A Note from the President
Blue Ridge Writers did it up in style for our annual meeting on November 7 at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville! They turned out in impressive numbers to welcome people from all over the state, offering exciting displays, a tasty dinner, and a most interesting presentation by speaker John Amen. It was an encouraging close to a busy year.
We now enter the season of renewal, spiritual and physical. One aspect of this is renewing our memberships in Virginia Writers Club and I am sure you will all be responding to the emails and contacts urging you to send in your checks and your personal information for our Executive Director. One of the benefits of membership is our Golden Nib contest and we distributed awards at our Charlottesville annual meeting to a new crop of winners, whose work will soon appear in the online anthology organized by Rod Vanderhoof and Greg Mitchell on our web page.
As Christmas approaches, we move forward with our fund-raising challenge spearheaded by John Henry to raise money for our Educational Fund. We also make plans for an upcoming short story contest that we hope will stimulate a lot of you to contribute your best prose. We look forward to the February Board of Governors meeting to be held in Fredericksburg on the campus of the University of Mary Washington, where the student poetry group Paris Mutuel will host us to the poetry, sights, sounds, and perhaps even tastes of Charles Baudelaire, one of the great masters. More information on this event, to which you are all invited, will be reaching you as the winter season sets in.
I wish all of you blessed holidays and a bounty of creative energies to pour into your writing. I hope that there will be some notable publications under your trees and among your holiday presents. Let’s look forward also to a New Year of innovation in our organization in 2010!
Jim Gaines, President