KEPLER'S WRITING GROUP APRIL 26, 2009 MEETING

Dear Writers,


To thank our wonderful guest bloggers we have put up a new Well-Read Donkey bookshelf display at Kepler's, featuring our guest bloggers books and their favorite book recommendations. Stop by and check out Victoria Zackheim, Meg Waite Clayton, Caroline Leavitt, Kate Maloy, Michele Zackheim, Lucy Silag, Joyce Maynard, Lynn Freed, Barbara Graham, Gayle Brandeis, Sandra Gulland and many more.






Kepler's April Writing Group meeting is on Sunday, April 26th from 3-5:30 p.m. at Paul's house in Palo Alto. E-mail to aggie@keplers.com to confirm your attendance and get directions.


A few thoughts about our March meeting:

What I have found most appealing about the Kepler’s writing group is their fairly consistent focus on the technique of creative writing. In our last session, for example, the group first focused on their responses to Jeanie’s “flash stories.” Some members suggested that her stories needed more development, whereas others found their condensed and fragmentary structures intriguing. These varied responses—like those that would follow throughout the workshop—were, for the most part, relevant and constructive for the writers. For instance, in response to the piece by Mary Jean Price, the participants generally suggested that more details were needed to better invoke the mysterious nature of her short narrative. In response to this suggestion, another participant implied that establishing a clearer point-of-view would help generate more details and material for this story. The focus on details took on a new turn when participants discussed the story by Mary Stahl. Several participants, for example, claimed that the story’s main character appealed to them for the details that were used to describe his complex, disturbing and yet likable temperament. This focus, in turn, generated an interesting discussion on creating characters that readers can empathize with. These varied and interesting responses made me feel quite good after I left the workshop—I felt as if I had revisited a literary seminar from college.