January meeeting

How to Write a Page Turner – Jordan Rosenfeld
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
6:30 pm on Zoom to socialize
The meeting proper begins at 7:00

Happy, nice people living easy lives make for boring stories. To keep a story taut, and to hold readers’ attention, you must learn to write with page turning tension. Tension in novels, stories, and even memoirs is like the connective tissue that allows muscles to attach to bones, and thus flex their might. It’s the heart of conflict, the backbone of uncertainty, the hallmark of danger. It requires opposing forces—characters and circumstances moving in opposition to each other in a variety of ways, at the scene level, and at the plot level. In this workshop you’ll learn to understand essential kinds of opposing forces to write page-turning stories.

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October meeting

FBI: True or False? – Jerri Williams
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
6:30 pm on Zoom to socialize
The meeting proper begins at 7:00

Retired FBI agent and author Jerri Williams is on a mission to show the public who the FBI is and what the FBI does. Through her books, blog, and true crime podcast, FBI Retired Case File Review, she debunks myths and misconceptions about the FBI found in books, TV, and movies.

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September meeting

The Innocence Project – Robyn Trent Jefferson
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
6:30 pm on Zoom to socialize
The meeting proper begins at 7:00

Founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the Innocence Project works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone. Their work is guided by science and grounded in antiracism.
https://innocenceproject.org/

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June meeting

Celebrate!
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
6:30 pm on Zoom to socialize
The meeting proper begins at 7:00

It’s our last meeting before the summer break. Come share what you’re writing with the other members.

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May meeting

Author Idol
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
6:30 pm on Zoom to socialize
The meeting proper begins at 7:00

Send the first two pages of your double-spaced manuscript with your name removed as an attachment for a chance to have your words read aloud by a professional reader and critiqued by our panel of agents:

Katharine Sands, Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency
Paula Munier, Talcott Notch
Michelle Richter, Fuse Literary

Reading will continue until two of the three agents indicate that they would stop reading, after which the agents will discuss their reaction to the pages.

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March meeting

Engineering Surprise: How Stories Conspire with Our Minds and What Happens in Second (or Seventeenth) Readings – Vera Tobin
Wednesday, March 9, 2022
6:30 pm on Zoom to socialize
The meeting proper begins at 7:00

Vera Tobin, the author of Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot, will present an exploration of the cognitive science of the difference between plot twists that surprise and delight, and ones that fall flat. She’ll discuss findings on the interaction between surprise and memory, the relationship between ease of processing and the experience of insight, and how social psychology helps explain why unsuccessful twists can feel not just disappointing, but like violations of the social contract — plus, we’ll talk about what mystery and surprise even mean when we’re reading (for example) Some Buried Caesar for the umpteenth time.

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February meeting

Research Methods for Historical Fiction – John F. Gallagher
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
6:30 pm on Zoom to socialize
The meeting proper begins at 7:00

Learn how to use research to bring your historical fiction to life.

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