President's Corner

JULY 2007

NTRWA President, Jen FitzGerald

Dear Chapter Mates,

Our Silver Nuggets Contest is in danger of being cancelled. This has been in the works for a long time, and the opportunity for publication is a very exciting deal. Ten chapter members, who are as of now, unpublished, could find themselves published. How cool is that?

So…we have extended the deadline one final time to August 15, 2007. We must have twenty (20) entries in order to make this work fairly. And you may count these pages toward your Book In A Year pages, one entry counts for one month. If you submit two entries, you may count the second entry for a second month’s BIAY pages.

If we do not receive at least twenty entries by August 15^th, this contest will be cancelled.

I recently reviewed the list of goals I created when I contemplated running for president, and to be honest, I’ve only accomplished four of the twenty I had on my list. One is still in progress, and a couple can’t happen until close to the end of the year. The dot-com thing is still on my plate. I haven’t forgotten about it (although it’s technically not on my list), but with the conference right around the corner and my life in perpetual chaos until July 4^th, it’s not high on my priority list at the moment. I will get back to it after the conference is over.

Our Bill Bates Cowboy Ranch Excursion needs some more takers. You do not have to attend the National Conference to go, so please consider participating in this fun event. Spend a fun evening with fellow writers from as far away as Australia. Come and enjoy a delicious meal and see some live longhorns. You could possibly consider it a short retreat: get together a critique partner or two and spend the evening brainstorming, plotting, or critiquing. Sign up on the NT Web site, the cost is $58 per person. This is as low as we could go per person and the chapter is making no money off this, so in order to break even, we need to fill the bus.

The Book In A Year program has been a rousing success so far. We have close to thirty (30) members participating, and, from what I’ve heard, the bracelet is really spurring everyone to write. Since this program seems to be working so well, we would like to continue with it. However, we’ll need to come up with some ideas for new incentives once the full bracelet has been earned. So if you have any ideas, please let a board member know. Email information is on page two of the monthly newsletter.

The board is still looking for all of the chapter’s physical assets – its stuff. We just want to get an accurate picture of what the chapter does and doesn’t have. So if you are in possession of books, water bottles, t-shirts, tote bags, workshop cassettes or CDs (unless you’ve officially checked them out), or anything else, please let a board member know. If you are tired of storing it, we’ll be happy to take it off your hands.

I would like thank the published authors who came and provided critiques at our June meeting: Juliet Burns, Rosemary Clement-Moore, Von Jocks, Judy Christenberry, Shelley Bradley, Victoria Chancellor, Cathy Spangler, and Candy Havens (who didn’t actually come, but did a critique).

I would also like to thank every member of our chapter who volunteers to make our chapter a success: Tara Waldie, Angi Platt, Carolyn Williamson, Regina Richards, Marty Tidwell, Kisha Jordan, Candy Havens, Sandra Ferguson, Nikki Duncan, Mindy Obenhaus, Juliet Burns, Gina Nelson, Chris Keniston, and anyone who has recently submitted articles for the newsletter. If I’ve missed anyone, please accept my sincere apologies.

That said, there is a way for each person to serve the chapter. I know it would make the newsletter editor’s job so much easier if she had a flow of articles coming in each month. I’m sure our Ways & Means Chair, Mindy Obenhaus would love to have a helper. And Carolyn Williamson, our intrepid Membership Secretary could surely use some help at the door each month. And our Great Expectations Contest is looming on the horizon.

The GE Contest needs a contest chair. We’re supposed to have him or her in place by June 1, but it got away from me, so I apologize. And I know it’s hard to imagine what’ll be going in our lives at the end of this year, beginning of next, but the chair needs to start working now to prepare for then. Co-Chairs would work too. We are also going to be looking for Category Coordinators. Keep these important jobs in mind and if you have any questions contact Angi Platt or Jen FitzGerald.

All right, I’ve blathered on enough for one month. See you next month…

Sincerely,

Jen