Writer Wordart (Photo credit: MarkGregory007)

THE STORY BEHIND IT ALL

Almost ever month over the past three years, my friend, Sheila Larkin, and I have been making the trek from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to attend NEORWA’s RWA chapter meetings.

I know the two hour drive might sound a little extreme, but it’s well worth the trip because NEORWA always has a guest speaker who makes some sort of presentation on an aspect of the writing process. I’ve learned a great deal over the years and my writing is better because of it.

However, as time (and miles) went by, both Sheila and I wondered why there wasn’t a similar group in Pittsburgh. “It’s a big city… it has lots of writers… but where is the group offering monthly presentations on writing?” As we searched for an answer to this question, we spoke with some of the other writers we know who live in the area, and discovered that many of them were also interested in attending that type of meeting.

So, we decided to do something about it.

THE NEWS

Sheila and I are proud to announce that we are starting the Three Rivers Romance Writers… <fanfare…applause…squeals of joy>.

Our first meeting will be on Saturday, January 19, 2013, at 10:00 am the Sewickley Public Library at 500 Thorn Street, Sewickley, PA 15143 at 10:00 AM. Although the group is focused on the romance genre, all fiction writers will find benefits in attending the monthly meetings. We plan to have monthly speakers on various aspects of writing, from developing the writer’s craft to issues regarding publishing.

We are thrilled to be able to say that New York Times beat selling author, Madeline Hunter will be our very first speaker. She was the keynote speaker at the RWA National conference in New York City in 2011, and she lives in the Pittsburgh area. (See, I SAID we had the writers here!)

Future meetings will take place at 10:00 AM on the fourth Saturday of each month. The March meeting will also be held at the Sewickley library, however the February meeting will be held at our alternate location at the Bridgeville Library at 505 McMillen Street Bridgeville, PA 15017 on February 23.

We have a Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/ThreeRiversRomanceWriters . If you “like” us there, you will be able to see announcements of upcoming meetings, speakers, and (eventually) events.

We are currently developing a website, and once it is up and running it will be at www.threeriversromancewriters.com. Bonnie Forsythe has very generously created a temporary one for us at http://threeriversromancewriters.wordpress.com/

We have a number of requests out to local authors, and we are in the process of finalizing arrangements to have them speak to our group. We hope to have some announcements within the next few days, so remember to check our website and Facebook page.

FUTURE PLANS

Currently, RWA has a moratorium on accepting new chapters, so ours is not an official RWA chapter. However, our goal is to pursue membership with them as soon as they open things back up again. RWA is a fabulous organization that supports authors throughout their careers, and we believe that being under their umbrella will be to the advantage of all of the members of the Three Rivers Romance Writers. Any novelist can become a member of RWA, but only romance writers have voting privileges. In order for our group to become a chapter of RWA, we must also  conform to these rules.

Please come!  We look forward to having many writers attend our first meeting (along with the subsequent ones). Please come lend your voice to this group so that we can understand what you want in a writer’s group. He hope to build a strong, active organization, and we need your help to do so!