Come out and supprt our friend James John Miller!
Chad and I Take a Break
By Terry Carroll “I think of you as Charles George Peter Thomas. Are you okay with that? Do you mind if I shorten it to Chad?” I wrote to ChatGTP. At that point, I had been using—I hope he, or she, or it doesn’t object to that verb—Open AI for months. He (she? it? they?)…
Book Review: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Book Review by Wendy Tippin As I said in my blog post of August, 2024, I am a young senior and a voracious cozy mystery reader, and I still am. I talked about the trend of senior citizen sleuths in cozy mysteries, and I’m happy to report the trend continues. One of the books I…
Listen to your writing
From Peter Bloch-Hansen Writing is a form of speaking. We first learn language by hearing and repeating it aloud. Language comes to us mostly as meaning-filled sounds, long before we ever learned to write down or read the symbols of those sounds in what we call words. So, when we write something, be it an…
On God and godawful writing
By Terry Carroll On Saturday May 17, 2025 at St. Thomas Public Library, former St. Thomas Times-Journal reporter (turned adjunct prof at Redeemer University) Thomas Froese said something foolish to Elgin Writers Guild members and interested members of the public: “Your writing group is doing something very valuable by meeting regularly to talk about writing…
Pics from “On Writing Fiction” with Thomas Froese Sat. May 17. Click here
Elgin Writers Guild hosted an afternoon session on writing fiction, and voice in fiction, May 17, 2025, featuring former St. Thomas Times-Journal reporter/photographer Thomas Froese, now an adjunct professor in writing fiction at Redeemer University. Thanks, Thom, and thanks to the St. Thomas Public Library, the volunteers who put it together, and Aaron from Video…
The Poet’s Guide to Word-Watching
by Julie Berry (for Poetry Month) When an unfamiliar word flies up and startles you, look for identifying features, try to glimpse its secondaries, comprehend its bone structure, its under-tail coverts. To know it better is to love it more. You may know the song a word sings but listen as if you’re hearing it…
Writing from the Heart of the Story
By Peter Bloch-Hansen Recently I had opportunity to talk about ‘writing from the heart’ of the story. What is the heart of the story? It’s what you want the reader to feel and understand that they didn’t, before reading it. In other words, it’s what your story, like cabbage leaves, boils down to. So what…