FWA November Blog Post

2020 certainly didn't turn out the way we had expected when we celebrated New Year's Day on January 1st, but most of us have soldiered on and continued working on our craft. Perched on the eve of November with Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays ahead of us, I'm looking ahead to brighter days for us all.

And that includes two Zoom workshops for NE Florida writers, and other opportunities to stay involved. Here's what's coming.

• On Saturday, November 14 at 10:30 a.m. we welcome Margaret M. Nicholson, Ph.D. to our virtual meeting site (your home) as she tells us how to "Enrich Memoirs and Historical Fiction
  
  with DNA Testing & Genealogical Research." Margaret will share her story of how her research into her family history led to the surprising discovery of a biological father and led her to write, My Surprise Family: Find Your Ancestry Story, a mystery, a memoir, and a manual. She will show us how to add historical accuracy to both fiction and nonfiction by using DNA testing and genealogical research. Margaret tells us she began college after spending ten years as a wife and mother, eventually earning her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her working experience includes the field of social services, a technology corporation, and university education. After living abroad for some years, Margaret returned to Pennsylvania, her home state. After taking the plunge into DNA testing and discovering an unexpected birth father, Margaret stopped work on her travel memoir Foreign Encounters, yet to be published, to write My Surprise Family: Find Your Ancestry Story. Here is the link to join the Zoom meeting with Margret on November 14:
  
  

 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85447274479?pwd=NXlXenNtYm1WNitSeWRXOHd0WXpTdz09

Passcode: 201693

• Clay County group leader Paula Hilton invites you to join her Zoom meeting on Wednesday, November 18 at 6:30 p.m. when Elaine Smith presents, "Story Structure and the Hero's Journey." In this session, Elaine will discuss the archetypal characters and stages of the Hero’s Journey and reveal one simple way to strip your story structure down to outline the bare essentials. Elaine Smith is a writer, actor, director, and producer. She is the founder and producing artistic director of the Clamour Theatre Company, a nonprofit with a mission to bring professional theatre to Clay County, Florida. Click here to register for this meeting.

What else is new?

• A Gathering of Poets continues to meet on the back porch of the Ponte Vedra Library at 10 a.m. on the first and third Thursdays of each month. All poets are welcome to join. They email their poems to members and meet to discuss suggestions for change. To add yours, email to sharonscholl527@comcast.net.
• FWA has announced a new holiday writing competition to benefit the Florida Writers Foundation. As you probably know, the Foundation's biggest fundraiser is the silent auction conducted at the Florida Writers Conference each year. But that was not possible this year, so the FWF team has created the Colors of the Holidays writing competition. A $10 donation is requested to enter either a 1,000-word max short story or a 40-line max poem.  Visit this page for all the details.
• If you're like me, you probably missed the glamour of the RPLA Banquet this year. Well, FWA has the next best thing. You can watch the awards presentation via YouTube with the two Chris hosts: Chris Coward and Chris Hamilton. And remember you can still register and watch the conference because all the content will remain up through November 15.
• A few months back we announced that Ed Mickolus was prospecting for writers to contribute to an anthology he and Harlan Rector were producing. Many writers stepped up and are included in I Matter: Finding Meaning in Your Life at Any Age. Look for it on Amazon.
• Richard and Lucy Lipari announced they have completed their novel, The Genghis Code. It's an international thriller mixing history with contemporary twists and thrills. Congratulations to the writing partners. 

And since I started out mentioning Thanksgiving, I'll share with you the answer to a mystery that's bothered me for years—exactly why is the great American bird called a Turkey? This fowl is found on no other continent but our own, yet it's named for a Eurasian country. NPR's Robert Krulwich had the same question. He asked Mario Pei, a Columbia University professor of Romance languages, who told him in the 1500s when the American bird first arrived in Great Britain, it was shipped in by merchants in the East, mostly from Constantinople (who'd brought the bird over from America). Since it wholesaled out of Turkey, the British referred to it as a "Turkey coq." In fact, the British weren't particularly precise about products arriving from the East. Persian carpets were called "Turkey rugs." Indian flour was called "Turkey flour." Hungarian carpet bags were called "Turkey bags."

What, you may wonder, do the Turks call our bird? They call it "Hindi," short for India.

And now, you've heard the rest of the story, and you can enjoy your turkey (or whatever you wish to call it) when you sit down to your Thanksgiving dinner.

Cheers,

Vic

Vic DiGenti

FWA Regional Director