Doing The First Southwestern Wisconsin Author And Poet Festival

Next week...no, THIS week! Show up this Saturday from 11-2 at THE FIRST SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN AUTHOR AND POET FESTIVAL in Mineral Point, WI, 203 High Street, and you will receive a free good luck spaghetti and meatball charm (from me)....possibly even more.

I am thinking that there will not be too much BLING at this festival thing. But you never know. Maybe all the other authors and some of the poets will have Swarovski crystals all over their otherwise colorless clothing. Maybe the pens they bring to sign their works will have feathers and glue-on sparkles.

I need to get some of those. I have been looking and have been quite disappointed that to date I have not yet seen even one pen or marker that looks like it/they have ever thought about being blingy. So I have been using the drab pens that my sister got in the doctor's office where she worked that the drug reps left behind. If anyone ever actually read my pens,I think that they would worry about me. Most of the drugs advertised on the pens have to do with serious mental conditions I had not heard of prior to asking my sister what the ads were selling. There was one cool pen that was shaped like a leg bone (at least I think it was a leg bone) but it ran out of ink long ago.

Anyway, if you can get to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, this Saturday, there are lots of art galleries and cafes and historical sites. It's worth a look. And we will talk.

Time to watch Castle. I am hoping the writers have finally picked up the romance pace.

RENKU-ING AROUND IN MINERAL POINT

HERE IS MY RENKU WORKSHOP GROUP IN MINERAL POINT, WISCONSIN, AT THE FOUNDRY BOOKS.

Our Sabaki, Melissa Allen, facilitated this workshop and was very helpful and patient. Until this writing event, I have to admit that I had absolutely no idea what a renku was/is. I am still not sure. This was a group writing effort and I was without question, the weakest link. Part of my mental block was related to the formula used to compose a renku. It involves numbers so I immediately panicked. To be honest, I think it is much easier writing a 200 page Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer Mystery.
The Foundry Books is a wonderful place. Anyone within 100 square miles of Mineral Point needs to visit it. Gayle Bull has accumulated hundreds--probably thousands of used books on as many subjects.
To illustrate why perhaps I was not particularly helpful constructing our renku: I purchased one of those used books before leaving: Annette: Sierra Summer. A shiny pink book I had purchased in 1960 and then lost along life's literary highway.

Brenna Briggs is the author of the Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer Mysteries.