Vice President of Membership: Lauren Danhof

President: Sally Hamilton

Vice President of Events and Programs: Matthew Rollins

Vice President of Digital Media: Lauren Lanza Osias

Vice President of Community Outreach: Jenny Martin

Secretary: John A. Brown

Board members present: John Bartell

Business Meeting Called to Order: 6:15 PM

Officers Absent: Matthew Rollins, Lauren Lanza-Osias

BJ Sloan gave the treasurer's report:

• Workshop Account: $25,582.32
• DFWCon Account: $45,003.12
• Money Market Interest: $576.31
• Money Marketing Account: $64,610.51
• Total: $135,195.95 as of January 2025

Jenny Martin: We’ve had two inquires. 

• Inquiry One: Mark wanted to offer free editing services. Offer ignored. 
• Inquiry Two: Austin Film Festival. They have a script competition for unknowns and wanted to offer us a special discount for submissions from DFWWW members.

Lauren Danhof: We have 187 members. Same number as last month.

John Bartell: Because we have so many new members, there’s a bit of concern over reads being recorded. 

Matthew Rollins: Couldn’t make it to the meeting, but asked for ideas for events, especially around the Spring Writer’s Block. Ideas were thrown around for writers that could be invited to the event. Ideas include:

• April Fools Reads: Cold reading pages from other people’s works without prep time.
• Sprint Saturday: Find a regular time at the library once a month to organize long sprints for a few hours at a time. Basically the write-together event we have online now, but in-person.
• Local Author Crawl: Book signing event for authors for a venue that can handle 20-30 (traditionally published) authors. Flagship half-price books in Dallas was named as a candidate location.
• Local Author Read & Sign-a-thon: a local author read-a-thon/open mic night for flash-fiction and poetry (must be a short read for timing’s sake). Klyde Warren park is suggested as a location. Some sort of pub or coffee shop is also suggested.
• Festival of Vendor Tables: booking a table at a large fan event such as Comicon. Vendor tables would need to be purchased ahead of time, however. Hotel rental and round-the-clock table manning would also be required. A-Con and Texas Library Association were mentioned.

Sally Hamilton Candace suggested that for the month of February, the rooms are temporarily renamed to black authors. For March, women’s history month where we would do the same thing but with famous women authors.

Business meeting adjourned: 6:51 PM

Regular Meeting Start: 7:07 PM

Number of members in attendance: ~45

Visitors:

• Orange shirt (Mark Hendricks) has always been a writer since Jimmy Carter was in office. Doesn’t want to write articles anymore. Wants to hangout with some writers.
• David, just started writing last year because his neighbor Jayce brought him here. Writes a short story that turned into a novel project. 
• Anthony, is writing a project in Russian Lit. Is also a lawyer.
• Kaitlyn, Anthony’s partner, is a doctor not a writer and showed up as Anthony’s support person.

New Members:

• ??? Is doing speculative fiction.
• Tom, was here a couple weeks ago checking it out. Decided to join.

Rejections:

• Kathleen, was rejected for Awakened by Kiki at Donald Maass
• Jayce was also rejected by Kiki at Donald Maass
• Pam’s Secession novel was rejected by a historic novel organization 

Submissions:

• Mark Dye, submitted his children’s book to Jackie Kruzie
• John Bartell submitted his elevator book to an agent. Doesn’t remember which one
• Kate Cornell, wrote a pilot episode for a comedy and submitted it to a comedian
• Ron Sole submitted to an agent for his MG
• Collin Holmes, submitted Aftermath to Terri Wolf
• Kristopher submitted short stories to the Harvard Review because he “doesn’t want to get rejected by just anyone”
• Kurt Holmgren submitted chapters to several agent
• Kristi Carroll submitted her office romance book to an agent

Acceptances:

• Larry Enman’s publisher advised that his two books' audio rights could be sold later this year.

Book Reviews:

• ??? read Helen Dent’s The Burning Tree

Additional Announcements:

• BJ had a book signing at the Talking Animal books on March 8th, 2-4 PM for her book Forgotten Sun.
• Also, for any new members, she is still offering name badges for $12 each.
• Kristi Carroll is releasing her book Magic Bound at the end of the month. Also February 15th at Pantego Books in Arlington she will be having a signing event for Magic Bound
• Brian Tracey, thanks for those who showed up to the Chicago Avenue Hot Dogs gig. Also, anyone who is on preorder for his book Picking Up The Pieces, now is the time because of a Barnes & Noble event, it’s currently 25% off.
• Lauren Danhof is selling girl scout cookies.

Sally Hamilton:

• Recapped the notes from the business meeting to the general member gathering
• Also had Lauren Danhof hand out name tags for members who purchased them.

Meeting Adjourned: 7:26