Archive by Author | calamityjaimie

Rim Country Chapter hybrid meeting 1/15/25

Connie Cockrell is inviting you to the January Rim Country Chapter meeting. Meet at Majestic Rim Retirement Living in the chapel off of the main lobby located at 310 E. Tyler Pkwy, Payson or join on Zoom. All are welcome.

Topic: Rim Country Chapter meeting – a time for sharing

Date: Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Time: 01:00 PM Arizona
Where: Majestic Rim Retirement Living in the chapel off of the main lobby located at 310 E. Tyler Pkwy, Payson
or

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84817400687
Meeting ID: 848 1740 0687
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kHieummIS

APW 2025 State Conference – Barbara Lacy honored

Save the date – May 17!

The 2025 APW State Conference will have three excellent speakers and, we are honoring APW member and former president Barbara Lacy. She is the Paradise Valley’s Featured Artist 2024/25 and many of her paintings are on display at the Paradise Valley Town Hall, where this year’s conference will be held.
Go to the State Conference tab for more information and to register for this event.

(You can download and print a copy of the flyer Barbara Lacy flyer here.)

APW Book Club 1/25/25 – Karen Lateiner

The APW book group will not be meeting in December. Our next meeting will be Saturday, January 25, 2025 via ZOOM at 10 am. We will discuss Timeless Dance: A Story of Change and Loss by Karen Shiffman Lateiner, M.Ed.

Date: Saturday, January 25, 2025
Time: 10 a.m. AZ
Zoom: to be sent out in mid-January

Timeless Dance was the first book our group reviewed on October 24, 2020. In light of current controversies regarding transgender issues, and since we have many new members, it is timely to discuss it again.

TIMELESS DANCE: A Story of Change and Loss, is just that — a compelling memoir about life, death, gender change, acceptance, advocacy, and coping within the family, the community, and the world. It is a well told story of generational challenges and reflections on life altering events; a skillfully woven mix of narrative, prose, poetry, and letters. A page turner by many accounts, Timeless Dance illuminates issues not often contemplated, especially those related to transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.

About the Author

 Understanding the transition of her child from male to female during the mid-1990’s, and then grappling with her new daughter’s tragic death two years later, motivated her to share what she experienced and learned about transgender issues, as well as life in general. Her compelling book, Timeless Dance: A Story of Change and Loss, stands as a memoir, biography, and primer for understanding gender diversity. Telling her story and speaking at a variety of educational, social, religious, and corporate venues provides an opportunity to open important conversations about LGBTQ+ issues, past and present.

Karen Shiffman Lateiner holds an M.Ed. in Educational Psychology. Throughout her personal life, and her professional career as a developmental psychologist and mental health clinician, she has actively advocated for safe and nurturing school and home environments for all children, especially for those at-risk for marginalization and bullying.

A native of New Jersey, she moved to New York City, where she met and married her husband Roger. After spending a year living on a kibbutz in Israel in 1972-73, they returned to New York,before ultimately settling in Montclair, New Jersey, where they raised their two children. Upon retirement, she and her husband traveled the country in a motorhome for two years before making Arizona their new home. Combining her love of writing and the Sonoran Desert, Karen created a Hike and Write program to encourage others to write as a means of expressing their thoughts and telling their own unique stories. Currently, she is a member of her HOA Board of Directors and a member of Arizona Professional Writers.

Time to renew your membership!

If you have renewed, Thank you. If not yet …

Now is the time to renew your membership for Arizona Professional Writers. If you join or renew now, your membership is good through December 2025!

The Board is grateful for your continued support.

The application is at the Join tab with directions on by check or by Zelle at ArizonaProfessionalwriters.

Please let me or any member of the APW board know if there is anything we can do to improve your experience with our organization. You can reach me at mafasano1@gmail.com.

Membership in APW shows you are making an investment in yourself and your career, and we are committed to providing you with valuable professional development through the following benefits:

APW Central meets via zoom every other month on the second Saturday at 10:00AM; APW Rim Country meets every month now via zoom and in person on the third Wednesday at 1:00 PM; the APW White Mountain meets once a month the fourth Tuesday at 6:PM on zoom; the APW Book Group meets on zoom the last Saturday of every month at 10:00AM.

You have many opportunities to enhance your writing and publishing knowledge.

More APW Benefits:
1. Meet and exchange ideas with local authors.
2. One or two virtual meetings a month with a local speaker on a writing or publishing topic.
3. Present your book to members and get exposure and reviews with the APW Book Group.
4. Ability to use APW Zoom for your book presentations or other writing-related meetings.
5. Enter the At-large contest for the National Federation of Press Women. First place winners go on to the national level. Many categories for these prestigious awards.
6. Post on our Facebook page more than once about your book. Share your new publications, wins and writing events.
7. Post your events on the APW website.
8. Keep up on local book writing events and contests in Arizona
9. Yearly APW conference
10. Payson Book Festival and Show Low Book Festival

Hope to see you at the meetings.

Sincerely,

Marie
Marie A Fasano, APW Membership Chair

 

APW Rim Country Chapter Christmas Luncheon

Rim Country Chapter of APW

Our December meeting will be a Christmas Luncheon.

Date:  Wednesday, December 18
Time: 11:30 a.m.
Where: Crosswinds Restaurant, 800 W Airport Rd B, Payson, AZ 85541

Join us in-person for chat and festive fellowship. All members of APW are invited.

 

APW Typerider Newsletter – December, 2024

A Joyful December to all!

We are wordsmiths, tapping out sentences not quite as fast as our brain comes up with them, as we sit alone in a room with the door closed (or maybe out somewhere, yet encased in an invisible creative bubble).

I had forgotten the synergy created in a room full of people who speak the same language, not English but AUTHOR. It’s how I felt at the World Fantasy Convention and my first NFPW conference, both nearly 20 years ago, long enough to forget. Consider joining me at our APW Conference on May 17th (in the Phoenix area).

I spent the second week in November in Las Vegas drinking from a firehose of information at a gathering of 1,100 independent authors. I am still trying to wrap my brain around the notes I took, but it is clear that human creativity and AI are here to stay. Harper Collins just made an AI training deal with Microsoft (there are many articles, here is one).

We have come a long way from writing with a piece of charcoal on a flat piece of tree bark.

Meanwhile this month, there are

  • gatherings with friends to attend (RSVP to the Rim Country for our holiday party),
  • deadlines to meet,
  • APW memberships to renew,
  • preparation for NFPW contest entries,

and for me, working on a novel.

May your keys never stick, and your pens never run out of ink,

To see the newsletter and the coming events, click here.

NOTE: If you join NFPW you also pay an extra $15 for your APW membership. If you join APW as a state-only, the dues are $30/year.

APW Typerider Newsletter – November, 2024

Arizona Professional Writers November, 2024 Typerider

Central has a speaker for their November 9 meeting you are invited!

The Holiday Bazaar is happening on the APW website from Black Friday through Christmas. Shout out to Jaimie Bruzenak for putting this online event together.

I am headed to the Author Nation Conference in Las Vegas this month. I was in a pre-event networking group and we played a game via Zoom called Bring Your Own Book. There are prompts and each person in the group has a minute or so to look up a line in a book (could be a book you wrote or not) to match the prompt. Whoever has the “best” answer wins the round. If you are interested and want to download the game cards, it’s available on Amazon.

Author Cory Doctorow has a blog I manage to read about once a month. A recent article caught my attention, Penguin Random House, AI, and writers’ rights. His language can be colorful, although not so much in this article, so be warned.

To read the rest of this issue with information on what’s happening,  click here.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Carol

APW Rim Country Chapter Hybrid meeting 11/20/24

Connie Cockrell is inviting you to a hybrid meeting of Rim Country Chapter. Meet at Majestic Rim Retirement Living in the chapel off of the main lobby located at 310 E. Tyler Pkwy, Payson or join on Zoom. All are welcome.

Topic: Connie Cockrell – discussion of the newly opened NFPW 2025 Communications Contest and our individual writing plans for 2025.
Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Time: 01:00 PM Arizona
Where: Majestic Rim Retirement Living in the chapel off of the main lobby located at 310 E. Tyler Pkwy, Payson

Or, Join on Zoom
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82729963849?pwd=8QeUTCezK6eE0W3pWifsk29yAbeeKq.1

Meeting ID: 827 2996 3849
Passcode: 821777
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcTKISeOnh

We’re also announcing our Chapter Christmas luncheon at Crosswinds restaurant from 11:30 to 1pm. 800 W. Airport Rd, Payson. All are welcome.

2025 NFPW Communications Contest now open!

Professional Communications Contest accepting entries!

The contest is open to writers, authors, bloggers, copy editors, page designers, public affairs professionals, photographers, publishers and others in the communications field.

Communicators of all ages are invited to enter. The professional contest includes categories for work appearing in college media and for college media advisors.

All entries must be published in 2024.

The early deadline to submit entries – and avoid a one-time additional fee of $25 – is Jan. 29, 2025. The final deadline for books is Feb. 5, 2025, and the final deadline for all other entries is Feb. 19, 2025.

The contest is sponsored by NFPW affiliates. If you live in a state without an affiliate hosting a contest, you are eligible to enter the At-Large contest.

First-place-winning entries in the affiliate and at-large contests are eligible to advance to the national competition. To enter the national contest, the entrants must be NFPW members, or must join by March 15, 2024.

National winners will be notified in June. Contest awards will be presented during a banquet on Sept. 13, 2025, as part of the 2025 NFPW Conference in Golden, Colorado.

Contest categories and rules have been reviewed and updated for the 2025 competition. Look for minor changes throughout and for new opportunities to enter in several categories, including Books, Short Stories and Verse, Photography, Radio/Television and Collegiate/Education. Visit https://www.nfpw.org/professional-contest for more details.

APW Central Chapter 11/9 meeting – Pelletier

Susan Anderson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: APW Central Chapter Meeting 11/9 with John Jay Pelletier
Date: Saturday, November 9, 2024
Time:10:00 AM Arizona

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81257561499?pwd=BPoEc6bXhQW9NKIas718C8UiT0a2cM.1
Meeting ID: 812 5756 1499
Passcode: 206055

John Jay Pelletier has had a life full of adventure, starting out in Boy Scouts where his Troop raised enough money selling fireworks to travel down the Grand Canyon on a river trip. He became an Explorer, worked at Disneyland as a Matterhorn climber, and joined the Army where he became a Green Beret. He attended survival schools and eventually became an Instructor at the Air Force Academy teaching survival skills. Now retired, he teaches desert safety and survival at the Superstition Mountain Museum and has written the Desert Safety and Survival Guide. John will speak about desert safety and survival in Arizona.