 Writers’ Mill turns out a Journal
A group of between 15 and 35 writers has been meeting monthly at the Cedar Mill Community Library for about 18 months. The Writers’ Mill group has recently published its first Journal, available to check out from the library.
Local resident Becky Lovejoy had been leading a feng shui study group in the library’s Community Room, when she asked library director Peter Leonard if there was a group for writers. He offered to help her set up a group, and 25 people showed up for the first meeting.
In 2004, Lovejoy self-published a book of nature essays called Zoo Tales: Wondering and Wandering at the Oregon Zoo. She was looking for a few others interested in nature writing to share critiques. In the beginning, she advertised on Craigslist for participants, but now she says there are plenty of people in the group, although, “I’d like it to be open to anyone who wants inspiration and support with their writing.”
In fact, she’s seeking a couple of folks who would like to take over some of the organizational duties from her so she can, “just write.” She envisions, “two groups—one for serious novelists and short story writers who have a goal of getting published. The other group could be people who write for the joy of it, and want to rub shoulders with others since writing is a fairly solitary pursuit.” If you’re interested in getting involved, contact Becky at la-beck@juno.com
Lovejoy encourages people to bring five copies of about 1,000 words of their work, and leave it on a table with their e-mail address and any questions. Others from the group can take the selections home and critique them by sending an e-mail to the writer. Several people take advantage of this each month.
To build confidence, Lovejoy says, “We also started doing group critiques during the meeting. People sign up for this and e-mail me their work a week before the meeting. I send it out to everyone, members make notes on their hard copy, and someone leads a group critique with the writer present to ask and answer questions during the meeting. The writer then gets a stack of manuscripts with edits on it, to mull over later. We do one or two a month.”
You can define success in a lot of ways, says Lovejoy. “Being published is just one benchmark. I want to support people in writing for the joy of it, but also give them support and information on how to polish their work, find a publisher or agent, write a query letter, and keep on going even if they get an initial rejection. The more important benchmark for me is that people can meet kindred souls and prioritize their writing if that is something they really enjoy. This is happening in spades!”
The Writers’ Mill Journal was created to give the group a “taste” of the self-publishing process. Each writer was randomly assigned two critics for their work and got suggestions back within the month. Writers then had a month to make final edits and submit their piece for publication. There are two copies of the Writers’ Mill Journal available for borrowing at the library. All the rest of the copies were purchased by group members.
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