BRANDYWINE VALLEY WRITERS GROUP
  • Home
  • Our Story
  • Members
    • Board Members
    • Members
    • Why become a BVWG member?
  • Speakers & Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
  • Contact Us
  • Members
  • Writing Rescources
    • Writing Groups
    • Writing Organizations
    • Other Events

June 21, 2022: Member Manuscript Critique Night

Our June meeting will be a critique night. Dues-paid members of the BVWG are encouraged to submit a piece of work upon which they'd like constructive input. It can be any genre or form. Manuscripts can be any length up to approximately 3,000 words. If your story ends at 3,200 words, go ahead and send the whole thing.  

We're going to continue the critique approach we have done for the past several critique: Everyone will read the same set of submissions and come prepared to discuss them under the guidance of Chris Alden, who will be moderating the discussion (a role he has played many times when running critiques with the Philadelphia Writers Group). 

Note that will will only be critiquing four manuscripts in June. If we have more manuscripts than we think we can discuss during our meeting on the 21st, we will organize a second session to cover the remaining manuscripts. We'll see....

Stay tuned for a determination as to whether to this meeting will be held in person or via Zoom; it really depends on whether Covid-19 cases are spiking in the area. A decision will be announced by June 17th.

Some notes for members submitting manuscripts: 
  • Please send us your submission formatted either as a Word document or a PDF.  
  • Please put your name in the header of the document so that it appears on each page and please include page numbers (in case anyone drops their pile of stories and has to put all the pages together again).
  • Please format your submission using double-spaced lines so people have room to write notes.
  • Please format your submission with left and right margins at least 1" wide so people can write notes on the page.
Please send an electronic copy of your work to the email address specified in the meetup.com invitation no later than Sunday, June 12th. At that point, we'll gather and review the manuscripts and make them ready for dissemination.

On Tuesday, June 14th we'll make all the stories available for readers to download and review. We'll post a notice via meetup.com about where you will be able to download the stories. So, if you're not already a member of the BVWG meetup group, sign up ASAP. 


Some notes for readers: 
  1. Watch the How to provide input at a critique session video that our own Gary Zenker put together. It's short (less than 3 minutes), entertaining, and critical for getting the tone of your comments right.
  2. Read the stories and be prepared to discuss them! We'll try to record the critique sessions so that the authors can review the comments after the fact, but if you can summarize your thoughts in a 1-page summary that you can share with the author at the conclusion of the meeting that would be helpful.
​​As always, everyone -- whether a dues-paid member or a first-timer -- is welcome to read the stories and participate in a BVWG critique night, but we will only accept manuscript submissions from current dues-paid BVWG members.

When and Where? 

We'll post the URL for the Zoom meeting on meetup.com on the 17th if we decide not to meet in person. If we meet in person, it will be at the usual time (7pm) and in the usual place:

Ryan's Pub (2nd Floor)
124 West Gay Street
West Chester, PA 19380

Where to park? Gay Street is still open to traffic and parking, but remember that the meters are active till 10pm. Click here for free parking options in W.C.

Feeling insufficiently informed? Make sure you've joined our meetup.com mailing list 
to receive updates about upcoming meetings!
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.