THE REVIEW

HIGH FIVE

Five of us met last night in spite of the rain. Shannon, Luke, Charity and Guy all joined me for an awesome evening of readings and conversation.

Charity read first, from “Trixie Trouble”, her next chapter. Trixie goes back to where her Pa had been hung, missing him, and she finishes off the flask of brandy. She nods off and dreams of her Pa, but is awakened by Brett Marley who assaults and tries to rape her. In a desperate struggle, she shoots him with his own shotgun. This chapter was a total surprise as it was in stark contrast to previous humorous chapters. Charity says she likes to surprise the reader.

Luke is working on his novel “The Heart Of The Earth” and has added a new first chapter, with the character Gorin. We see him hunting a beast known as a celiat, following it up a mountain. He suspects the beast is also hunting something. But when he follows it into a cave and finds it collapsed, he realizes the beast had been used to lure him, a bigger catch, into the cave of a spine snake. We don’t know yet who is at the top of the food chain here.

Guy didn’t read anything. He says he’s trying to sort out what he wants to write about the life of a seventeen year old boy. Guy did ask us about copyright. We all agreed that writers are automatically the owners of copyright to their work but if they want to register the copyright they can do so for a fee at the Copyright Office of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. However, it is still up to the owner to do the policing for any possible theft of reproductive rights of their own material.

Shannon read Chapter 1 of her novel, “Senior Citizens’ Serial Killer”. As the ambulance sits outside Howard’s trailer where he died on top of Bethany, a crowd of seniors gathers outside, fueling the gossip mill. Julie, a private investigator wanting to be a detective, is there with two friends, speculating about the possibility of a crime having been committed, when the police arrive. Shannon wasn’t happy with this chapter and plans to re-write it to add more excitement to the appearance of an ambulance in this quiet seniors’ community.

I read “Honey’s Next Degree” about Honey suffering while I underwent surgery, and then finding his feet when he had to obtain specific medical and mobility aids for my recovery. He used his engineering skills to source the right equipment. I did say I had finished editing the collection and am now formatting the manuscript. I was struggling with inserting a table of contents, but Shannon gave me a tip I will try. And I still have to decide if I will submit hard copy or email copy to the publisher I’m thinking about. Charity said she thinks hard copy probably garners more attention than an email. A large chunk of actual mail is harder to ignore.

The next Meeting will be Wednesday, April 19th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Happy Easter to all the Rams in the meantime, and eat all those chocolate bunnies for me since I can’t have them any more.

TONGUE IN CHEEK: A bibliophile is one who loves or collects books, while a biblioklept is one who steals them.

Lisa A. Hatton
Author