It's About Time

Time is the most precious commodity we've been given, and it's easy to fritter it away thinking there's always tomorrow. In fact, we have less time now than dinosaurs did when there were 370 days in a year. That's because the earth's spin has slowed due to the moon's gravity acting as a drag.

Don't obsess over that time fact since those extra days didn't help the dinosaurs, but when you're making time for yourself, be sure to put aside three or four days in October to attend the 20th Annual Florida Writers Conference in Altamonte Springs. Click here for all the details.

Here's another mind-blowing time fact: Everything we see is in the past because light takes time to reach us. The light you see out your window at this moment is eight minutes and twenty seconds old. I wonder if that means the scenes we write are really flashbacks? Hmm. Here's hoping all of this month's writers group meetings will begin on time. Or will they?

• Last month I put out a call for a stalwart volunteer to continue growing Jacksonvile's River City Writers chapter as a new group leader. I'm happy to say that author Kathryn J. Bain quickly answered the call and moved to keep the group in its established home base of the SE Regional Branch Library off Gate Parkway. Her first meeting is on Tuesday, August 10 at 6:30 p.m. and it will be a meet-and-greet to get your input on future meetings. Kathy is an established author of seven novels. She writes in the mystery-suspense genre, as well as humor and inspirational fiction. She's a past president of the NE Florida Chapter of Sisters in Crime and has been active in several other writers' organizations.
• Clay County Writers gather on Wednesday, August 18 at 11:00 a.m. at the Orange Park Senior Center at 414 Stowe Avenue. Jacksonville author John Maycumber will discuss a key component of fiction—the antagonist, who is just as important, if not more so, than the protagonist. He'll tell us how to create the best antagonists, and the group will review last month's writing assignment.
• Some beginning writers may think writing dialogue is as easy as talking. Something they've done all their lives. But there's an art to writing good dialogue and Nancy Quatrano is just the person to provide the answers to your dialogue questions. She anchors the meeting of Ancient City Writers on Saturday, August 21 at St. Augustine's Main Library at 10:00 a.m. with her presentation, "Let's Discuss Dialogue."
• Both the Amelia Island Writers and the Ponte Vedra Writers are on vacation hiatus this month but will return in September. The PV Writers open their first in-person meeting of the last sixteen months at the Ponte Vedra Beach Branch Library on Saturday, September 11 at 10:00 a.m. with Heather Whittaker's timely workshop on the importance of those opening pages. Full details next time.

And in other news ...

• Rik Feeney's Orlando FWA group welcomes Nancy Quatrano (a very busy writer) to his meeting this Wednesday, August 4 at 7:00 p.m. Nancy will connect via Zoom on the topic of "The Power Behind Writing a Series." Here's the link to join the meeting: Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/85364073400?pwd=zNlRTlzQzE2TndPZkUyZTY2dmJmQT09         Passcode: 783088
• Congratulations to Sharon Scholl on the publication of another outstanding poetry chapbook, Remains, available now on Amazon. And Sharon leads A Gathering of Poets group on the first and third Thursday at 2:00 p.m. at the Ponte Vedra Beach Library. All poets are welcome.
• And a tip of the hat to prolific author Edward Mickolus for his latest effort, this time with co-author Susan Schjelderup. Together, they created a satirical scientific journal qualifying for having the longest title of the year. The main title is Scatterplot, Scattershots, and Scatterbrains. Access the complete description here.
• And while we're patting folks on the back, a big congrats go out to some area authors who took home medals in the FAPA (Florida Authors & Publishers Association) Book Awards competition. The Awards Ceremony capped off the two-day conference this past weekend and at my table were three winners: Nassau County author R. W. Herman won Gold for his memoir, The Unopened Letter, Sharon Goldman of Ponte Vedra Beach captured a Bronze medal for her children's book, The Land of NO. And Parker Francis (aka Vic DiGenti) scored a Silver for his short story collection Ghostly Whispers, Secret Voices. At adjoining tables, Ponte Vedra Beach resident Rhonda Goodall collected a medal for her book, Where'd Grandma Go, and Jeff Walton for his novel Divine Return. Congratulations to all the winners, and to other area authors I may have missed.

That does it until next time, but I'll leave you with one more time fact. Did you know that time passes quicker for your face than your feet (assuming you're standing up). Einstein's theory of relativity dictates that the closer you are to the center of the Earth, the slower time goes. At the top of Mount Everest, a year would be about 15 microseconds shorter than at sea level. I guess that's why the sale of facial rejuvenation creams is booming.

Cheers,

Vic

Vic DiGenti

FWA Regional Director