Hi Everyone,

The South Arkansas Writers met at 2 PM on Sunday, 18 January 2026, at Main Street Pizza in El Dorado. Present were Jack and Janet Ryan, Marilyn Joyner, Rick Vosper, Desireé Stipp-Bethune, and Simeon Stipp-Bethune.

Our next meeting will be at 2PM on 15 February 2026.

News:
1) Marilyn received First Prize for her poem, “Boxes of Life,” in the Poets Roundtable of Arkansas’ December 2025 contest.
2) Desireé is recovering from oral surgery. She also announced that the White County Creative Writers’ Contest is ready for submissions. For information, check their website at https://whitecountycreativewriters.org/conference/conference-2026/
3) Rick is recovering from gastric surgery.
4) Jan gave us a link which I forwarded to you about Billy Collins reading on Razzle Monday, 19 January.

Writing from Prompts:
1) Desireé read her story, “The Broom.”
2) Janet read her ekphrastic poem, “Like a Nightmare,” and her US stamp pages honoring Hungarian lace.
3) Marilyn read her story, “In the Corner” (subtitled “It Takes Two to Tango.”)

We critiqued Jack’s Chapters 16 and 17, “Jake and the Frat Man” and “Zero to Sixty in Seven Minutes” from his novel “The Centaurian Bud Vase.” We had some interesting discussions and good suggestions.

If anyone has something to be critiqued, a news item, another prompt for our next meeting, or would like to present a short “program” on something that you think would be of interest to us all, you can email me at jackwryan@gmail.com

Page updated: 19 January 2026
Page created: 15 January 2019