THE REVIEW

AUTUMN ARRAY OF WRITINGS

The last Meeting on Wednesday night saw six of us here with a variety of genres and discussion topics. Jason, Luke, Kay, Monica, and a new face, Betty Sinclair, joined me and we had a most interesting display of writing topics and talents.

Luke read first, the beginning of the last chapter in his novel about Dalin, the young soldier. We see the army readying to counterattack in case of an ambush that Dalin had warned about. But the ambush doesn’t happen, and Dalin, now an acting captain, seriously questions his own judgement as the army moves into a position they may not be able to escape from. As this scene was mostly internal dialogue, I did suggest bringing it more to life with some sensory details about the battle, and some concern on Dalin’s part for the soldiers who were dying. And it was noted that Luke’s writing has a very distinctive narrative voice.

Kay said she had received some useful feedback from members of the Federation of B.C. Writers on how to proceed with her book about child abuse of young girls by biological parents. She read us Chapter 1, which gave us one daughter’s description of a sexual molestation incident and her altered state of consciousness during the episode. Then the chapter goes on to define that mental state of disassociation in technical terminology. Monica asked if the case study had been reviewed for academic publication, and Kay said no, she had permission from the persons interviewed, and would be self-publishing. Betty then suggested that if the audience would not be academic, that perhaps she should consider using definitions more suitable to the ready understanding of the prospective audience, who would probably be people like foster parents, police, and social workers.

Monica read the introduction of her dissertation on Invisible Chronic Illness, more specifically Lupus in African American women. She states reasons for her study being the difficulty for these women in obtaining diagnosis, and later their struggle to accept a chronic illness and all its physical, social, and economic ramifications. Having lived with the illness herself for many, many years, she felt she was far enough away from the original diagnosis to offer unbiased research.

We asked Betty what she liked to write, and she said she writes literary fiction and has self-published one novel. But she did say she wouldn’t do that again as standard publishing houses have a better handle on marketing than the author usually does. She read to us the first half of a short story she said will be about 5000 words. The story is “Last Bravura”, set in Edinburgh, Scotland. It opens with perhaps the last scene where a young man seems trapped in dire circumstances. The next scene is prior in time and shows Paul (a young man lodging with his friend in a predominantly white neighbourhood) being concerned about a young African girl whose face he keeps seeing in a basement window. He questions her well-being and takes steps to learn more about her. Betty’s storytelling had us all wanting to know what was going to happen.

Jason wanted to practice the pitch he would be giving to an agent at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference this weekend. He sat in front of Kay and proceeded with a very concise description of his series. However, Betty did point out several things she thought agents would specifically want to know, based on her own previous experience at the conference. She said the agents are always looking to the bottom line, money, and therefore want to know how to sell an author’s work to a publisher. Consequently the author should be sure to tell them their genre, their perceived audience, and also what other published author and/or writing, their own work is most similar to in comparison. That way the agent can ascertain the most likely publishers to approach. She also said that if you are going to talk about a series, that it should already be written, not just a proposal. Sounds very logical to me. We hope Jason is successful with his pitch this year.

I read another ‘Honey’ story, this one called “Mechanically Challenged”. It’s about a mechanical breakdown of our vehicle on the way to our cabin at Green Lake and recounts the challenge of getting repairs on a lease vehicle from Surrey when the vehicle is ailing in the Cariboo and the service agency is located in New Brunswick, and the cat and Honey’s beer are both getting overheated.

Charity missed the Meeting as she was preparing for her days of volunteer work at the conference. Kay said Margaret had company and that’s why she was absent. I did hear from Annette that she misses us all terribly, but due to her husband’s ill health she is still kept away with other commitments. We send our best to both Annette and her husband.

The next Meeting will be Wednesday, November 2nd, at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Hope to see you then. I’ll try to save some Halloween candy.

Lisa A. Hatton
Author