We had our last writers' group meeting on Sunday, April 20, at the home of Sandra Felberbauer for the first time. We appreciate Sandra's efforts to keep us well supplied with coffee and tea with various delicacies on the table as we held our discussions. In attendance were Dan Sladich, Kerry Pobanz, June Saunders, Paul Russell, Valerie Shimoyama, Jerry Chesnut, Bob Beebe, Sandra, and, for the first time, Richard Panzer.
Bob began the meeting with a short reading from Canadian writer Margaret Atwood who spoke about how as we grow older it becomes more and more difficult to identify with our "former selves." In other words, we are always changing and evolving, to the point where we may become someone much different than we used to be. We may think of our own previous incarnations as hippies, druggies, atheists, Marxists, or even MFTers. Can we recognize ourselves in them?
From there we launched into June's most recent chapters of her novel Into the Breach. The plot continues to thicken as her protagonists' original and fallen natures do battle within themselves and with each other, their personal struggles soon to be caught up in the maelstrom of the battle of Gettysburg. Everyone agreed that June was doing a masterful job in developing the plot and crafting her characters so that the reader is drawn in and finds him/herself caring about what is to become of them.
Next we discussed the beginning pages of Richard's upcoming book, Condom Wars, which is a follow-up to his book Condom Nation. As in the previous book, Richard paints a detailed picture of the sex education scene, using recent studies and anecdotes to illustrate his points. Richard discusses the poisonous efforts of what he calls the "condom culture," focusing on the activities of Planned Parenthood and an online teen magazine called Sex, etc. He explains how sex educators have redefined abstinence to include everything short of actual intercourse. Suggestions were made by the group to balance some of the negative information with positive developments in the field, to include case studies, and to more directly target his book to parents, most of whom would be up in arms if they knew half the things that were taking place in their children's "health" classes.
Our next meeting is planned for this Sunday, May 4, at the home of Valerie Shimoyama, 7 Adams Court, Apt. A-3B, Nutley. On the agenda will be Paul Russell's critique of the Book of Jonah and Bob's most recent short story, a futuristic drama entitled "For the Sake of the Children."
