"A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right. " ~John K. Hutchens, New York Herald Tribune, 10 September 1961

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Mixers, Competitions, Publication...It's All Happening (Hopefully)

Having met up with Nadine yesterday, we came back with much brainstorming to do and a whole lotta events on the brain. For starters, we have our own little section for event notifications over at the Paper Microphone Cafe so you'll see us setting camp over there. Also, we've opened up Game Night to the public, instead of making it an invite only event, so hopefully that should help things along. It probably doesn't matter now though, registration wise, as long as you show up and are prepared to fork over the Rs 100 admittance fee and agree to order. You will get the fee back in a way, however, because we're planning on issuing cash prizes to winners which ups the stakes...by a whole lot. More people means more cash, means a whole different ball game. So spread the word to people you think will be interested in playing them wordy games. :)

We're planning for the "official" launch of the DWL Corner with Game Night which is on August 8 at 6pm at the cafe. Aside from that, we're also thinking of holding a formal mixer for writers, editors and publishers to all meet in one location, and discuss possible future collaborations held jointly under the Desi Writers Lounge and Paper Microphone banners. The DWL Corner may become a vantage point for editors and publishers to scope out new talent. So...yaay!

Another thing that is now most definitely on our horizon, post Vol 5 e-zine publication, is bringing out our own collection of short stories and poems. We need to compile the work into something presentable before pitching it forward to interested parties.

Writer and theater workshops are also on our list of things to get around to doing as and when the resources become available. Along with this, we're thinking of hosting a scripwriting competition, which would result in the winning playwright getting the chance of converting his/her play into a fullscale theatrical production, with no other than Osman Khalid Butt aka our Poetry Editor, as a mentor and director. It would be a great experience for any budding playwright, and something for which we are incredibly excited. We're hoping to launch that event either by the end of this year or some time in 2010.

And throughout all this, we're still going to continue with the book club and readings as the hallmark of what Desi Writers Lounge is all about, in essentials.

So there's a lot to look forward to in the coming months. Hope to see you guys at some, if not all our ventures. Everything is full of possibility, at this point.

Tally ho!

- TPTB

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Game Night Registration Goes Public

Instead of keeping this a closed event and having advertised it for so long for the last 3 odd months or so, we're opening up registration to the public. So go ahead and register.

:)

- TPTB

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Game Night Announced...at last!

August 8th. Be prepared to bring your best game, a healthy sense of competition and a whole lotta fun. We're finally bringing out our Game Night, featuring family classics like Boggle and Scrabble and newer additions like Balderdash and Taboo. Bringing the family activity to a cafe and opening up DWL to as much as it can be opened, with being a members-only event.

But don't let the members-only tag fool you. Members can invite whoever they want to, so if you're a member or know a member, good for you. The reason that we're not opening things up is to gauge interest for the event. If we have substantial interest, we will open things up. Hopefully. We have a thread over on the Coordinations, Coordinations board of the forums where we're encouraging registrations.

There will also be a cover of Rs 100. This marks the first time that we're charging for one of our events, and since the amount is nominal at best, we hope this won't deter participants from taking part in what promises to be a lot of fun.

If the event takes off, we might just include other games like Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit and any other games requested by participants.

Comments, questions, suggestions? You can always mail them to info@desiwriterslounge.net or write them in the comments.

We're boldly going where we've never gone before. Here's hoping we come out of this in one piece.

:)

- TPTB

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Mark Your Calendars for July 12th

We're pushing forward with our July and August readings. August is going to be a busy month for us, with the conclusion of the Spring/Summer readings along with another book club discussion meeting and first game night. We're hoping to do a game night every month, but will be charging for this event. A nominal fee of Rs 100 at the minimum. We might or might not issue a set of tickets available at Paper Microphone.

Anyway, if you'd like to register for our reading, click here. And if you'd like to present your material featured, please send that into reading@desiwriterslounge.net no later than July 9th.

- TPTB!