Five dollars was collected at the last meeting for the Beanery Café room rental fee we will be required to pay starting in February. Passing the hat collected $6.35 (counted by Joan McCullough) for a total of $11.35. Ligonier Valley Writers limerick contest (topics real dogs, cats and animals of all kinds) submissions are due Feb. 1. Winners will be announced at their annual February picnic, the Hot Dog Fest. Blog items are needed for the next two weeks while Carolyn works on a major article for a publication, deadline Feb. 10. There will be a workshop on Writing Devotions on Feb. 12 at Heritage United Methodist Church on the Ligonier Diamond. Its purpose is to collect community-written Lenten devotions to be posted on the Ligonier-area United Methodist Church web site daily during Lent. Copyrights will remain with the writers. Mustang Sal reported an update of her self-published book Mustang Sally's Guide to World Bicycle Touring* She will be dropped from Amazon unless she sends them $69 to continue listing the title, but she erased the E-mail and hasn’t heard from them since. Although it yielded $12 from Amazon sales, she would pay to keep it listed there. She discovered LULU (Adventures in Self-Publishing) which will publish info on book and arrange for her to sell it---it’s like Amazon but it’s free except expenses, so far. *The book is shockingly cheap on Amazon but you could get an autographed copy from me! I can cut you a deal, but it starts at: $34 for the bound copy, $24 for soft cover, cheap at twice the price. AT: SalnChasMartin@lhtc.net or 724 593 6921, where Chas or I or the cat will personally answer the phone. The meeting continued with a critique session. Mustang Sal is concerned about character development for a woman living in the mid-1700s, a writing drawn from her local family history. She read from the piece and there was a lively discussion. Joe shared an excerpt fro Angie, a story increasing in length, it has a survivors at the end of the world theme. Joan McCullough talked about a sort of abstract poem. She began with the second half, which was “just there, instantaneously,” after which she wrote the first part. She’s having it put to music. Pat brought a poem written by her 12-year old granddaughter. The poem flowed through the youth, who doesn’t know how it got to the paper. All agreed it was a deep and quality piece, that the girl holds great promise. Pat said her own item, sent to Chicken Soup for the Soul, wasn’t used. Lois read a humorous satirical item from a book written by her former editor. The meeting ended with a choice of two prompt writings; I chose the question, What would you give up if you could live to be 100 years old? Next meeting is February 9. Carolyn | 
