THE REVIEW

FALL HARVEST

There was an awesome Meeting of The Rams last night with Kay, Margaret, Charity, Jason, Bryon and Monica joining me for discussions, readings, deep insights, and also lots of laughter.

Charity said she’s been re-writing her YA western, and changed the race of one of her characters, so we had a prolonged discussion on race and racism and how it was manifested in Texas at that time, and how it doesn’t manifest at all in today’s IT milieu, but how maybe it should be analysed in other areas of today’s society.

Kay has started her own publishing company and is now writing an academic book about the sexual abuse of young girls and the trauma they experience. She is also doing a comic strip called “Kanerica” which is a humorous look at her own experiences of living both in Canada and the United States.

Margaret read a short story titled “Anna” about a young girl drawn to a much older man, and he to her. The story takes us through their 17 years together and Anna’s extreme unhappiness at being isolated and kept away from people and communities, often left alone to tend house and children while her husband caroused. It is a sad recount of her isolation and the emotional abuse suffered at the hands of someone she thought she loved, and whom she thought loved her.

Charity read to us one poem entitled “Peace Child”. It made me think of the Flower Children of the 1960s. Her second poem “Come Back Home” she sang to us. It was a melancholic lament of a parent longing for a child to come home again. The song felt rather Celtic and was very beautiful.

Jason read to us two synopses. The first one he read was for the series of books he is writing, and the second synopsis was for the first book in the series, “Provoked”, which is already written and for sale at Amazon. Jason’s been preparing for the Surrey International Writers’ Conference where he hopes to present his work to a possible agent.

I read another ‘Honey’ story, “Cold Turkey”. It’s about planning to use turkey leftovers for an open house on Boxing Day, and the horror of discovering the raccoons had scavenged through all the leftover turkey that was in a cooler on the back porch. After all the turkey talk, Charity said she was going to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving.

Monica said she might bring something to read the next time she attends. Hope we see her again soon.

Jason, Charity, Kay and Margaret are all planning on attending the Surrey International Writers’ Conference later this month.

Margaret Moffatt has an article on the history of Trail, B.C. in the October issue of Today’s Senior Newsmagazine.

Charity said she had a poem accepted for publication in the upcoming poetry anthology by Polar Expressions.

Margaret said that she will be doing a reading on January 30, 2017 at the Vancouver Public Library in their New Voices series of readings. She also said they have several recording studios that are free to use, if writers want to record themselves. They must be pre-booked.

Last Saturday, Luke joined me down at the Lemon Bakery for a writing session. We set up our laptops, side by side, each at our own small table. We kept track of our word counts and I must say that Luke’s writing was more prolific than mine. He was finishing up a novel. I was writing a short story I started that day from a writing prompt I saw on my phone app. And I did partake of coffee and a delicious cheese scone. Anybody want to join me there on this Saturday afternoon, October 8th? Maybe around 1:30? Let me know if you’d like to do that.

Next Meeting will be Wednesday, October 19th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Hope to see you then and in the meantime, enjoy your Thanksgiving. And if you want to bring any Halloween related stories for the next Meeting, by all means, bring on the haunting!

Lisa A. Hatton
Author