Milwaukee Writers Workshop

The Novelists group will meet Monday, February 22 at 6:30 p.m. in the Wauwatosa Library, second floor conference room, to critique part 1 of Rosalie's short novel, Lucy.

You'll find Lucy (part 1) at the Milwaukee Writer's Workshop website -- click on Current Stories (direct link = http://www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com/story/lucy)

To guide the discussion, we're using the "Part 1 - The Beginning" critique sheet entitled "Part 1 - The Beginning," which you will also find at the MWW web site in the Current Stories section. For the avoidance of any confusion, here's the direct link to the current critique sheets: http://www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com/story/new-novel-critique-sheets

Here's a brief description of Lucy: "Lucy, born in prison, is almost 7. By law, she can no longer stay there with her mama. Where will she go?"

If you haven't been able to join us for whatever reason, know that we'd love to see you!

Hope to see you there!

FYI: We'll critique the second and final part of this novel on March 8.

If you have questions or concerns, send Erik Thelen an email (erikthelen@gmail.com), send me an email (plafferty@wi.rr.com) or contact Boone.

On Monday, December 7 at 6:30 in the Wauwatosa Library’s Conference Room, we will be officially reviewing the ODD CHAPTERS of the middle section of Columbia, found at the following link: http://www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com/story/columbia-middle. After reading Chapters 11, 13 and 15, write down your thoughts in the critique sheet [found at: http://www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com/story/new-novel-critique-sheets (use Part 2 – The Middle)] and bring it to the session for discussion. If you want to read the even chapters, go right ahead, but the group will only be officially reviewing the odd chapters.

"Come with uncle and hear all proper! Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited!"

If you have any questions about this assignment or about the Novel Group in general, email me (Pat Lafferty) at plafferty@wi.rr.com.

For those of you looking to join the Novel Group, now’s a great time. Eric Lanke has a historical fiction novel set during the American Civil War up for review.

Due to word-count constraints, on Monday, November 23 at 6:30 in the Wauwatosa Library’s Conference Room, we will be officially reviewing the ODD CHAPTERS of the beginning section of Columbia, found at: http://www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com/story/columbia-beginning.

After reading Chapters 1 and 3, write down your initial thoughts in the first page of the critique sheet, found at: http://www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com/story/new-novel-critique-sheets (use Part 1 – The Beginning). Then, after reading Chapters 5, 7 & 9, complete the critique sheet and bring it to the session for discussion.

The odd chapters total 27K words. You are more than welcome to read all the chapters (85K words) and Eric would very much like to hear what you think about all of it, but we are only going to critique the odd chapters.

If you have any questions about this assignment or about the Novel Group in general, email me at plafferty@wi.rr.com.

If you’ve completed a novel, are in the middle of a novel, hope to one day start a novel or if you have no delusions whatsoever that you will ever write a novel but you love to read and discuss plot, character and pacing, then consider yourself invited to the next MWW Novel Group meeting.

Our next session will be 6:30, Monday, November 9th at the Wauwatosa Library’s Conference Room. We'll review the third and final section of Gryphon song which you should be able to access from this link: http://www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com/story/gryphon-song-part-3. And, you should be able to access the critique sheets from this link: http://www.milwaukeewritersworkshop.com/story/new-novel-critique-sheets (use Part 3 - The End). If these links don’t work for whatever reason, go to the Current Stories button in the upper left and click Gryphon Song Part 3 at the top of the list and New Novel Critique Sheets at the bottom of the list.

After this meeting we'll be reading a lenghty piece of historical fiction from Eric Lanke...yes, THAT Eric Lanke...who read a few pages of his book at the Fixx Coffee House last Thursday.

Hope to see you there.

At 6:30 Monday, September 28th at the Wuawatosa Library we will have an open session for the Milwaukee Writers Workshop Novel Group. Novel group members were asked to do some research on any topic related to writing that they found relevant (plot, characters, pacing, genre, whatever) and write a short summary. In this session we'll spend a few minutes on each topic discussing them in typical round table format.

If you have written a novel, are planning to write one or are curious as to what this group is about, I highly recommend stopping by on the 28th. Not only will you get some quick-hitting knowledge about the craft of writing, but you can get a sense of how the group functions. Plus, following this session we'll be starting the review a new novel, the perfect time to join us. So come on down and see what the Novel Group is all about.