October 29th, 2008 by Whidbey Book Groups
Hi Book Groups of Whidbey Island
We have secured the large meeting hall at the St. Huberts Church in Langley. We picked it for a couple of reasons. One, it has convenient access and parking with lots of lighting. Also it is on Bayview Rd coming into Langley, so it is also easy to find.
The date is on Tuesday January 27th beginning at 6 PM as usual with the book exchange and potluck before the guest speaker and book discussion. This year Peter Casale will be the emecee. We have a couple of excellent authors to choose from as our guest speaker, and we will get the news on the choice to you soon.
We have sent an email out to the group leaders (names who signed up at the last get together to receive correspondence). Unfortunately, the Lit Fun group contact email came back. If anyone knows someone in that group please have them contact me directly.
We are asking a group member to attend a short meeting in November to go over details of the upcoming event. Our goal this year is to include all of the book groups in the planning process, and continue to improve as the years go by in making this a must go to event for book group participants.
Check back at the beginning of December. We should have more information then on the guest speaker and feedback from all of the group leaders who attend the meeting.
We look forward to seeing you on that dark night of January for some stimulating conversation at the book club gathering.
March 25th, 2008 by Whidbey Book Groups
February 29th, 2008 by Whidbey Book Groups
The Book Gathering was held this year at the Cash Store at Bayview in Langley. This was the 5th annual book group gathering, and though the location was somewhat difficult to maneuver, everyone enjoyed the evening. As we usually do, we had a book exchange and silent auction to raise money for a designated non profit and to cover the costs associated with the event.
This year were able to give the Whidbey Island Writers Association MFA Program a $500 scholarship check for a writer to use to attend the school.
Pat Detmer, writer and comedian extraordinaire , was our featured speaker. See her website at: http://www.patdetmer.com . I spoke with Pat after the function, and told her we were going to ask her back and cut 5 more minutes off her presentation time because she had handled it so well. There were daggers in her eyes, but I think she enjoyed doing the presentation, and might just come back again. (only joking about cutting the time, Pat)
The pot luck food approach still works, but we could a few more servings on some of the items brought. It was suggested that we assign certain food categories to different groups. An example would be Book Owls - salads. Please comment below this post if you have any thoughts on that. In fact please comment and make suggestions on anything that you think might make the event better.
Okay, enough for now, please visit the photo gallery. There are lots of fun photos of the event. Also we have the list of all the book favorites of the groups attending. You can purchase many of these books at Amazon by clicking our link here. By going through our website they give us a small fee. This will help us in keep this website, and continue to put on a great event every year. We appreciate your support, thank you.
Hi Book Groups of Whidbey Island