quick before it storms

The comments on my writers' group posts have me thinking about other aspects of the writers' group experience I want to blog about, though not tonight. The question of when -- and whether -- to open an existing group to new members is a tricky thing that's caused tensions, both good and bad, in both of the groups I've belonged to. It can feel as easy as hiring the perfect candidate for a job, or as emotionally challenging as opening up a previously-monogamous marriage. (Not that I have any experience with the latter.)

Diane K. Martin has a group that's been together for 18 years. That deserves notice, and probably applause.

Welcome to the blogosphere: Garbo! Garbo was a long-time member of Source, my first writers' group, until she moved away from Bloomington. She is an amazing fiction writer, and I never regretted that the group was mixed-genre because it was so cool to read her work as it evolved, plus she was always a good poetry reader/critiquer. Sometimes I get my best critique from fiction writers, oddly enough (this was the case in the class I took from Cathy Bowman as well). I could tell you about the time that Source went on a weekend camping retreat and a mole popped up under Garbo's tent in the middle of the night and scared the crap out of her by whispering in her ear, but I'll save her the embarrassment.

Uh, oops. :)

Also stumbled across E. Ethelbert Miller's blog, which is worth a read, and which I don't believe I have seen mentioned anywhere.

Spent the afternoon training a new staff member, so I'm pooped and brain-dead, so no further profundities from me tonight.