Great Meeting

We had a great meeting Friday night - lots of old friends and a few new friends. Welcome John Cotten and welcome back Laura Kellerberger.

We are talking about working on a "Scary Story" chapbook to have ready to sell at the 2nd Annual Arts Festival on October 9th at the Fort Harrod State Park. We are looking for scary/ghost stories or poem, but nothing bloody or horrific - we want kids to be able to read these without being too scared.

We also talked about doing a "Library Memories" chapbook for the grand opening of the new Mercer County Public Library. We need memories of your first library trip, you best/worst trip or anything that reminds you of the library, the bookmobile or reading in general.

The deadlines for these stories are:

• Scary/ghost stories or poems - September 24th
• Library memories - stories or poems - October 22nd

You can email your writings to Tony at: contentedme@hotmail.com
or Bobbi (who will be doing the editing) at: brightmyer249@hotmail.com

So everyone needs to get writing and let's get this ball rolling. We haven't even talked about what we want to do for Christmas!! Send us your thoughts and ideas.

Attention Inkblots

Inkblots!!

I haven't heard from many of you so this is a reminder that we are going to try and get back in the swing of writing again... time for a real Jump Start!!! This Friday, 6:30 at the Heritage Center on US 127... Bring a friend who may want to get started with us... we will be discussing a lot of stuff and trying to get back in the groove... I hope to see you there... SERIOUSLY!!!

Tony

Don't Forget ...

... our first meeting of the new writing season will be August 27th at the KY Ag Heritage Center on Hwy 127 across from the Kountry Kupboard. We will begin at 6:30pm.



If you know someone who is interested in joining us or just would like to check us out, bring them along. If you would like to bring a snack to share, let me know.

One of the projects we are going to work on is Scary Stories or Poems (but not horror) for a chapbook we are considering doing for Halloween this year. If you are not a member of The Community of Mercer County Writers, you are still invited to join us or submit a piece for this chapbook. I am not sure when we will present it to the public, but we would like to have it ready for the downtown Halloween event, Night of the Great Pumpkin. The idea is to write something that has a scary tone, but would not give kids nightmares if they heard it or read it. The piece could even be funny if you we so inclined. So think about it, maybe even get something down on paper to read at the meeting.

We also want to work on another chapbook to celebrate the opening of the brand-new Mercer County Public Library in November. We would like the proceeds of the sale of this book to go toward subscriptions of writing journals for the library. Think about your first library visit, your favorite library visit, or even the worst time you had at a library - whatever reminds you of libraries.

If you are working on something and would like a bit of critique, bring that along as well. Please, please let me know if you can or cannot come on the 27th so we know how many snacks we need and what to plan for. I am looking forward to seeing all of you there.

Hope to see you all there!

Tony

Care and Feeding of Nightmares

For anyone who would like to purchase my 2nd chapbook of poetry, "Care and Feeding of Nightmares" - you can email me at:

careandfeedingofnightmares@gmail.com

with your snail-mail address. The books are $5 each plus $2 for shipping and handling. I hope to have PayPal set up on my blog in a few weeks for payments, but currently I can only accept checks or money orders. I will mail out the book on the day I receive your order. You can also buy the books at J. Sampson Antiques on Main Street in Harrodsburg. Thanks to everyone who buys a book!

New Library Kick-Off

As many of you know, our new Mercer County Public Library will be opening hopefully sometime in November and the Community of Mercer County Writers may be asked to help with the Grand Opening. I am not sure what we might be asked to do but I am sure whatever it is, it will be fun.

In conjunction with that I thought we might create another chapbook to give away during the celebration (which will probably last more than one day). I am open for suggestions as to what sort of content we might put in to such a chapbook but my initial thought is that we write about some experience we have had with reading, the importance of a library or even a fictional piece about a library visit... something along those lines but I am not locked into that so if you have suggestions let's talk about them when we meet on August 27th.

I have been asked to have a workshop scheduled as soon as the library is open. It will be something they will promote during the opening. I would like to do something different but I am at a loss for a good idea at the moment. So, again, I am open for suggestions. I have been considering having a running workshop that meets once a week there and the first workshop could be a kick off for that... I bet some of you already have a good idea... bring these ideas with you on the 27th as well. You may not know it but when the library was being designed, I asked for a room that we could use for workshops, one with a small kitchen, maybe a dry erase board and so forth.... well, it is there.

They have designed a large room that can be divided and both rooms will have a sink and a place to make coffee, etc. One side is larger than the other and the plan is for us to use the smaller of the two parts. Both rooms will have access to the restrooms and we will have our own exit so we do not disturb anyone or vise versa. They have gone out of their way to make it easy for us to meet and have workshops so I want us to use it to the max. Isn't that really cool? This morning I toured the new library. It is coming along great and you can see where everything is going to be and I will tell you it is going to be a very impressive place and we will be so proud to have such a place right here in Mercer County.

Hope to see everyone there,

Tony Sexton

First Meeting of the new Writing Season

For our first meeting of the new writing season, we will meet on August 27th at the Heritage Center where we have met before (US 127 across from the Kountry Kupboard). We will begin at 6:30.

If you know someone who is interested in joining us or just would like to check us out, bring them along. If you would like to bring a snack to share, let me know.

One of the projects we are going to work on is the Sort of Scary Story (or poem) for a chapbook we are considering doing for Halloween this year. If you are not a member of The Community of Mercer County Writers you are still invited to join us or submit a piece for this chapbook. I am not sure when we will present it to the public, it could be during the Zombie Crawl sponsored by The Arts Council of Mercer County or during the downtown Halloween event or at another time around Halloween. The idea is to write something that has a scary thought to it but would not give kids nightmares if they heard it or read it. The piece could even be funny if you we so inclined. It should be fun to do even if the chapbook did not develop. So think about it, maybe even get something down on paper to read at the meeting.

Also, if you are working on something and would like a bit of critique, bring that along as well. Please, please let me know if you can or cannot come on the 27th so we know how many snacks we need and what to plan for. I am looking forward to seeing all of you there.

Hope to see you all there!
Tony