Info for New Members

Hi and welcome to the group!

Background

Amateur Writers of Long Island works as a support group to help people do the type of writing they’ve always wanted to. Originally I joined as a writer who had a longstanding writer’s block. Because of this group and its generous support, I’ve been able to write for extended periods. I’m currently working on my first novel and it’s going great.

You can bring any kind of writing you want, in any form:

Novels, short stories, flash fiction, poetry, ballads, plays, screenplays, journal entries, blogs, nonsense verbiage, completely insane rants.

If I’ve forgotten anything, you can bring that as well.

We don’t censor material at all. Some of the writing may be a bit out there and explicit. If you’re easily offended this might not be the group for you.

The comments are supportive and encouraging. We’re not looking to tear someone down or to show how smart we are. We’re mostly concerned with helping you write the kind of stuff you want to write. After you’ve read we’ll talk about the piece.

We’ll talk about using a consistent voice, about getting down on paper what’s in your head. We’ll cover grammar, but not extensively, only how it fits into the structure of your work.

We joke around in the group and we get some really good work done.

Meeting Guidelines

Sometimes it gets chilly in the meeting area; you might want to bring a sweater. (I sound like my mother saying this, but there you go.)

Every two weeks at Book Revue, at 313 New York Avenue, Huntington, in the heart of Huntington village.
Meetings start on Sundays at 1 PM, and can run up to four hours.
The meeting will be rescheduled to the next available Sunday if it falls on a holiday or if the bookstore is having an event.
The meeting area is next to the magazine racks, behind a curtain. If you can’t find it ask the Information desk for our location.
A signup sheet determines the reading order.

Reading

Bring copies for the other members to read from. You can see how many have signed up on the Meetup.com site.
Bring no more than 1,800 words to read.
Other members may make comments on copies of your work. All copies are returned to the author.
There’s a 15 minute maximum for comments, so everybody gets to read.

Uploading Longer Work

Use the Upload link on the Amateur Writers website (go to More -> Files).

Moola

Meetup.com charges $12 a month to organize the meetings. I recoup some of that money back on the first meeting of the month, charging a dollar from each member. If, somehow, I’ve garnered a surplus I blow it on cupcakes and muffins.

There’s no charge for the first meeting you attend. This way we can hook you into showing up for more meetings.

Steve