News and What-Nots

We're starting into a brand new month--the "post-conference highs" month. The conference always inspires us to reach our goals, always gives us ideas to chase, always gives us new friends to miss until next time. And sometimes we get a touch of post-conference blues. Best way to beat those blues is to join with your nearest local group!

Here's what's up with us:

Our beloved pres, Janice Thompson, sent everyone an email recently with the schedule of speakers and events for 2016. If you didn't get it, you can find it here on the WOTS blog (and if you didn't get it, then you need to update your email address! Send a note to our email address: wots.acfw@gmail.com). We're looking at an exciting list of events for the coming year. I hope everyone can attend as many of the events as they can. And I definitely hope I can attend more of them!

We also intend to send out a newsletter, beginning in January. Did you know that we have over 200 members? And did you know that only 75 members are in our Facebook Group? That's a whole chunk o' folks who don't know what's going on, so we're going to reach out to them.

Once a month, I'll send out notice about our upcoming speaker and events, and once a quarter, I'll send another that contains group news accumulated during that quarter. Which means I need your help! If you have a new release, if you've won an award or are a finalist in a contest, if you have a speaking engagement--if you have anything you want to brag about--please, send it to me (pprmint777@yahoo.com). I'll post your news here on the blog and send it out with our quarterly newsletter.

Special thanks goes out to Chief Blogger Wizard Crystal Barnes for setting up our new WOTS Speaker Bureau page. Currently we have only three speakers listed. If you're interested in having your name included on the list, please send me your information (pprmint777@yahoo.com). Follow the template on the page, and be sure to add your jpeg and links.

For the speaker page to be effective, we have to increase the blog's circulation. I'll be promoting that page through tweets and posts on various social sites and in our newsletter, but if you'd like to help, it's as simple as pushing one of the buttons at the bottom of the post--which is true of every page and post on our site.

Poke a button and share! We're in the recruiting business, and we'd like to recruit as many writers as possible who would be interested in joining us. We have benefits galore by belonging to this group--like-minded friends, informative speakers, people to help us celebrate both our big and little achievements. But, to be pragmatic if that helps, we're also potential readers, so the more there are of us, the better chance we have of sales and speaking engagements! Okay, yes, that sounds mercenary.

Moving on . . .

Donn Taylor, chief poet and mystery author, is speaking at the ETBU Writers Conference in Marshall, Texas, again this year.  His topics: "Making Your Poems Different" and "Broader Horizons in Poetic Technique."

Registration is open for the two-day conference, which begins October 30th. Late fees don't kick in until the 20th. If you're going for the entire time, get your room reservations now. Apparently some other events in town are making the rooms book quickly.

Hope to see you there!

On our FB page, Lisa Gefrides mentioned having writers retreat and getaway at Frontier Camp near Crockett, Texas. This sounds like a terrific deal and an even better opportunity to spend some quiet, quality time with our manuscripts! According to the site:

Standard Stay: Friday, January 29 - Sunday, January 31, 2016 $109 per person, including 5 delicious meals, and 2 nights of lodging. First meal is Friday supper and ends with brunch on Sunday.

Lisa said she wasn't managing this, but you can register online. I plan to go, so if you're going too, let me know! (pprmint777@yahoo.com)

In other news~~~

Ane Mulligan, our illustrious zone leader, announced recently that she has now dipped her toes in the waters of hybrid writing with her short story, Way Down Upon a Suwanee Murder, for sale on Amazon for 99c. Ken Raney did her cover--as he has all her covers--and he did a great job. She has a new release in her Chapel Springs series coming in December. Keep an eye out!

And finally ~~~

Y'all make plans to join us and guest speaker Julie Christie October 17!