Notes From October 21 Meeting

The meeting immediately followed Susan's author event for her new contemporary vampire romance novel, Out.


There were four WhipCity Wordsmiths and one Wordsmith recommended author who signed up for the Artworks of Westfield, Inc, Art&Authors show that coattailed onto PumpkinFest on October 14th. Susan and Kelly Buffum, Sandy Sessler, and Sonia Ellis were the Wordsmiths who were selling books and talking to the public during the event. Wordsmith Shawn Flynn was unable to attend but recommended CT author, Connie Bombaci, who brought along her deaf Dalmatian service dog, Judea, who was a hit with young and old. The Wordsmiths had a raffle table to raise money so that they could donate a brand new 6 foot folding table to Blue Umbrella Books to increase the number of members who will now be able to sit around two tables rather than one. Susan bought the table and delivered it to Blue Umbrella on the 21st of October. Connie was made an honorary Wordsmith.The event was well-attended, books received a lot of exposure and many were sold.


We have another new member, poet and blogger Erin Joy Seibert of Amherst. Erin has a book of poetry published titled A Field Guide to Falling, published under the pseudonym Em Jollie.


Glen Ebisch was unable to attend but asked that the group be advised that his author event scheduled for October 28th at Blue Umbrella has been rescheduled to December 2nd at 1PM. Glen will be speaking on Contemporary Women Mystery Writers. Please attend- he is a terrific speaker and exceptionally knowledgeable! I've been to two of his author events and enjoyed both!


Joyce Collins was unable to attend but sent her best regards. She hopes to see everyone in November.


A fan fiction writer, whose name escapes me at the moment, also attended part of the meeting,


Joyce Fetteroll joined us for this meeting. Kelly and I met her two years ago during NaNoWriMo and met with her at Dunkin Donuts at Little River Plaza to do nanowriting. She attended Kelly's NaNo informational meeting on Friday evening and came to the Wordsmiths meeting to check us out.


Susan and Kelly have put out a jointly authored anthology of mostly ghost and supernatural stories titled Disturbing.


Mike Walsh is asking for a beta reader for a friend's work if anyone is interested in taking on a project. You can contact Mike at justsomeoldman@gmail.com


It's time to think about holiday book sales if you have books to sell! Christmas is already out in the big box stores! Craft and vendor fairs are a good place to promote your books. Shop small is November 28th, the Saturday following Black Friday! Support your local small businesses-and stop into Blue Umbrella Books if able to say hello and maybe buy a book to help support the book store.


Sandy Sessler will be the Agawam Public Library on November 20th at 7PM to discuss her novel The Legacy of Aidan McManus, If you haven't been to one of Sandy's book discussions at Blue Umbrella or elsewhere, this would be a great time to go! Plenty of parking!


Susan, Kelly and Melissa Volker will be on Bob Plasse's local radio program Tuesday morning, the 24th at 7AM. Tune into WSKB radio, 89.5 FM broadcast from Westfield State University.


Ghost Stories LIVE! with Russell Atwood and cast members Susan and Kelly Buffum, and Melissa Volker will be reading new and classic ghost stories at Blue Umbrella Books on Saturday, October 28th from 6PM-8PM, with open mic following should anyone care to relate their own paranormal experiences. Always spooky fun!


Thank you to Susan, Kelly, Russell, Sandy, Shawn, Lynnmarie, Joyce F., Lindsay, Andrew, Geri and Sue for attending.


The date has been set for Artworks of Westfield, Inc's Articulture event. This will be the third annual event and will be held on Saturday April 28th, 2018. Susan is in charge of booking authors for this event which will be at the Church of Atonement this coming April. Artists and Authors will be located at the church, and musicians will be at The Westfield Women's Club so we'll have plenty of space. Unsure how many author tables there will be, but the past two years there have been 6. I'm going to push for 8 this coming year-we'll see what happens. But if interested, let me know as soon as you can so I can reserve your table space. Artworks does ask 10% of sales. The still new non-profit org has a lot of enthusiasm and they are strong supporters of all the arts in the community.


Our writing prompt this month was to look over the period elements table and find one that represents you the closest, write some notes and then during the meeting write how the chosen element fit you...not a simple task, but everyone jumped right in and wrote some good stuff- some of it thought provoking, some of it humorous. I chose samarium and my sister Lynnmarie, completely unbeknownst to me, chose cobalt. Samarium and cobalt together form a powerful magnet! Weird stuff like that always happens between us. Go figure.


Melissa was unfortunately suffering an upper respiratory infection so wasn't available to talk.VP Shawn Flynn was present this month and asked to talk about his experience with multiple author appearances for his book The Kitty Who Rescued Me After I Rescued Him at Barnes & Noble stores. Shawn spoke about his experience with B&N, Then he discussed how if you buy your own ISBN number from Bowker, and created your own publishing label, then publish your book through someplace like IngramSpark then big box bookstores are more willing to sell your book because it is available through the book channels big retailers use to stock their stores. Shawn explained all the footwork involved in doing this and making his book look as professionally published as possible by studying big brand publisher's books- basically doing his homework before putting out the second self-published edition of The Kitty.


Self publishing can be very daunting and often not very rewarding, but listening to Shawn and jotting down notes on his tips, a little rosy glow appeared on the horizon. This topic can be discussed again later on.


Geri Johnson was able to join us this month and Shawn was able to give her some advice about an alternate way to put out a second edition of her book about a young female racer.


The six foot folding table was presented to Russell Atwood from the WhipCity Wordsmiths for being such generous hosts of our meetings. Combined with the six foot table they already have we'll have double the space for our next meeting!


The meeting broke up about 4:15 or so as some people had other obligations, others had to go to work, and I was just plain tired from doing too much with RA...


A final note, Josepha Vass has emailed me letting me know he is disappointed that I schedule meetings on the Saturdays he has to work. Unfortunately, I check the book store calendar and grab open spots...however, he has sent me his work schedule and I will do my best to accommodate him so he can attend at least every other meeting. If anyone else has schedule conflicts, sent me an email at sebuffum415@gmail.com so when start looking at 2018 dates I'll be able to plan some so everyone who wants to can attend as many meetings as they're able to.


The next meeting is Saturday, November 18th at 3PM-5PM at Blue Umbrella Books. There is no December meeting due to December being such a  busy time for people with holiday shopping and preparations, company, parties, etc. If anyone wants to get together informally, let me know and we can meet at a coffee shop or something just to sip and chat.