April 20, 2021: Member Manuscript Critique Night!

Our April 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. If your chapter runs to 7,000 words, feel free to sent it all, but know that readers will only be responsible for the first 3,000 words.  

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 April. If we have more manuscripts than we think we can discuss during our meeting on the 20th, we may need organize a second session to cover the remaining manuscripts. We'll see....

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 Friday, April 9th. At that point, we'll gather and review the manuscripts and make them ready for dissemination.

On Tuesday, April 13th 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. 
Until such time as it is safe to meet in person, BVWG meetings will be held virtually via Zoom. To receive the log-in information, please visit the BVWG meetup page and click the RSVP button beside this month's meeting to indicate your intention to participate. Meetup will then provide the meeting details.
When and Where? 

Not the usual place this month! We're virtual until we're not...

An aside: Ryan's Pub has been closed for large in-person events, but a limited take-out menu is available. If we can't meet upstairs in our usual haunt, the least we can do is to help them by putting some take-out business their way. Just sayin'....

Where to park? Seriously? Your own driveway. Stay home. And wash your hands.  
Feeling insufficiently informed? Make sure you've joined our meetup.com mailing list 
to receive updates about upcoming meetings!