By Cathy L. Scrimshaw

During our February meeting we had the pleasure of Patrick Taylor's company. A doctor, sailor, boat-builder and now successful novelist, Patrick read several passages from his latest novel, An Irish Country Doctor, the story of a young medical school graduate in his first post. Set in 1964 in a small village where, in Patrick's words, education was respected more than money, the novel is populated with quirky characters who lead interesting lives. With beautifully descriptive passages evoking a gentler, but not necessarily simplistic, time and place, his novel is a well-plotted, highly entertaining story of the kind we rarely see these days.

They're not Dumas' 3 Musketeers, but Jen Sookfong Lee, Mary Novik and June Hutton have put their own SPiN on "one for all and all for one"! And in this spirit, they shared with us both their writing and their personal stories of how their writing group, SPiN, has lead them to completed novels, two of them published.

Jen, Mary and June met during a the Booming Ground writers' workshop at UBC. Recognizing in each other a seriousness of craft and purpose they keep contact after the workshop, became friends, and formed a writing group they dubbed SPiN.

The three shared details of their group's inner workings and their journeys from story concept to full time writers. It's clear from their readings that each has her own style. This hasn't stopped them from providing writing critiques and moral support to each other. Though their subject matter is pre-21st century their communication methods are not. In addition to face-to-face meetings they make extensive use of the Internet for communicating and firmly believe every writer needs a website.

The Rogue Writers were true to their name when they shared their experiences in the self-publishing process at the Silk Purse on May 17th.

The four writers that form the Rogues and recently self-published their book of short stories called Ten Years of Tuesdays are Colleen Heinrich, Gerhard Winkler, Moira Thompson, and Raquel Garcia. They are part of a larger critique group that meet on Tuesday, hence the name. The meetings are not only social gatherings but offer serious critiques of each others’ work given with positive encouragement.

The book, itself, took six months to produce with each writer contributing fifty pages of short stories. Moira was responsible for the cover illustration which depicts Colleen’s home and the venue where the group meets. They offered many helpful suggestions on the self-publishing process.

Trevor Carolan, experienced speaker, writer and lecturer spoke to us, the North Shore Writers Association, on March 15, 2005 at the Silk Purse. He began by reading from his poem VESPERS AMBLESIDE which ends with the line:

"A world of miracles, simple, peaceful, holy."

This and Trevor's sometimes quiet, sometimes rhythmic voice set the tone for his presentation. He spoke of reinforcing our vocation to writing by reading from his book CELTIC HIGHWAY and the necessity to correctly target the recipients of our work by choosing the publishers that publish the genre of work we write.

Luanne Armstrong ... novelist, poet, writer of non-fiction and memoir, children's writer, teacher, mentor, story-teller, humorist and student. This wonderful speaker took the time from her very busy schedule to speak to us about her writing life on January 18 at the Silk Purse in West Vancouver. Luanne read from her latest book, still in first draft, a memoir of growing up on a small organic farm in the Kootenays. She writes with both humor and pathos of her early recollections of living in a small farming community and what led her to become a writer.