Minutes! 7-16-13

Well, since I'm moving to Las Vegas, we made some big decisions tonight! But first, the usual stuff:

• We read Gena's sestina. Discussion ensued.
• We read the last few scenes of Tanise's screenplay. Discussion ensued.
• We read the beginning of Becky's short story. Discussion ensued.
• We drank root beer floats.
• We started watching a 1960s Spanish gogo movie with no subtitles. Felipe translated.

Ok, here's what you need to know: from now on, Gena will be taking over the secretarial role of the group (running the blog, Facebook, sending emails, etc.). Thanks, Gena! The next meeting, on Tuesday, July 30th at 7:30, will also be at her apartment. Address will be sent to members soon. 

It seems like people were interested in starting to rotate apartments for meetings, so that's something you can talk about more next time. Also, it seems as though Tuesdays are no longer good for a lot of people, so aside from this next meeting, the group decided that Wednesdays are better in the future. (If too many people object to Wednesdays, Thursdays are also a potentially viable option.)

Anyway, it's been lovely. I'm sure I'll still skype in from time to time, make sure you aren't slacking off. Keep in touch! 

<3

Becky

Minutes! 5-28-13

Hey everyone. Wanted to post these last night, but the internet in my apartment decided to stop working. Here's what you missed:

• Gena came back to us! And there was much rejoicing.
• We read Tanise's latest scene from Barhopping. Discussion ensued.
• We discussed Tanise's attempt at prose. (Way to break boundaries!) Discussion ensued.
• We read Becky's attempt at a poem. Discussion ensued.
• We read Becky's draft of a story. Discussion ensued.
• We read Dan's draft of his entry for the City Lit Art of Adaptation theater festival. Discussion ensued.
• Gena would like us each to send her six words, so she can write a sestina. So do that!
• If you want to enter the City Lit Art of Adaptation Festival, move fast--entries must be postmarked no later than Friday, May 31st!
• If you're ever looking for writing contests to enter, check out Poets & Writers' website--they have an excellent directory.
• Printers Row Lit Fest is coming up soon, June 8-9! Who wants to go? It's always a wonderful time.

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, June 11th. See you then!

Minutes! 5-7-13

Happy Spring, everyone. Here's what you missed:

• In keeping with this month's "breaking out of your boundaries" theme, Raphael wrote a sex scene. And it was great! Discussion ensued.
• We read a scene from Tanise's screenplay. Discussion ensued.
• We read more of Becky's story from the previous meeting. Discussion ensued.

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, May 28th at 7:30 p.m. at Becky's. (It should have been the 21st, but Becky's out of town and Raphael has a play, etc.) See you then!

Minutes! 4-23-13

Salut, mes amis. Here's what you missed:

• We had an epic spread of food, so those of you who weren't here really did miss out on some deliciousness.
• We read more of Tanise's "Barhopping." Discussion ensued.
• We read Tanise's short story inspired by Andrew Wyeth's painting "Christina's World." Discussion ensued.
• We read Dan's short story inspired by Man Ray's painting "La Fortune." Discussion ensued.
• We read Raphael's short story inspired by Renoir's painting "Two Sisters (On the Terrace)." Discussion ensued.
• We read Felipe's short story based on the famous Woodstock poster. Discussion ensued. 
• We read Becky's short story based on Gregory Crewdson's untitled 1998 photograph. Discussion ensued.
• Most of us decided that we're going to keep working on our painting-inspired stories because we rather like them. Prompt success!
• We discussed how one day we're all going to be very famous writers collectively known as "The Chicago School," and how high school students will be forced to read us in class and hate every minute of it. 
• We've decided that the next month is going to be unofficial DWChitown "Break Through Your Boundaries" month. Either at the next meeting or the meeting after, try to bring in a piece that you would normally be uncomfortable writing. Write in a genre you've never tried, write a sex scene, etc. Obviously, this isn't school, so you don't have to. But, you know...try. Let's get inspired, people!

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, May 7th at Becky's place. Hopefully it won't be all rainy and gross by then. Submit things! See you next time. 

Minutes! 4-9-13

Hey kids. Here's what you missed (aside from delicious beer and chips & salsa and bagel chips & hummus and oatmeal cream pies--quite the spread):

• Upcoming literary event #1: Pop Up Book Fair at The Empty Bottle this Sunday, April 14th at 2 p.m. Click on the link for the facebook info--there's a link on their page that will let you get in for free! (But it's only $5 otherwise, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.)
• Upcoming literary event #2: Dollhouse Reading Series on Saturday, April 20th. Get your dose of poetry during National Poetry Month. 
• Upcoming literary event #3: C2E2, the Chicago Comics & Entertainment Expo, April 26-28. Lots of interesting panels related to writing, mostly for comics and TV, but they can be applied to other things. Lots of other nerdy goodness. Literary guests include Audrey Niffenegger and R.L. Stine! (My 8-year-old self is freaking out.)
• Upcoming literary event #4: Tuesday Funk. This is a neat little reading series that Becky and Meg discovered, which takes place the first Tuesday of every month at Hop Leaf. Good beer, good fiction. The next one is May 7th. 
• We read a scene from Tanise's screenplay. Discussion ensued.
• Raphael read us a short story in the works. Discussion ensued. (We also discussed how fairy tales have different phrases besides "once upon a time" and "and they lived happily ever after" in other languages!)
• Becky mentioned a website called Duolingo where you can get Rosetta-Stone-style language lessons online FOR FREE! Sounds too good to be true, but it is REAL.
• Becky read a few newer stories from her blog. Discussion ensued. 
• The four of us that were here gave each other an exercise, due at the next meeting, where we will write a short piece based on a famous painting. We've all assigned each other paintings, but if you weren't here and want to participate, contact Becky and she will assign you one. 

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, April 23rd at 7:30 p.m. Becky's place. The usual. See you then!

Minutes! 3-26-13

A lively meeting this evening. Here's what you missed:

• We read Becky's story. Discussion ensued.
• We read more of Tanise's screenplay. Discussion ensued.
• We read a new part of Dan's play. Discussion ensued.
• Raphael asked us lots of questions about death to help him plan one of his plays.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 9th at 7:30 p.m. Hopefully it will be warmer then! Submit things.

Minutes! 3-12-13

Here's what you missed:

• We read Raphael's short play "The Door Game." Discussion ensued.
• We read two of Gena's poems. Discussion ensued.
• We read another scene from Tanise's barhopping play. Discussion ensued.
• We discussed an old short story of Becky's that she plans to re-write. 

Overall it was a lively and fruitful meeting. Our next meeting will be Tuesday, March 26th at 7:30 p.m. at Becky's. Submit things! And don't forget, The Dollhouse Reading Series is this Saturday. Anyone want to go?

Next Meeting 3-12-13!

Sorry I've been so terrible at blogging lately. We've had a series of small meetings, canceled meetings, meetings where we didn't talk about writing, etc. Well, my friends, Spring is upon us. Time to get back on track! Our next meeting will be Tuesday, March 12th at 7:30 p.m. It's at Becky's apartment, as usual. Submit stuff. Be there.

In other literary news:

The Creative Chicago Expo is tomorrow and Saturday (March 1-2) at the Chicago Cultural Center. There are panels and speakers related to writing and many other art forms, and it's free. I think I'm going to attend some talks. There are also vendors. Sounds fun.

The next Dollhouse Reading Series is Saturday, March 16th, so keep that in mind if you want to hear some excellent poetry in a random person's house. It's fun.

And...that's all I can think of right now. See you next time!

Minutes! 1-8-13

Hey everyone. Sorry I didn't post for the last meeting. I honestly thought I had. Apparently my brain decided to trick me. Anyway, here are the minutes for this week:

• We read a scene from Tanise's play. Discussion ensued.
• We read a scene from Dan's play. Discussion ensued.
• I brought up an idea for a writing exercise, which is this: in the latest issue of McSweeney's they performed an experiment in translations. They'd give an already published, non-English story to an author who would translate it into English. Then they'd give that author's translation to another author, who would translate it into a different language. Then they'd give that translation to yet another author, who would translate it back into English a second time, and so on. I propose that we do this ourselves, on a much smaller scale. I speak enough French to do this, and I know Felipe speaks fluent Spanish. (Does anyone else speak other languages?) I have a book of flash fiction stories, so let's say I take one and translate it into French. Then I'll email my translation to one of you, and you'll translate it back into English. (If you don't understand French, you can always stick it into google translate to get an idea of what it means and then polish it into better English.) Then you send your translation to Felipe, and he'll translate it into Spanish. And so on. We could do this in the two weeks between our next two meetings, and then we could read them aloud when we're all done to see the differences. Does that sound fun to people? Let me know.
• Our next meeting will be Tuesday, Jan. 22nd at Becky's apartment, 7:30 p.m. See you there!