• General Meeting: Poetry Workshop - April 20
• Poetry Month Celebration - April 6
• Ten-Minute Play Performance - May 9-10
• Redwood Writers Salon - April 27
• Transitions Submission Deadline - May 17
• Homegrown Poetry
• Community Writers Festival - April 4
• President's Message
• The Writing Life Column

Workshop Your Poetry!

April 20, 2024

11 a.m. – 2 p.m.

In celebration of Poetry Month this April, and honoring the Redwood Writers credo of "writers helping writers," we invite poets and prose poetry writers to this poetry writing workshop.

This will be an opportunity for us to come together, share our work and receive constructive feedback. The atmosphere will be one of support and encouragement. This will be a safe informative space to refine your craft.

All levels of experience are welcome. If you would like to participate and have a poem critiqued, please send your poem by April 15 to Les Bernstein at lessieb13@yahoo.com

About the Facilitator:

Les Bernstein is an award-winning poet whose poems have appeared in journals and anthologies in the U.S. and internationally. Her full-length book, Loose Magic, is available on Amazon and is reviewed in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

REGISTRATION: redwoodwriters.org

Meeting Agenda and Logistics

Cypress Room, Finley Center

• Meeting starts at 11 a.m.
• Poetry Workshop
• Break & Book Sales
• Board, Chair & Member announcements
• Optional Writing Q&A
• Adjourn at 2 p.m.



This is an in-person meeting. The meeting will be recorded and made available to registrants and all membership.

Admission: $5 members / $10 non-members

Redwood Writers are celebrating Poetry Month with a special poetry reading with our club's poets.

Where: The Finley Center

When: Saturday, April 6th

Time: 2:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Potluck: bring something to share

Come early as we will start on time

Come to schmooze and bring your friends.

Sign up to read (the first 25 will be accepted)

Contact Les Bernstein, lessieb13@yahoo.com 

PAID ADVERTISING

Redwood Writers on the Stage!

This year’s 10-Minute Play Contest saw a total of 43 excellent plays! The judges had a hard time choosing, but narrowed it down to SEVEN plays (though just six plays will be performed). Stay tuned for our April 20 general meeting when we will announce the winners. 

But you can purchase tickets today!

Performed by Off the Page Readers Theater, our annual Six Winning Plays 2024 event is taking place:

Friday, May 10 at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 11 at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets are $20 per person. 

Thank you to everyone who entered this contest, and we are looking forward to May 10 & 11 when we can see the winning plays performed on stage!

For more info contact co-chairs Rebecca Smith & Adele Layton

playcontest@redwoodwriters.org 

The Redwood Writers Salon will meet on April 27, 1-3 pm.

Editor Jan Rowley invites your submissions!

This year's theme is Transitions, a collection of stories that allow the reader to experience your character's journey through a period of change, which is, after all, the essence of all story.

A character may be a human, an aspect of nature, or an alien of the author's imagination. All adult fiction genres are welcome.

Think literary fiction: character driven versus plot driven. It is the journey across that bridge of transition that the judges want to read, and the editors will be ready to polish.

Open to all Redwood Writers and CWC members.

Keep checking groups.io for Jan's tips on anthology submissions! groups.io/g/rwgroup/topics 

Submissions Open:

Saturday, March 16, 2024



Submission Deadline:

Friday, May 17, 2024

at 11:59 p.m.

For rules, details and tips, visit the anthology webpage.

A Shakespearean Apology

My fear, again, has birthed an ugly child

While you retreat to nurse a bitter gut

And I, adrift on waves that toss me wild

Pray that our precious love I have not cut

How may I calm this frightened fiend within

That takes me by surprise and steals my tongue

My goodness yanked below the roots of sin

Where songs of deepest trust remain unsung

Such presence true, love’s gift I’ve rarely known

Yet quick am I to question and to doubt

May courage risk my heart to all we’ve sown

And grow our cleansing sage, even in drought

It is forgiveness that I ask for here

Committing kindness to replacing fear

- Fran Carbonaro

Fran Carbonaro found refuge and a home in Sonoma County in 1976. She attended SSU, where she earned two BA degrees: Expressive Arts (1979) and Theater Arts (1991). Fran’s poetry has been published in various local anthologies, including Phases (Redwood Writers) and Reverberations: three (Sebastopol Center for the Arts.) I’m Still Alive, a CD of her spoken poetry and song, was released in 2018.  Of all her creative pursuits, poetry endures. She has been a private vocal coach for thirty-nine years and resides in Sebastopol.

Redwood Writers is a participating organization at the Community Writers Festival, April 4, from 4 to 9 pm. It takes place at Sonoma State University, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. The festival is free and open to the public. Parking is $5.

The Sonoma Community Writers Festival is a collaboration between English and Creative Writing faculty and students at Sonoma State University, the Zaum literary magazine staff, and various local independent literary organizations. The mission of the festival is to offer more opportunities for the Bay Area literary community to assemble, network and celebrate diverse voices. The festival programming will occur in the Student Center and other locations on the SSU campus, with scheduled readings and panels in both ballroom and classroom environments, as well as workshop spaces devoted to collaborative writing. There will also be a table bazaar for organizations and publishers to promote their services and products. 

Visit the Festival website for schedules, directions and more information.

AUTHOR LAUNCH 2024

Did you miss the live Author Launch event? Watch it here!

THE WRITING LIFE

The Protagonist's Journey

By Richard Koman,

Newsletter Editor

As we gear up to enter submissions in the prose anthology, Transitions, I thought I would share from my latest writing acquisition, The Protagonist's Journey: An Introduction to Character-Driven Screenwriting and Storytelling by Scott Myers.

"The Protagonist's journey is fundamentally about change," Myers says. And the change we are really interested in is internal change. The character "begins in one state of being and by story's end has evolved into a different state."

Myers identifies four major phases of change seen in Western storytelling, whether film, novel, short story or stage play. The character begins in Disunity. "The Protagonist has managed to cobble together some semblance of a life but they are not yet committed to their journey. They cannot continue the status quo. They must leave their present way of being to become who they are meant to be."

Deconstruction. "The departure from the old world compels the character to gain a fresh perspective on who they are and how they have been living. In this new unfamiliar environment, their assumptions and coping skills are found wanting. They experience the new world as a stranger in a strange land."

Reconstruction. "The new experiences of the story compel the character to change. The change is not arbitrary. Breaking down previous patterns enables dormant aspects of their psyche to emerge into the light of consciousness." To quote Campbell, "the journey was not of attaintment but reattainment, not discovery but re-discovery." In Unity, the transformation is complete. There is no more story because the character is done changing. This is not a "happy ending" but "a physical and psychological pilgrimmage shaped by the specifics of their life, personal history and backstory, want and need, inner conflict and outer challenges."

"As writers the more we engage ourselves in the lives of characters, the more distinct their individuation from disunity to unity."

Happy writing -- and changing!

If you have news to share about your writing, an award, an appearance or other writing-related news, send a short (100 words max) announcement to editor@redwoodwriters.org. Please attach a photo. Deadline is the 15th of the month.

LOOKING FOR A WRITING GROUP?

Marie Judson keeps an ongoing list of members interested in joining or creating a writing group. If you would like to find a critique group, or add more members to an existing group, send your genre(s) and contact information to mariejudson@gmail.com. You'll receive an email with the subject line, "Writers seeking writing groups." You can then either reply to all or select specific writers to contact. This has been an ongoing free service for Redwood Writers members for nine years.

HALF YEAR MEMBERSHIP NOW OPEN

From Dec. 16 until June 30, join Redwood Writers at half-price! If you intend to join Redwood Writers, but you don't know which membership level is right for you, scroll down to read about the available membership levels before using this link to fill out a membership application.

REDWOOD WRITERS LEADERS & VOLUNTEERS

Redwood Writers would not be a possibility without our many wonderful leaders and chairpeople who generously volunteer their time and efforts. We appreciate you!

Board meetings are held 6-7:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month unless otherwise noted and are open to any member in good standing. Contact president@redwoodwriters.org to receive an invitation.