Minutes of the

Second Meeting of the Folklore and Creative Writing Section of AFS

Thursday, 19 October 2006   12 noon - 1:30pm Room: Executive A

            American Folklore Society Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 

Peggy Yocom convened the meeting.

 

Peggy circulated an attendance sheet with e-mail addresses, and she’ll add those who would like to the FOLKWRITERS listserve she manages at George Mason University. Those attending: Laurel Horton, Steve Kruger, Eren Giray, Jens Lund, Michael Jung, Jenn Horn, Faye McMahon, Nicole Eugene, Sue Eleuerio, Andrea Graham, Steve Zeitlin, Kindra Foster, Bill McCarthy, Kristiana Willsey, Jo Radner, Cathy Preston, Sheila Bott.

 

Minutes from the last meeting.

Peggy distributed the minutes and corrected one item: People can belong to any AFS section without being a member of AFS.

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Readings.

Our section meeting started once again with readings. Laurel Horton read from her non-fiction project “My life as a quilt.”

 

Announcements:

                     Sue Eleuterio urged people to come to the session with novelist Mahmoud Saeed

                     Faye McMahon, Acquisitions Editor for Voices: Journal of New York Folklore hopes to establish a column for creative writing. Short pieces: 1000-4000 words is the usual length. Photo essays, also. Urges people to submit. She’s open to different forms, especially non-fiction and poetry. Rolling deadlines. She encourages writers to send a draft and ask if it’s what Voices wants. Faye reminds us that Steve Zeitlin writes a regular column for Voices.

 

Activities. We discussed the activities we’d like:

– More writing workshops. Let’s try one small focused workshop during AFS; maybe even two. Sessions before and after AFS are difficult for some because of the additional expense of an additional night, etc.

– Hold a forum on where to publish our creative writings. Steve and Faye volunteer. (After the meeting, they ask to be relieved of this task).

– Put a bibliography of our creative writing on our website. Peggy volunteers to send out request to the listserve; will try to do this in coming year.

– Put an annotated list of readings, something like “Folklorists recommend Writer X’s Novel Novel because . . .  Peggy volunteers to canvass the listserve; will try to do this in coming year.

 

Have an official members list?

            Most attenders agreed. Such a list would encourage people to stay active, facilitate sending timely news to everyone.

 

Dues?

            We discussed what we could do if we assessed dues: a book exhibit, a prize, travel money for graduate students, money to defray cost of writing workshop.

            Tim Lloyd recommends that sections establish dues only when they have a clear purpose for the money.

 

Readings, at the close of the meeting:

– Bill McCarthy read two poems: “The Birthday Horse” and “Papageno Wampanoag”

– Jo Radner read a poem: “My Great-Great-Grand Uncle’s Bone-handled Jackknife”