Quite a good meeting tonight. A good showing, and diverse workshopping.
We did a story, and as one member mentioned, we all seemed to be on the same track with what we read and where the story was going. Some good and helpful feedback, we hope.
The Narratives’ new literary journal, "otto" was also workshopped, and it was agreed to go forward with it and plans were made to make it open to the public for submission as well as for marketing. I must admit I’m a bit proud of this endeavor and am excited about working on it, continuing as editor and with plans of building up a more genre-specific editorial staff. I’ll also see about marketing it, and opening up the "otto" website for submissions to and from the public. Right now, it’s at http://ottolit.blogspot.com
We also workshopped cover letters–those with a submission attached, and query letters–those that offer something prior to submitting. I threw in the cover letter I recently sent to a dozen literary journals with some short stories, and to my great relief, found that my cover letter sucked pretty badly and can now use that excuse instead of thinking my stories were no good when the rejections start coming in. (This rationale takes an honorable mention in my Silver Lining Awards.)
It was pointed out that my letter was too formal and businesslike (Susie Secretary emerges after twenty years in hiding), and too negative (I was born with this trait). It also failed to describe briefly in both an enlightening and exciting manner what the stories were about. This critique has really confirmed my own doubts about it, but under deadline stress and the fact that the cover and query letter is one of the hardest for the creative writer to put together, I sent it out without really seeking more advice, not wanting to bother anyone about a cover letter. Although I did ask one who had experience and she pointed out these same things, only I backed off in fear and general writer’s block.
All in all, another great meeting.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology