July has been an Exciting Month
July has been an exciting month for our chapter, especially our acceptance to the 2021 Kentucky Book Festival. Here are some highlights:
Kentucky Book Festival
Mystery With a Splash of Bourbon, edited by Susan Bell and Elaine Munsch, has been selected for inclusion in the Kentucky Book Festival to be held on November 6th at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington. Although the anthology is not an official Sisters in Crime publication, several of our chapter members have works in the anthology, so we are thrilled to celebrate our talented Derby Rotten Scoundrel authors and editors!
The anthology includes the following authors:
Deborah Alvord ** Edmund August ** Susan Bell ** Barbara Blackburn ** Karen Quinn Block ** Mike Bradford ** Virginia ‘Din’ Dulworth ** M. E. Gaskins ** Sarah E. Glenn ** Debi Huff ** Shirley Jump ** Gwen Mayo ** Elaine Munsch ** Lorena R. Peter (Lorena Reith, Jr.) ** Debby Schenk ** Tamera Shaw ** Sheila Shumate ** Cheryl Stuck ** Milton C. Toby ** Jo Tucker ** Heidi Walker
Read more here: Mystery With a Splash of Bourbon
New Logo
Chapter member Miki Reilly-Howe arranged for a fabulous graphic designer to design a new logo for our chapter. We are thrilled and now await the approval of national (We’re pretty confident they’ll like it as much as we do!)
Speaker’s Bureau
Plans are underway for our new project, a Speaker’s Bureau, which would offer presentations to libraries and other groups in Kentucky and Indiana. The amazing Elaine Munsch is putting together a brochure to advertise our services. We are offering eleven presentations:
- A Brief History of Women Crime Writers
- The History of Young Adult Literature
- Writing Contemporary Young Adult Fiction
- Getting That First Book Written and Published
- Authors Share Their Stories
- Where Do Writers Get Their Ideas
- Writing Mysteries with a Kentucky Slant
- Writer’s Secrets on Staying Organized
- The Business of Publishing
- When Two Heads Are Better Than One
- To Travel or Not to Travel
- Why Doesn’t the Movie Do Justice to My Favorite Book?
Presenters include: Elaine Munsch, Lorena Peter, Jeanette Pope, Carol Preflatish, Lynda Rees, and Lynn Slaughter.
Our New Publicist!
Board member Lynda Rees has been appointed by the board to take on a new volunteer position, publicist for our chapter. We are thrilled to have someone of Lynda’s expertise and energy on the job to spread the word about our chapter! The Board has decided to submit to the chapter changes in the by-laws which would officially add two board positions: publicist and webmaster. We will vote on these at the end of this year.
Volunteer of the Year
The Board voted to establish an annual award, Volunteer of the Year, to honor chapter members who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in contributing their time and talents. The Volunteer of the Year will receive a certificate, be honored at our December luncheon, and have their upcoming national and chapter dues paid for by the chapter. We voted to award this year’s Volunteer of the Year award to Susan Bell, who has not only served as our Secretary, but has been our webmaster and our playwriting coordinator. Congratulations, Susan, and please know how much we appreciate you!
Chapter Meeting
Iced at the Easy
The Frazier Museum no longer has the resources to produce or help produce plays. A sub-committee consisting of Susan Bell, Patience Martin, Elaine Munsch, and Jeanette Pope will continue to seek other avenues of getting Iced at the Easy, based on an idea by Jeanette Pope, produced either fully or in staged readings.
Writer Support Session
In other news, we had a lively chapter meeting on July 10. Susan Bell and Elaine Munsch submitted strong submissions for critique. Susan’s Autumn Picnic is chock full of atmosphere and suspense about that suspicious young man in the woods covered in blood and carrying an axe! And Elaine’s Dash is as entertaining as ever as he investigates the mysterious death of his aunt.
August Meeting
Because so many chapter members are participating in the 10th Annual Kentuckiana Independent Authors Fair on August 14th, we decided to cancel our August chapter meeting and encourage everyone to come and support our DRS authors at the fair: Susan Bell, Gloria Casale, Elaine Munsch, Carol Preflatish, Lynda Rees, Lynn Slaughter, Jeanette Pope, Lorena Peter, and Pam Turner. The event will be held at 307 W. Jefferson Street in LaGrange Kentucky at the Community Center. Contact person is Tony Acree: tonyacree@gmail.com.
Zoom Continues
The Board has decided that at least through the end of the year, chapter meetings will continue to be held online, especially since several of our members have long drives to get to face-to-face meetings. Beginning with the September 11th meeting, we will hold our business meeting from 12-1 and then from 1-2, we will either have a speaker or work our way through a craft book. In September, we’ll begin discussing chapter one of Writing Fiction, A Guide to Narrative Craft, Tenth Edition, by Janet Burroway, available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and IndieBound.
New Critique Session – Writer Support
At the retreat, attendees expressed an interest in a writing support group that would meet more often and allow for more frequent opportunities for feedback. The first DRS critique group will meet twice monthly at a separate time from our regular meetings. The group includes: Susan Bell, Elaine Munsch, Lorena Peter, Jeanette Pope, and Miki Reilly-Howe. Beth Henderson, Lynda Rees, and Lynn Slaughter have also volunteered to offer feedback to anyone requesting an extra pair of eyes on their work.
Speaker’s Bureau Prologue
In other news, Elaine Munsch, Jeanette Pope, and Lynn Slaughter will serve as a Derby Rotten Scoundrels guest panel for the Speed City Indianapolis chapter on July 24th. We’ll share our chapter retreat and playwriting experiences.
Speakers
Our business meeting was followed by a terrific presentation by Gwen Mayo and Sarah Glenn, the publishers of Mystery with a Splash of Bourbon. They gave us a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to found and run a small independent press. It was absolutely fascinating.
You can watch their presentation here: Speaker Series
Member News
Our former president, Beth Henderson, reports she’s doing her happy dance because she just got a contract from The Wild Rose Press for her romantic suspense novel, Ghost Notes, to be published in 2022. Congratulations, Beth!
Jeanette Pope reports she had a wonderful time networking at Imaginarium and got to spend time with her mentor, Lee Pennington, former poet laureate of Kentucky and all-around fabulous writer and filmmaker.
Carol Preflatish also had a super time at Imaginarium and sold lots of books!
Lynn Slaughter’s guest essay on her approach to starting a novel appeared on Debra Goldstein’s blog: https://www.debrahgoldstein.com/guest-blogger-lynn-slaughter-starting-a-novel-one-writers-approach/. On July 20, Lynn was interviewed by Leah Stuhler on YA Book Chat about her newly released Leisha’s Song.
That’s it for now! Hope to see you all on August 14 at the Book Fair in LaGrange and on September 11th, our next chapter meeting. Happy Writing!