Writing Communities...

I had to miss a meeting tonight, because life and work are overwhelming my other commitments at the present. I hate that. But it's got me thinking about the various writing communities I am privileged to be a party to these days.

The meeting I missed tonight was for CWILL BC, a group of Children's Writers and Illustrators in this province, of which (this year) I happen to be vice president. I am also, in no particular order, a member of the North Shore Writers' Association, the Writers' Union of Canada (holding a place on the TWUC library and curriculum committee), the Canadian Authors Association, CANSCAIP, and I sit on the board of the Surrey International Writers' Conference, as the conference coordinator for 2007.

I think that's it for physical groups. The hardbodies, so to speak.

But I also am a member of a number of more ephemeral groups -- that is, groups that remain rock-solid in nature, but with a more ether-ish media.

These include the once-Compuserve Literary Forum (these days, I think it is the Writers and Readers Forum, but I'm not quite sure). A subset of this forum is the KidCrit group, run by Marsha Skrypuch, where I have been known to pixelate now and again. An extension of that group has morphed into YAPS (Young Adult Print Scribes) who blog together in this very community, in spite of hailing from three countries on two continents. Then there are the crazy girls of the KickAss Writer Chicks, a group who really live up to their name. I also hang about on listservs for CANSCAIP, TWUC, CWILL, as well as being a devoted reader of a number of my friends' blogs.

Maybe this is why DEADLINE isn't done...

Nah.

More info on upcoming events in all my various book-ish incarnations in future posts. Right now, I need to get Charlie out of trouble again...

~karen

Edited to account for late-night sleepiness...(Thanks, Suze!)