Greenville Librarian Headlines Feb. 2 Meeting

Our speaker this month is Brian Emerson, a librarian at the Greenville County Library System. Brian attended Furman University, where he received his BA in Philosophy in 2009.  While working for GCLS, he received his Master’s in Library and Information Science from USC in 2014.

Brian currently works in Discovery Services, where he works in Reference, Interlibrary Loan, and the Internet Area.  Whenever he is asked about good mysteries to read, his go-tos are Peril at End House, by Agatha Christie and The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith.

Brian will talk to us about the resources available to writers through GCLS and discuss how writers and librarians can work together. Topics include how to use the library to research potential book topics and how to get published works submitted into the GCLS library system.

The monthly Sisters in Crime meeting is scheduled for Thursday, February 2nd, at The Runway Café, 21 Airport Rd, Greenville, S.C.  Be there at 6:15 p.m. to enjoy chapter fellowship. 

If possible, please join us for dinner as our dinner orders help to ensure we can book our meeting room for free. Supper will be served at 6:25 and we will begin the business portion of our meeting promptly at 6:45 so we can be out by 8:30.

Please e-mail your dinner order to Ellis Vidler at ellisvidler1@gmail.com as soon as possible and no later than noon the day of the meeting. Advance orders are necessary in order for the Runway Café to speed service. To see the special menu for our group click on the Advance Order Menu tab at right.

If you can't dine with us, we would still like to know you plan to attend so we can be sure you have a seat. If you place an order and do not attend or fail to cancel by noon, you will be charged for the meal. And like always, we'll enjoy it.

Look forward to seeing you,

Sally

Minutes January 5, 2017 Meeting-Runway Cafe

Attendance 14; 13 members and 1 guest/potential new member (Good job, Linda!)

After our usual social time and the lovely repast provided by the Runway Café, our lame duck president, Howard Lewis, called our meeting to order with his final, “How we doin’?” FYI, Howard, you are anything but lame!

We got down to immediate busines, and before any of us could think fast enough to change our minds, the entire slate of officers for the coming year was submitted, approved, and voted on, with 100% “Yays” and zero % “Nays.”

Therefore, your officers for the year 2017 are:

• Sally Handley—President
• Howard Lewis—Vice President
• Helen Turnage—Treasurer
• Cindy Blackburn—Secretary
• Ellis Vidler—Community Liason
• Linda Lovely—Membership Chair

After the election, Howard also mentioned another piece of business, the upcoming workshop in June featuring Marcia Talley. Topics and details have yet to be ironed out, or even put on the ironing board. But we’ll keep ya’ posted. Ideas, suggestions, and volunteers to help organize and plan would be greatly appreciated. Hint, hint.

Then we got the program underway—a guided discussion/informational session amongst ourselves, discussing a variety of topics that we had proposed at the holiday party, and then Howard took votes via e-mail, and we discussed in order of preference. Howard gave us his swan song performance as our president by emceeing this discussion with his usual flair and humor.

Topics discussed:

1. Building relationships and readerships. How we find books to read, and how we find readers to read our own books.

Some possibilities mentioned were bookclubs, Book Reporter (Our new treasurer Helen mentioned this interesting thing I’d never heard of), FaceBook (FaceBookGroups and FaceBook Author Pages), e-mail lists and newletters, Amazon Singles, and getting a piece of our writing such as short stories into boxed sets and anthologies.

 2. Good Reads-the good, the bad, and the ugly.

No consensus here. Either you love Good Reads, or you hate it. But Sally, our illustrious new president, loves it and gave us tips on how to use Good Reads to keep a record of what you want to read, and what you have already read. Here we also discussed book reviews, and the ins and outs and costs of getting reviews on Net Gallery and Kirkus.

3. What readers love.

Variety, imagination, humor, surprise endings, happy or at least satisfying endings (Some of us even re-write endings to books we think end on too unhappy a note!), complicated characters who are not “too stupid to live,” life-affirming stories, stories that teach us something.

4. What readers hate.

Boring stories, unnecessary violence or torture, boring characters, when animals get killed.

5. Finding critique groups.

Okay, so I’m new at this secretary thing, and missed the answers on this one. But I did catch that the SinC website has a place to find a critique group. We also discussed the difference between critique partners, groups, and beta readers. I think everyone agreed that getting feedback, however you go about it, is a valuable tool for writers.

6. Rough draft rules.

Some tricks people in the group use are leaving a scene half-done so you know where to pick up the next day, setting or not setting goals, (You may want to be sitting down before reading Howard’s suggestion-twice!-that we write 10,000 words per day. No, that isn’t a typo). Linda is a “binge” writer—all at once, and some of us write every day for at least a few minutes. Sally, our president-elect, has made a solemn vow to do so in 2017!

That’s it folks!

Respectfully Submitted,

Cindy Blackburn, Secretary

Members Tackle Timely Topics at 2017 Kickoff

For our January 5 meeting we’re going to have a guided discussion of topics selected and prioritized by our members. 

This meeting will be framed as an information session not a class. As an example, a course on Building Relationships could last weeks, and truthfully, a lot of our writers and readers aren’t interested. This particular topic is important to writers because we are basically responsible for our own marketing, and I’m hoping readers want to know. Of course we’ll have to mention social media, but only what's possible, not how to do it. I’ll ask our readers how they select their books? Where do they get the ideas? Are they on any writers' mailing lists? I’ll ask our writers how they build readership with readers and what’s working for them? There are hundreds of book clubs within driving distance. How does an author find these book clubs? How do they get invited? What do they do when they get there? Why do our readers join book clubs? What do they expect from a writer who attends? Again, not a class, just information. Later in this note, I’ll list our prioritized topics. 

Before any of this, we need to select officers. Our present executive committee has assembled a proposed slate in an attempt to give us a blend of new blood for new ideas and established officers for continuity. Here is our proposal. Please consider these before the meeting.

Sally - President

Howard - Vice President

Linda - Membership Chair

Helen - Treasurer

Cindy - Secretary

Ellis - Community Liaison

Here’s the prioritized list of topics.

1) Building relationships/readership

2) What readers love

3) What readers hate

4) Critique groups

5) To outline or not

6) Rough draft rules

7) Lack of motivation, inspitration, time

8) Revision process

9) How to know which ideas to write

10) What can non-writer mate do to help

The monthly Sisters in Crime meeting is scheduled for Thursday, January 5, at The Runway Café, 21 Airport Rd, Greenville, S.C.  Be there at 6:15 p.m. to enjoy chapter fellowship. Supper should be served at 6:30. Our meeting will start with officer elections at 7 p.m. Both dinner and the meeting are open to the public. 

In order for the Runway Café to speed service, dinner orders must be emailed by noon the day of the meeting. If possible, join us for dinner as our dinner orders help to ensure we can book our meeting room for free. However, if you can't dine with us, we would still like to know you plan to attend so we can be sure you have a seat.  To see the special menu for our group, click on the Advance Order Menu tab at right.  Please e-mail your order to Ellis Vidler at ellisvidler1@gmail.com the earlier the better. If Ellis doesn’t get your order by noon on the day of the meeting, you will need to contact the restaurant yourself and place your order. 

If you place an order and do not attend or fail to cancel by noon, you will be charged for the meal. And like always, we'll enjoy it.