LWS Site Has A New Page

After Ann's presentation, the main topic at Thursday night's general meeting was critique groups.

Barb has gotten requests to get our membership list up on the website so members can try to connect and form small critiquing groups that meet more often than our scheduled groups.

This is especially needed where writers have entire novels for which they need feedback. It just doesn't work to meet once (or even twice) a month with a group that may not be composed of the same people from meeting to meeting.

Our critique groups work great for short stories, but not for critiquing novels.

In any event, I spent the entire day today - about twelve hours - on LWS work. I put up a "Membership Portal" page, created a mock Membership List page, created a template for the password protection page, and added the extra button to all the other pages on our website (as well as updating the News & Notes page.)

So the foundation is now laid to create at least two password protected membership areas: the membership list and a critique forum. (Any number of links to restricted areas can be placed on this new page without my having to "reinvent the wheel" each time by putting another button on every page.)

I've put out a call to the LWS membership to e-mail digital photos of themselves for inclusion in the restricted area. LWS is growing and it would be nice if our members could get to know each other, at least through visual recognition.

We'll see how many come in. Lots, I hope.

Bed Time!

My All-Time Favourite Books

One train of thought leads to another, leads to another, and I find I am not yet in bed, but ruinating - again - about books I have loved.

My favorite book of all time: Fugitive Pieces by Ann Michaels.

Why? The prose. Graceful and elegant as poetry, there is not a trite idea, not a cliché in the book. Real and heartbreaking yet full of redemption, Ann Michael's novel is extraordinary.

To use a phrase I have never before applied to a work of fiction: it is a work of art. I was frantic to see the movie when I learned of it - a rare reaction on my part - generated by my veneration for her book.

Even my husband - who has the attention span of a flea on a hot brick - was entranced. Curious, he picked Michael's book up for a glance, then took it away from me and stole away to read it before I could.

Other books I have loved:

Fiction:
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Poetry:
Rilke's Book Of Hours: Love Poems To God by Anita Barrows and Joanna Marie Macy

Non-Fiction:
Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas
The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler

While I know there were other books I read and "loved," these created feeling memories for me which have endured and these are the ones that come to the surface of the "8-Ball" that is my mind.

For an "entertaining" read, try The Girl In The Plain Brown Wrapper by John D. MacDonald who wrote "hardboiled" mysteries with far more awareness and social commentary on environmental issues than one might expect.

Ann Richard's Talk on E-Book Publishing

Ann Richards gave a presentation on e-book publishing last night, September 18th, at our LWS general meeting.

Of interest to me is the new - to me - software being used to publish e-books. I'm used to pdf's which, of course, page from top to bottom, not right to left.

Last night Ann awoke me from my pdf "Stone Age" by showing us one of her e-books books which is read right to left in MS Reader.

When I got home I downloaded the free plug-in for Word that now allows me to view a document in the Reader format. As to creating my own e-book in MS Reader, this works the same as Adobe's Reader. While the reader is free, the software to create a commercial e-book, ReaderWorks Publisher - is not (just as Adobe Acrobat is not free. )

I found the software here:

http://www.overdrive.com/readerworks/

Educators who want to create e-books for classroom presentations can download the Standard version for free.

Since I want to sell my e-books on my own website, I will need the Publisher's version which is $119 U.S. Compare that to the new Adobe Acrobat 9.0 which costs $299 U.S. (The Pro Version is $699.) All I can say is that I'm glad I bought my old version of Adobe Acrobat seven years ago. It may not be as fancy, but it's still quite functional.

John Jeneroux's Story "Bible Man"

I just received Brian Henry's newsletter. Brian posted LWS member John Jeneroux's story "Bible Man" on his blog.

I was privileged to hear John read this at a critique group. I liked it then and I like it now.

Here it is:

http://quick-brown-fox-canada.blogspot.com/2008/09/bible-man-john-jeneroux.html

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