscopic in its variety.”

Find your own personal truth in this Zoom class as we write the stories of our lives for publication, for our families and for ourselves. Whatever your goal, you will learn to write with purpose and clarity and organize your life experiences for sharing or safekeeping.

Facilitated by longtime PSBI instructor, Linda C. Wisniewski, the class will run for six consecutive weeks. Each class will cover a topic related to memoirs and include short readings from modern memoirs, time for writing and feedback.

Wisniewski is a former journalist who has published a memoir, Off Kilter, and Where the Stork Flies, a novel based on her ancestry, as well as many personal essays and feature stories. www.lindawis.com. 

Spring 2024 series:  Six consecutive Mondays, 7 to 9 p.m., March 4^th through April 8^th.

Fall 2024 series:  Six consecutive Wednesdays, 1 to 3 p.m., Sept. 4^th through Oct. 9^th.

$200 per series, fee payable on registration. ZOOM link will be emailed to you a few days prior to the start of the first class.

To register, email lindawis@gmail.com with your name, postal address, phone number and preferred email address. You will be contacted for payment information.

BOOK DISCUSSION GROUPS – COMPLIMENTARY

Zoom Discussion for our 2024 Season Pearl S. Buck Book Discussion Group: 3rd Mondays, 7-8:30 pm.

Please feel free to recommend and forward information of the PSB Book Discussion Group to other family members & friends.

January 15 = When Pearl Buck won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes, very little was known about her.  Her 2^nd husband & editor, Richard Walsh, wanted an accurate biography released about her.  He wrote an Introduction to Pearl S. Buck and included it in her 1933 Anthology of 27 Stories.  [Cindy can provide a copy of Richard’s article]. Who could know PSB better?  23 short pages jam-packed w/facts about Pearl’s early life in China, family life & influences, origins of Pearl’s ideas & interests.  Richard also quotes many of Pearl’s own memories.  

In addition, he asked Pearl’s sister, Grace Sydenstricker, to also write Pearl’s biography using a pen name, Cornelia Spencer, Revealing the Human Heart. Grace/Cornelia’s short biography is filled w/memories of personal conversations, many personal letters, many family and friend’s conversations. She also includes memories of their mother, Caroline Maude “Carie” Stulting Sydenstricker and gives background material on many of Pearl’s writings. GREAT information why & how Pearl became a writer! Who could know PSB better? 

Feb 19 = Pearl’s 1944 novel about the building of the Burma Road, The Promise. This is the sequel to Dragon Seed, and follows Ling Tan’s youngest son, “Sheng” and Mayli’s love story during the fighting against the Japanese soon after Nanjing. “While this is a book about war, Ms. Buck leaves out heavy politics and focuses on China’s most elite troops and their day-to-day survival.”  Built by more than 200,000 Chinese and Burmese laborers more than 90,000 forced Asian laboring civilians, and 16,000 POWs including 2800 Australians, died in the 1937-38 desperate building of the 717 miles long Burma Road through mountains and jungles, to link Burma/Myanmar w/southwest China as a supply route. [Cindy has an extra book for sale]

March 18 = Virginia Westervelt’s Pearl Buck, A fictional Biographical Novel, 1979. According to the book cover, Westervelt has done her research and pulls no punches delving into “all sides of this complex woman’s life … deep love of her mother; her two marriages, her brilliant writing career… her constant concern for those victims of war, the unwanted Amerasian children, several of whom she adopted herself [from the Pearl Buck Foundation] …. The portrait that emerges is of a full-blooded person, loving and lovable, stubborn and proud.  Admirers and detractors alike will quickly lose themselves in this unforgettable biography.”

April 15 = Pearl’s1938 novel, Other Gods, An American Legend/Charles Lindbergh. “In this novel Pearl studies, the phenomenon and ramifications of hero worship… influenced by the Charles Lindbergh flight, Buck focuses attention on a young American truck mechanic expedition in the Himalayas, leaves his work and climbs solo to the top. A whirlwind romance and marriage, adulation from the American public & then the world – will the marriage survive? “Buck states that she is fascinated w/the problems faced by individuals who have been elevated by their fellowmen to a godlike status.” Pearl disliked Lindbergh & thought that Churchill was a racist.  Much of this novel is seen through the wife’s eyes – Pearl liked Ann Morrow Lindbergh.    

For more information, email facilitator Cindy Louden, clouden@pearlsbuck.org. You don’t have to have read the book to enjoy the discussions. Wonderful information can be gathered from Pearl’s novels, her non-fiction, and from her biographers for anyone who wants to know and share about “our Pearl.”