True Tales writing group celebrates sixth anniversary

On the first Tuesday of each month, the True Tales writers meet at the Scotts Valley Library to read their stories and to receive and give constructive criticism. Today, they met to celebrate the sixth year that the group has met. Today, their celebration was held at the home of Carolyn Fitz in Scotts Valley.
Carolyn’s garden setting reflected the Asian influence that characterizes her Haiku poetry and calligraphy style. Within a circle of redwood trees, bamboo and ferns the writers were sheltered from the sun while they read their stories and enjoyed a potluck luncheon to mark their sixth anniversary.
The group’s founder, Nancy Hoffman, of Scotts Valley, convened the meeting and reminded everyone how she was inspired to start the True Tales writer’s group. After listening to Garrison Keeler’s radio program she realized that everyone has a True Tale to share. She started True Tales with a diverse group of writers at the Satellite in Felton. Although many of the original writers have been replaced by others, diversity is still a strong element of what makes the group work well.
The current members of True Tales are Nancy Hoffman, Arthur Lee, Norma Wilson, Carolyn Fitz, Lillian Czernica, Shirley Ginzburg, Arlene LaBorde, Suellene Petersen, Colly Gruczelak, Beverley Pearce, and Melinda Luster. The group has produced writers who have published their stories in magazines, newspapers and books.
Nancy brought the meeting to order by announcing other events that might be of interest to the writers and reminded everyone that the writing prompt for this month is “a near miss.” Writing to a prompt helps a writer to focus on a topic. A prompt should be sufficiently vague to engage the writer’s imagination, but specific enough to provide a direction for the story. The writers who had “written to the prompt” were invited to read first.
After several writers had shared their stories, affirmations and critique, lunch was served. One thing that this group knows how to do is laugh, eat and sometimes cry together. The menu for this event was managed by Colly Gruczelak, who authors the column “Plain talk about food,” for the Press-Banner. Colly brought her famous lasagna as the main dish and it was complimented by many side dishes and deserts that were contributed by the other writers.
Arthur Lee, the member of the group who is the only male, read clippings that he had saved since he joined the group. He also brought a stack of notebooks in which he had recorded notes from the meetings and comments that the writers had made. “This clipping is dated 3/10/11and it was from the Scotts Valley Banner” said Lee after he read about the True Tales writers group. “That was four years ago…when I first joined the group,” he said. When asked what his main writing theme was he said “sailing…which is my whole life. I also write military history … I spent 30 years of my life in the Navy.”
After all writers had read, lunch was over, and the sun was now shining through the trees onto the once shaded table, the group said their farewells and agreed to see each other on August 4, 2015 at the Scotts Valley Library where they will commence the next year of their respective memberships as writers of true tales.