December 9, 2024  

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.

 

December 5, 2024  

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.

November 4, 2024  

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

November 4, 2024  

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.

November 4, 2024  

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.
October 29, 2024  

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.

October 8, 2024  

APW Book Club 10-26-24 – Elaine Auerbach

October APW Book Club Meeting: Fairy Tales for Women Who Have Been Through the Mill by Elaine Auerbach

Karen Lateiner is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: APW Book Club with Elaine Auerbach
Date: Saturday, October 26, 2024
Time: 10:00 AM Arizona

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82967883848?pwd=VayyLNzOLOaICytw57eDUQoanKZoje.1

Meeting ID: 829 6788 3848
Passcode: 117047
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kb42elaHXk

About Elaine: Elaine started writing poetry at eight and has been writing ever since. As an adult, after a brief stint on as a city newspaper journalist, I joined Reader’s Digest, where I served as an editor for thirteen years. After returning to school for her MBA, she put her new skills to work for corporate America, working for PepsiCo, Inc. for about 30 years doing all aspects of corporate communications. Since retirement, she writes for the joy of it. Fairy Tales is her third book, plus her work has appeared in anthologies.

About the book: Fairy Tales for Women Who Have Been Through the Mill presents new and original fairy tales for today–with lovers who can’t commit, husbands who cheat or tune out and women who somehow end up with all the burdens and none of the benefits. Gone is the trite “and they lived happily ever after” ending. Yet, there are happy endings as each tale leads the reader to self-awareness and empowerment that can be translated into personal growth.

October 5, 2024  

President’s message October 2024

Typerider Newsletter – APW – October 2024

One of our members, Bobbie Bennett writes the award-winning Beaver Valley Newsletter. The October issue highlights Beaver Valley Days.

I have a fond memory of going to a Beaver Valley Day Pancake Breakfast. Bing Brown (he and Carol are sorely missed as APW members and human beings on the planet) was happily filling plates with pancakes and link sausages.

I don’t like my food to touch. Yeah, I am one of those people. Bing must have seen my face as the syrup he’d just ladled on my pancakes ran into my sausage and I quickly nudged my scrambled eggs to the side. He encouraged me to taste the sausage. “You’ll like it!”

You can guess how I almost always eat sausage now. (My eggs sit on a plate alone.)

I hope you make lots of fond memories this month!

If you have any writing-related announcements you would like included in an upcoming newsletter, please email them to me.

 

 

 

Carol Baxter, APW President

Read the rest of the newsletter including the date for the State Conference and chapter news  by clicking this link

September 17, 2024  

Rim Country Chapter Hybrid Meeting 9/18/24

Connie Cockrell is inviting you to a scheduled hybrid in-person/Zoom Rim Country Chapter meeting.

Topic: Sharing and discussing our new work
Date: Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Time: 01:00 PM Arizona
Location: Majestic Rim Living, 310 E. Tyler Parkway. Meet in the chapel off of the main lobby.
Or join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86577614978?pwd=QHZxOl5E0rcRUDX5cb1bQIZszqTX8J.1

Meeting ID: 865 7761 4978
Passcode: 987543
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcRQs4IRxr

Hope to see you there!

 

September 12, 2024  

President’s message September 2024

Greetings and salutations!

In the early Roman calendar, September was the seventh month. By that reckoning, I am ten months ahead instead of sprinting from two months behind, trying to catch up to a deadline.

I participated in a writing sprint contest last week with one prompt per round, then five minutes to write a story that left the reader wanting more. The genre was up to the participants. The host played electronic music in the background with a distracting beat – so much so to me that it infiltrated one of my stories. We had 90 seconds to read our stories to the group before a vote via Survey Monkey. Unused writing muscles flexed? Check. Challenge accepted. Endorphins triggered.

Participants seemed to be:

  • Extremely good at using dictation to process their authorly thoughts, or
  • Possessed nimble keyboarding skills well above 60wpm, or
  • Had programmed their AI services to write from prompts – we could/should have a discourse about AI, but I will leave that for another time.

I was the only participant who wrote a rhyme and the only one who took one of the prompts literally. Color me surprised that my rhyme-on-the-spot and taking ellipses at face value, dot dot dot, earned me unexpected entrance to the next round as a runner-up.

Whether you are sprinting to catch up to a deadline or sprinting to finish your writing project I hope you enjoy the journey and stretch a less oft’ used writing muscle along the way.

Carol Baxter, APW President

Email Carol

To read the remainder of the Typewriter, click here.

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