Hot Off the Press: Update on our August guest speaker!

We’re delighted to announce that Judith Turner-Yamamoto will be our guest speaker at our August 13 meeting.

Her debut novel, Loving the Dead and Gone, comes out on September 6 from Regal House Publishing, Sour Mash Southern Literature series. Chapter member Miki Reilly-Howe will be interviewing the 2020 Petrichor Prize finalist about the long process from writing to publication, as well as the masterful steps she has taken to ensure her novel’s success.

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Judith Turner-Yamamoto’s work has appeared in StorySOUTH, Mississippi Review, Snake Nation Review, and American Literary Review, among others, and in many anthologies, including Walking the Edge: A Southern Gothic Anthology, Show Us Your Papers, and Gravity Dancers. Her awards include two Virginia Arts Commission fellowships, an Ohio Arts Council fellowship, VCCA and Fundación Valparaiso fellowship residencies, the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, the Washington Prize for Fiction, and the Virginia Screenwriting Award. Her article assignments, which include interviews with such luminaries as Frank Gehry and Annie Leibovitz, have taken her all over the world, and she has published more than a thousand cover stories and features on the arts, design, architecture, interiors and gardens, travel, food, fashion, and books in such publications as The Boston Globe Magazine, Elle, Interiors, Art & Antiques, The Los Angeles Times, and Travel & Leisure.  

In lieu of our monthly meeting, several DRSers attended Imaginarium, a lively  convention for “creatives” (authors, filmmakers, composers, visual artists, gamers, etc.) held annually in Louisville.

Susan Bell, Elaine Munsch, Lynn Slaughter, Carol Preflatish, and Leanne Edelen held down our chapter tables.

 

Elaine Munsch, making the rounds, chatting up an author, looking for speakers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Preflatish, selling her her Nathan Perry Mystery series.

 

 

 

 

Susan Bell, getting a little “Air” outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lorena Peter and Lynda Rees also shared a table, and we got to see many friends, including authors Beth Henderson and Pam Turner.

 

 

We managed to sell a few books and talk to several folks interested in our chapter. But as usual, the best part of the conference was meeting and talking with other writers. (Editor’s note: Lynn Slaughter won the Imadjinn Award for LEISHA’S SONG in the young adult category.)

We sat near a delightful Cincinnati crime writer, Trace Conger (I’m currently reading his novel, FIVE WILL DIE- really good!), and our inveterate program chair, Elaine Munsch, wasted no time approaching him about being a speaker at one of our chapter meetings. She also connected with award-winning author and journalist John DeDakis who expressed interest in speaking with our  chapter.

There will be a memorial service for long-time chapter member Debi Huff on:

August 7 from 2-5 PM at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Louisville.

We miss Debi, who was a delight with a terrific sense of humor.

 

 

 

We hope to have a guest speaker for our August 13 meeting via Zoom (last minute speaker cancellation has us scrambling!) but meantime, we’re looking forward to another presentation by Miki Reilly-Howe on a chapter from Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction. And on September 10 at the Middletown Library,  Carol Preflatish will talk with us about “how to be an organized writer.”

Additional Member News

Carol Preflatish will be speaking at the Jeffersonville Indiana Library on August 6 at 1:30 pm. She’ll be discussing her Nathan Perry Mystery series, and specifically the research she did on her latest book, WITCH HUNT. Seating is limited, and registration is on the library’s Calendar of Events page on http://Jeff.library.org

 

 

 

Lynn Slaughter’s DEADLY SETUP came out on July 5. On July 8, her guest essay, “Beyond the External Plot: What’s Your Book Really About?” appeared on Sarah Glenn’s blog:

https://saraheglenn.blogspot.com/2022/07/lynn-slaughter-beyond-external-plot.html 

Lynn was also thrilled to receive the Imadjinn Award for LEISHA’S SONG in the young adult category. LEISHA’S SONG is also a Silver Falchion finalist. Lynn will be one of the participating authors doing a reading at Voice & Vision: Presented by Spalding’s School of Writing, The Louisville Review & 21c Museum Hotel. The in-person reading event will take place 6:00-7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 21, at 21c Museum Hotel in downtown Louisville. 

 

All for now. We hope to see many of you at our August meeting!