November LRACW Meeting Details

Mark your calendars for our next LRACW Meeting.  It's gonna be great!

 

 

My Life in Publishing

November 13, 2012

12-1 p.m. at FamilyLife

“Did you hear the joke about the kid who hated to read and got C’s in English his whole life? He now writes for a living."
                                                                                                —Ron Deal

You will be encouraged and inspired as you hear Ron Deal share about his writing journey at the November meeting of the Little Rock chapter of American Christian Writers. Ron is a marriage and family author, conference speaker, and therapist. He is Founder and President of As For Me And My House Ministries, LLC (www.RonDeal.org). Since 2012, he has served as Director of Blended Family Ministries for FamilyLife®.
 
Ron is the author of The Smart Stepfamily: Seven Steps to a Healthy Family (and DVD series), The Smart Stepmom (coauthored with Laura Petherbridge), The Remarriage Checkup: Tools to Help Your Marriage Last a Lifetime (coauthored with Dr. David Olson), and The Smart Stepdad. His latest book, Dating and the Single Parent , has just been released.

It's gonna be a great year for LRACW!

                                                                                                                     © Ilya Genkin | Dreamstime.com

Mary May Larmoyeux

Are you excited about all that's planned for the Little Rock Chapter of American Christian Writers? Well, your officers sure are! And from the buzz after our meeting last Tuesday, it seems like lots of other writers are, too. For those of you who were at the meeting, didn't Lynn do a wonderful job with her original story!

It's great that Carla is keeping us networked through Facebook and Twitter. And, of course, we have this special blog. Please let Carla know if you'd like to contribute to it. We really would appreciate your help.

Our speaker next month (Tuesday, October 9) knows all about Facebook, Twitter, and so much more! Jeff Abramavitz of 2 Degrees Media Strategies (a comprehensive digital marketing agency) will tell us how to use social media to engage, embrace and excite our audience.

And it's not too early to mark your calendars for our annual conference. It will be on May 18, 2013, at The Summit Church in North Little Rock.

Finally, some of you have suggested that we each share one or two (or more) of our favorite websites for writers. That's a great idea! I plan to head on over to Facebook tonight and post a couple of my favorites there. Would you share one or two there, too?

It is a privilege to serve as your president along with Cindy (Vice-President and Treasurer) and Tonda (Secretary).

Yep, it's gonna be a great year for LRACW!                                                                                            

Linda Scisson's Poetry Exhibit

"And what is so rare as a day in AUGUST?"

For poetry readers and writers, you might want to go by the McMath branch library during the month of August to see a POETRY DISPLAY created by one of our club members, Linda Scisson.

The POETRY DISPLAY is in a glass-enclosed, three-shelved cabinet as you walk into the Sidney Sanders McMath Library at 2100 John Barrow Road, Little Rock. The library hours are 9 AM to 8 PM on Monday and Wednesday, and 9 AM to 6 PM on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Poetry --- books and quotes by American poets --- will be featured through August 30, 2011.

Photo © U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serivce. Used with permission.

Expert on emergening technologies and privacy to speak at library

Fred K. Darragh Distinguished Lecture: Frederick Lane

Date: Thursday - June 23
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Main Library
Phone: 501-918-3000

Frederick Lane, an expert on the impact of emerging technologies on society, with a particular emphasis on personal and workplace privacy, student use and misuse of technology, and the culture wars, will present the Central Arkansas Library System’s Fred K. Darragh Distinguished Lecture on Thursday, June 23, at 6:30 p.m.in the Main Library’s Darragh Center at 100 Rock Street.

Visit cals.org for more information. RSVP to lblackwell@cals.org or 918-3029.


photo © Piotr Tomczyk | Dreamstime.com

Today's Meeting

Today's meeting was all about blogging.
We learned how to

• log in
• create a blog
• edit
• publish

We also learned about linking objects and html.

LRACW Writers Conference This Saturday May 21, 2011

I hope your registered!  This Saturday, May 21st, the Little Rock Chapter of American Christian Writers is hosting their 2011 Writers Conference at the Summit Church in North Little Rock (directions).

If you're not registered, it isn't too late!  Fill out our registration form and send it in with your payment.  You don't want to miss an opportunity to learn from Tricia Goyer, Robin Caroll, Paula Morell, and Annalisa Daughety. 

One Thing To Remember While Writing

Writers can repeat a line for emphasis.

Repetition for Emphasis: Do you see another word inside "repetition"?

I see the word "petition." When we repeat a line for emphasis, we petition. We call our readers that this line is important. It carries special weight.

In the last stanza of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," the line "And miles to go before I sleep" appears twice. The last three lines in the poem are:

"But I have promises to keep, /
And miles to go before I sleep, /
And miles to go before I sleep."

Likewise, in "A Christmas Hymn" by Richard Wilbur (who won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry twice), the line "And every stone shall cry" is written twice in every stanza. The poem has four stanzas of eight lines each. Otherwise, we see one phrase, "And every stone shall cry," eight times in a 35-line poem. Not counting the three stanza breaks as lines (35-3), that's 25 percent of the entire poem.

I've never seen that before.

Plus, the epigraph (that suggests the poem's theme) is Luke 19:39-40, where Jesus proclaims that stones will cry out if His disciples do not speak.

Needless to say, "A Christmas Hymn" begs us to carefully observe the stones throughout Wilbur's biographical sketch of Jesus' life on earth.

Whether God uses inanimate objects (like literal stones that split after Jesus died) or God uses unlikely people to proclaim His message (like those cast as metaphorical "heavy, dull, and dumb" stones), God's Word will go forth.

And Little Rock American Christian Writers may rest assured: When writer's block hits (and we can hardly write a line, much less repeat a line for emphasis), God sees to it that what we can't get on paper still gets communicated if it falls within His sovereign will, even if God uses stones.

Why is that?

God has promises to keep. God has promises to keep.