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! 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!

To keep you occupied until our first meeting...

...here are some other things you can do to start writing!

It is still early in November, so you have plenty of time to participate in NaNoWriMo! (National Novel Writing Month.) The goal: write a 50,000-word novel by the end of November. Are you up to the challenge? I think so.

Here are some writing contests whose deadlines are fast approaching:

Writer's Digest Short Short Story Competition - Deadline November 15th

Glimmer Train Press Short Story Award for New Writers - Deadline November 30th

Narrative Fall Story Contest - Deadline November 30th

Don't forget, our first meeting is November 8th, 7:30 p.m. at Intelligentsia Coffee on Broadway! Bring your contest entries and we'll workshop them.  Can't wait to see you!