THE RAM’S HEAD REVIEW

July 22, 2007

Five of us were here Thursday night to worship The Muse.

Bob was excited about his rewriting and he read first. He started again with the manufacturers at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. We heard of the Pearsall business, and then about Jacoby Bros. in 1909. This rewrite includes personal anecdotes that bring characters alive with their virtues and vices and quirks. Very interesting.

I read a postcard received from Susan as they headed to Sault Ste. Marie. I expect they have reached Nfld. by now. I didn’t have a lot of inspiration coming from a clustering exercise I had done, but did read the one paragraph I produced that had a funny ending. Also read an article that Margaret had written and had been published in B.C. Outdoors in 1980. It was entitled “Sir John Goes Fishing”, and was an historical recount of a fishing and hunting trip taken by Pasha Sir John Godfrey Rogers in 1912 to Campbell River and area. This is a wonderful piece of local history she had researched extensively.

Amanda was also excited to read the first short story, other than children’s stories, that she had written. This one is entitled “Listen To Me” and was an exercise completed for the creative writing class she is taking at UCFV. It shows the angst and inability to connect between a mother and daughter. The mother needs to admit her marriage failed because she had an affair years ago, and the daughter needs to admit she is lesbian. At the end they open up and reach an understanding of each other. Really a great story.

Margaret read more from the Peabody collection. As the villagers celebrate Rev. Peabody being alive, he tells Marie what really happened. But Marie wants to know how he beat Peasly at chess, so she goes to ask Peasly. Peasly wasn’t admitting anything. Peacock arrives to say he found his sidecar where Peabody was found. Now Marie doesn’t know what to believe.

Ellie read of Tassi starting her return journey to the village, with Tor following her to protect her.

Gemma didn’t have anything to read, but was great at cheering on the others. Ann is busy with her history and creative non-fiction courses. Carolann had hoped to join some of our meetings as her health concerns cleared up, but now her husband has to undergo bypass surgery so she will have to wait a little longer. Our best wishes go out to both of them.

Next meeting here at my place on Thursday, July 26th at 7:00 p.m. Since it’s been raining this week, we should be doing lots of writing, right? Hope to see you then.

Lisa