Dear New Rochester Writing Group Member:

Thanks for your interest in joining the Rochester MN Library Writing Group.  This letter details what you need to know and do to become a full member of the group.  Please read through carefully to help make your membership as smooth as possible.

Actions for you:

• Join our mailing list (does not require a Yahoo email address): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RochesterMNWritersGroup/join

Meetings:
The Rochester Library Writing Group meets twice each month, as described below. The schedule for upcoming meetings is in the top right corner of this page.

Second Tuesday of each month:  Formal meeting where we review writing samples (chapters from novels, poems, short stories, articles, etc).
Location:  Rochester Public Library, Meeting Room A
Time:  6:30pm

Fourth Tuesday of each month:  Informal meeting where we talk about writing strategies, struggles we’re having with stories, or anything else writing-related.
Location:  varies, contact Mike Kalmbach for next location
Time: 6:30pm

A typical formal meeting starts with introductions (if there are new members, which there typically are), then we dive into submissions in the order they were sent out.  The submissions are sent to the writing group mailing list throughout the month.  Once we’re done with those, we’ll generally talk about writing or wrap up for the night (depending on how much time we have).  I act as a moderator to help keep us moving along so we can get through all the samples.

Submissions policies:

At each meeting we review and critique submissions that are sent in to our Yahoo Groups site.  Submissions should be less than 5000 words, and verbal comments are usually kept to general writing principles as opposed to punctuation and grammar nit-picking. (All line edits will be done on paper and passed back to the writer.)  We limit the number of submissions to eight per month (first come, first serve).  If you have problems, contact Mike Kalmbach for help.

Submissions can be just about anything you can think of.  We’ve had chapters from novels, poetry, historical accounts and even children’s books.  If you feel that a submission may be offensive, please submit a one line description of the potentially objectionable content so readers can decide whether to review it.  For example, you might say:  “Warning:  This submission contains some adult content.” or “Warning: This submission contains extensive foul language.”

To submit a story, send your story as a PDF or DOC attachment to RochesterMNWritersGroup@yahoogroups.com.  If you don’t know how to convert your submission to a PDF format, please contact Mike Kalmbach for assistance.