Guidelines

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Purposes & Goals

Our purpose is to form an effective body of dedicated and supportive writers who will meet on a regular basis. Our goals here are 1) to support one another in writing creative works of high quality, and 2) to support one another in our endeavours to become professionally published. We intend to accomplish these in ways that are nurturing, fun and inspiring.

Our Focus

Our focus is upon substantive works of short fiction and long fiction that are enhanced by the quality of their style. We are primarily focused on works that show humanity, insight, and imagination. These qualities can be found in works of any genre; we will be concentrating on works of speculative fiction: magic realism, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. An experimental approach to this genre is fine provided it is not used as an excuse to be above critique and the works are still substantive. We will not accept works depicting cruelty or violence of any kind for its own sake or for shock value. The use of such things must be for a good point.

Benefits of Membership

Writers Requirements

Writers can be of any age and any level of experience. You are required to be dedicated to this endeavour, to produce work, to present that work to others, to take criticism, and also to give it.

Rules of Order

Rules of Critiquing

Rules of Being Critiqued

(Critiquing rules derived from Holly Lisle's Schrodinger's Pet Shop Members' Handbook http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/group1-a.html, 1992.)

Membership Guidelines

To join you must submit a sample of your writing to the organiser. This will be reviewed to determine your level of literacy (can you spell and use grammar correctly), and whether your material is suitable for our group. For some material we may have no one in our group with enough experience to adequately give you the critiquing you seek. We also have limited spaces. You will have a probationary membership for three months. If members are comfortable with you and your material, and there are no complaints, you will be granted a full membership. At this time your membership fee becomes due.

Our purpose is to form an effective body of dedicated and supportive writers. We are a private group. Attending meetings is a privilege and not a right. Memberships can be revoked—for failure to follow critiquing rules, for failure to follow protocol in being critiqued, for failure to turn up at meetings, for failure to follow these guidelines and rules, or by a general vote of the other members. We want your experience of this group to be enjoyable and constructive. Please make efforts to put in the work, be sensitive and tolerant of others, and generally cooperate.

Should any writer miss three meetings running without apology, they will be removed from our mailing list and lose access to the Web site.

A writer who loses membership with the group will have their membership fee refunded, pro rata, and consequently will not be able to access any group meetings or the website.

Note: Be careful about discussing ideas with this group or anybody. Ideas are not copyrightable. Discuss ideas after they have been put to paper (or electrons, as the case may be).


 

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Established 2006 September 16