Dear Chapter Mates,

Were you able to attend our January meeting? If not, you missed a very interesting subject. Ann Marks spoke to us about face reading and what things are revealed about a person just by looking at them. For more information, there is book available called Amazing Face Reading: An Illustrated Encyclopedia for Reading Faces by Mac Fulfer. Call your local bookstore or visit Amazon.com.

The budget for the year was approved and our chapter should remain in the black all year. A copy of our budget is available to all members.

Attending the RWA® National Conference? Don’t forget that the RWA® National Conference will be happening in Dallas this year. I’d love to see as many members as possible attend the conference. And as we do every year, we are raffling off a National Conference fee. Tickets will be available at every meeting for $1 each or six for $5, so bring a couple of extra bucks. The drawing will take place at out May meeting.

Want NT stuff? We now have an online store. You can purchase shirts, hats, mugs, etc… Our selection is small at this point, but we can expand our product line as needed.

Are you writing? I haven’t been. But I’m getting the bug again. We have a great workshop on CD called: Finding Time – The Habit of Writing Daily by Kim Louise. Kim has a lot of great points to make and is very engaging to listen to. Check out RW11-120 at February’s meeting and let her help you find time to write every day.

Speaking of writing… There will be lots of incentives to write this year: the short story contest will present many of us an opportunity to try our hand at something new, and the Book In A Year program will offer monthly rewards for achieving your goals. And don’t forget, we reward our most prolific members each December. But you gotta write and you gotta attend meetings to report your progress in order to be in the running for those $25 gift cards. Check out the Member News section for last year’s winners.

The short story contest will be open to NT members only (past or present). If you’re considering entering, here are the required elements: 2500 words/12 MS pages, must take place in Texas, must be a romance, and must include three (3) of the following elements: silver spurs, a yellow rose or roses, a book, a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, or twenty-five (25) of something. Entry fee will be $10 and finalized guidelines will be announced at the February meeting, but this should get you going.

Book In A Year Program guidelines, NT National Conference Excursion ideas, and Writers Roundup ideas will also be announced in February.

Is there some type of program you’d like to see at NT this year? Please don’t hesitate to contact Tara Waldie, our VP/Program Director, and let her know – or any of our board members, for that matter.

Our board meetings have been scheduled as follows:

March 17, 2007, 8:30 am at La Madeleine in Grapevine

May 18, 2007, 8:30 am at La Madeleine in Grapevine

August 18, 2007, 8:30 am at La Madeleine in Grapevine

October, date, time, and location to be determined later

All general members are welcome to attend.

Have you visited our web site lately? Don’t forget that our web address is now www.ntrwa.ORG. Please update your bookmarks as necessary. The NT web site “dot com” issue is high on my priority list this year. I will be researching the matter over the next couple of weeks and will report at the February meeting on my findings.

I’m looking forward to seeing you at the next meeting. Come on up and say hi.

Sincerely,

Jen