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, A. Lee Martinez

Business Meeting Called to Order: 6:13 PM

Officers Absent: N/A

BJ Sloan gave the treasurer's report:

• Workshop Account: $26,558.44
• DFWCon Account: $49,810.40
• Money Market Interest: $576.31
• Money Marketing Account: $64,510.51
• Total: $140,979.35 as of February 2025

Jenny Martin: We’ve had four iniquires. 

• Inquiry One: We have flyers for the Austin Film Festival.
• Inquiry Two: American University of Paris Summer Creative Writing Institute reached out to us.
• Inquiry Three: Google form for the speaker’s bureau update, and it will be sent to folks who want to be added or need to update for the speaker’s bureau.
• Inquiry Four: We’ve not heard from anyone for the Writer’s Block event besides one person from a theater workshop. Business meeting went into a discussion as to who should be considered for it.

Matt Rollins: Would like to talk with the big Half Price Books in Dallas for organizing a writer/author signing crawl. Basically a big event for authors who are published/publishing to gather. The issue of giving enough time for traditionally published authors to get books for signing was brought up. Aiming for a 90-day warning time was suggested as a solution.

Also a silly reads room for April Fools (April 2nd) was brought up. However the previous April Fools idea of a reading trade would conflict with this, and the reading trade idea was selected instead. However the note of “don’t make a special silly read for the event, just bring a normal read and the reader will be swapped” was also discussed.

Sprint Saturdays also came up. As well as an outdoor sign-a-thon. Though the sign-a-thon would require at least 10 signups ahead of time to get the ball rolling on that.

John Bartell: Mentioned that Matt Rollins still needs access to NationBuilder for admin reasons.

Jenny Martin: Reminder that on March 30th, from 5:30 - 7:30 there will be a one-off Teen Writers Workshop in the Grapevine Public Library. It’s planned to be a writing exercise followed by a read-and-critique.

Lauren Lanza Osias: Might start to look for someone to replace her position due to her busy schedule. Also, we’re averaging net-traffic of 2,000 unique people seeing us per month across our website and various social media platforms.

Sally Hamilton: brought up a concern from a newer member as to where on the DFWWW website is there to ask questions outside of meetings. Currently, no such question form exists. The suggestions of either expanding the DFWWW Discord or putting a form directly on the DFWWW website. 

Also Ian had the idea of DFWWW having a patreon in exchange for releasing short stories written by our writers. This idea was turned down due to the fact that we don’t currently need another income stream.

Lauren Danhof: We have 189 members as of February 2025 (+2 from last month.)

Business meeting adjourned: 6:57 PM

Regular Meeting Start: 7:06 PM

Number of members in attendance: ~45

Visitors:

• N/A

New Members:

• David Jayce, signed up last week, writes YA currently. 
• Desree Luna, David’s wife, doesn’t write and is here to support her husband.
• Matt, who writes short stories and poems, was visiting last week.
• Mark, longtime journalist who pays for membership here month by month and he writes nonfiction.

Rejections:

• Mark Dye got his children's book by Jackie Kruze.
• John Brown got rejected by Cameron McClure
• Ron Sole got rejected on his middle grade novel

Submissions:

• Carolyn submitted her thriller novel Double Jeopardy
• Laura Lanza Osias had her book put on submission
• John Bartell submitted his elevator book to another agent
• Ron Sole submitted his MG novel to 5 more agents
• LeAnn Robinson resubmitted her romance novel to Wild Rose Press after heavily editing it.
• John Brown submitted to three more agents

Acceptances:

• Matt submitted one of his poems and it got accepted.

Book Reviews:

• Rebecca Hudson reviewed Steelwing 1 by Matthew Rollins
• Sandy McKinney read and reviewed BJ Sloan’s The Forgotten Sun
• Larry Enman reviewed The Burning Tree by Helen Dent

Additional Announcements:

• BJ Sloan has a signing for The Forgotten Sun at Monkey and Dog Books coming up on March 8th from 2 - 4 PM.
• Laura Lanza Osias got an email from an organization that is interested in reviewing books written in the DFW area. They don’t want anything childrens or anything too spicy
• Matt Rollins has a copy of Steelwing 2 available for read and review.
• John Bartell says there are two poetry events coming up. Leaves Bakery at 12 PM on March 21st (Friday. Also National Poetry Day.) 
• Also on March 29th, the Quicksilver annual poetry festival. There will be talks, open mic, a workshop or two. That will be all day at the Grapevine Public Library.
• Michelle O’ Neal was invited to speak at a book club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Was also invited to the Bridgeport Library on March 27th to speak there as well.
• Sean says on the 28th, an English author named Jonathon Stroud will be at Blue Willow books in Houston. He is best known for the Lockwood and Co. series. He will be doing book signings there.
• Drew says this Saturday he will be at Vista Ridge Mall where he will be doing a casting event for the anime he’s voice acting.
• Matthew Rollins also reminds that Madness Games & Comics in Plano has a standing invitation for DFWWW to host events there. But it has to be sci-fi/fantasy/speculative related.

Meeting Adjourned: 7:28