The meeting was called to order by President Lisa Holcomb at 6:34 PM. Introductions were made, birthdays remembered, and Author announcements were made. We were reminded that the October meeting would follow tradition and have an open mic with members reading their own scary stories.
There was no treasurer’s report. There was no new business. So the business meeting was adjourned at 6:39 PM.
Lisa introduced our speaker, Maya Bethany.
Maya asked the group what we felt came out of the quarantine during the Covid period. She asked how to do all things connected with writing a book. Her suggestions to broaden our reach to other authors and potential members included affiliation, community building, and group branding.
a) Affiliation: Become involved with associations like the Writers League of Texas and ask to join their listing.
b) Community Building: Reach out to raise awareness of the Guild to bring in new
members.
c) Rebranding: Use resources in our region to host a Writers Retreat.
Maya fielded several questions/comments from members.
a)Tom Collins: Mentors exist in our group. Post-publication work is the hardest.
b)Pat Wells: Her experience was to contact small press publishers. She sent a query and within a week, was contacted by a traditional publisher.
c)Mike Wigington: Promote Nutz and Boltz as an open forum for questions. He referred to his work as self-published, but it was also necessary to ask questions.
d)Lorna Penland: Referred to pre-Covid as being very well established. Now we seem to be starting again.
Mention was also made that author biographies would help reduce the “stranger” aspect of members, giving ease of approach in working together.
Respectfully submitted,
Patricia La Vigne, Secretary