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"The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer up someone else." - Mark Twain


CONTENTS OF THE DECEMBER ISSUE



Writers' Night OUT! - Monday, December 18

Writers' Night IN! Takes a Break for the Holidays

Our 2024 Book Party - Sunday, February 4

Will You Have Published a Book by the End of 2023?

Why Essays Stay with Me

Grants Available to Low-Income Writers

Open Mic Every Thursday

Calling All Book Authors! Tune-In Tuesdays

Kudos

Upcoming Events

Spread Your News on the Update and Our Website!

WRITERS' NIGHT OUT

MONDAY, DECEMBER 18 @ 6:00 P.M.

730 TAVERN, CENTRAL SQUARE, CAMBRIDGE


The weather outside has turned cold suddenly – why don’t you join the National Writers Union next Monday to talk about how much we love the changing seasons? Because we all know it’s better weather to stay inside and write! We can be merry and celebrate the holiday season and the end of the year, and share the triumphs and tribulations of the writing life. If you would like to attend, please email Shannon O’Connor.

WRITERS' NIGHT IN TAKES A BREAK FOR THE HOLIDAYS

 

In December the third Monday of the month, when we customarily do Writers' Night In, happens to be on...umm...Christmas Day. So we'll have our next get-together on January 22nd, from 5:30 to 6:30.

 

Your Boston Steering Committee wishes you and yours a safe, healthy, and warm Holiday Season. Be kind to the people you care about.

 

And be kind to yourself... 

SAVE THE DATE FOR OUR FABULOUS 2024 BOOK PARTY

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2024

@ 2 P.M.


We're planning to go live this year for the first time since 2020. We'll meet at the Dance Complex at 536 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, convenient to the Red Line and buses, site of past Book Parties. We'll be honoring our members who have published books in 2023, hearing some of these members reading from their work, catching up with people we haven't seen in person for years, enjoying a delicious buffet, and hearing from an outstanding guest speaker: Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola.


Remember our 2023 book party? It was a lot of fun, but we expect this one to be even more fun because it will be in person!

WILL YOU HAVE PUBLISHED A BOOK

BY THE END OF 2023?


Our annual book party on February 4th will honor union members in good standing who have had books that they wrote, co-wrote, edited or translated published during calendar year 2023. Please let us know if this means you by sending the title of the book, the publisher, the date of publication — and, of course, your own name — to Jim Kates at jkates@worldpath.net ASAP. We'll circulate the list and post it on our website. Please also indicate if you’d like to be featured as a reader at the book party itself.

WHY ESSAYS STAY WITH ME

by Barbara Beckwith



I’ve forgotten many films I’ve viewed and books I’ve read. But oddly, I remember essays – those spindly pieces that newspapers rarely pay for.


I remember Edward Abbey’s sly 1960s litany of desert hazards: his way of keeping people out of the Southwest places he loves. And Nancy Mairs’ denial of euphemisms in her 1980s “On Being a Cripple” about living with multiple sclerosis. And John Kenneth Galbraith’s protest at having to fight, at 85, the “Still Syndrome” -- “Still lecturing? Still writing? Still interested in politics?”


Even a friend’s slim peon to her Cambridge neighborhood has lingered in my consciousness since her early death in the 1990s.


Peggy McIntosh’s 1988 essay, listing white privileges that she struggled to tease out of her reluctant mind, has inspired me to racial self-reflection. And Sandra K. Miller’s “My Father’s Penis” has made clear that writing about body parts can be frank and funny, and not pornographic or polemic.


I wrote my mother back in college that I liked reading personal essays for their “familiarity between writer and reader,” yet when starting to write one, was confused by “trying to form an opinion out of my open-minded sympathy of all points…I waver like a squirrel in the headlights of an oncoming car and can’t see where to go.”


I can relate to what Ralph Ellison wrote Richard Wright in the 1940s: “It isn’t the prose, per se, that worries me; it’s the form, the learning how to organize my material in order to take the maximum advantage of those psychological and emotional currents within myself and in the reader which endow prose with meaning.”


Ellison’s challenge is mine, as well. But I’m comforted by essayist Michel de Montaigne, who mused five centuries ago: “If my mind could gain firm footing, I would not make essays. I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.”



Like Montaigne, I write essays to explore whatever confuses, intrigues, or bothers me, buoyed by insights I’ve gotten from fellow essayists, both those who are famous and those whose may not be -- but whose emotional currents stay with me.

GRANTS AVAILABLE TO LOW-INCOME WRITERS

TO ATTEND CONFERENCES OR WORKSHOPS

 

The Boston Chapter Steering Committee is offering $100 grants to up to five NWU members in good standing. These grants are available to those who face challenging financial circumstances and would like to attend a writing conference or workshop (one of those listed below or one of your choice), or to take advantage of some other professional development opportunity.

 

If you would like to apply, or would like more information, please contact Steering Committee Chair Willie Wideman-Pleasants.

OPEN MIC EVERY THURSDAY

The NWU New York Chapter, which for many years hosted open mics at the Muhlenberg branch library, is now holding virtual open mics weekly: every Thursday from 6:30 to 8:00 pm.

All writers from all genres are welcome. You can read for up to seven minutes. Just RSVP on meetup.com to view the link to join.

CALLING ALL BOOK AUTHORS! TUNE-IN TUESDAYS

FIRST TUESDAY OF EVERY MONTH

Royalty, Compensation, and Distribution Issues for Book Authors


Join a discussion about the most pressing issues for book authors today. Share your experience and knowledge, and advance your career, in this virtual event hosted by Book Division Chair Dan McCrory and NY Member Timothy Sheard. Planned topics for the next several sessions are listed here.


To REGISTER for the Zoom program, email chair Dan McCrory.


SHANNON O'CONNOR had a flash fiction piece published in Sci-Fi Shorts



Please send any news of a publication, award, or writing-related appearance that has already happened to editor Barbara Mende. (A piece on your own blog or website doesn't qualify.) Send 50 words or less, plus your name and a link to the publication, event, or website where readers can find more info about you or the happening. Don't send notices of work that will be published in the future. Do send news of future events, but see the "Upcoming Events" block for that.

NWU Boston Book Party - Sunday, February 4

Open Mic Every Thursday (see above)

Tune-In Tuesdays - First Tuesday of Every Month (see above)

Poets & Writers Literary Events Calendar

Romancing New England: Events for Local Romance Authors and Readers

Writers' Conferences: 60 Events Worth Attending

Second Saturdays - Wising Up Zoom Discussion Groups

Authors Guild "From Manuscript to Marketplace" series

GrubStreet Workshops

New England Science Fiction Association

New England Science Writers Events

Authors Publish workshops

Writers' Conferences

Tips and Tools for Writers to Advance Their Careers

Writing Contests (curated by the Authors Guild)

More Writing Contests


SEND US NEWS OF YOUR UPCOMING READINGS, BOOK LAUNCHES, OR OTHER PUBLIC APPEARANCES. WE'LL TRY TO HELP YOU RAISE A (VIRTUAL OR IN-PERSON) CROWD.

USE THE UPDATE AND OUR WEBSITE TO SPREAD YOUR NEWS

Are you speaking or reading from your work in the near future? Do you want to publicize an event that writers would be interested in zooming in to? Can you provide a service, such as editing or indexing or publicity, for your fellow union members? Do you just want to introduce yourself to the NWU membership?

Our Boston Chapter website, which you can reach at 
nwu.org/chapters/boston/ or www.nwuboston.org, is here for you to use. Not only that, but if you send us an announcement of a specific event by the second Monday of each month, we'll try to include it in these updates.

Please send us news of any upcoming events that you'd like us to publicize, along with Zoom links or PDF posters if you have them. If you'd like to promote your services, plug your latest book, tell us about something writing-related that happened to you, or post anything else you can think of, we'll try to give it a place on the website.

And we'd love to hear from you if you'd like to contribute to these updates. Do you have information or a viewpoint on some phase of writing or publishing that you'd like to pass along? Do you have tips that you'd like to share with your fellow writers? Send them in! And don't forget, if you've published something or participated in an event or made an appearance, we'll post it under Kudos.

Send all your news for the Update and website to your webmaster.

Chair: Willie Wideman-Pleasants

Editor and Webmaster: Barbara Mende