Brandywine Valley Writers Group

Every Fourth Reader is Listening: Getting Your Book into Their Ears!

Scott Ellis Reads is a business that specializes in helping authors understand the options for producing a book in audio. This includes everything from learning how to narrate your work yourself to selecting one of the narrators on the Scott Ellis team and having them fulling produce your project. Scott has an online classroom where he instructs people who would like to become narrators or voice actors in everything they need to know to become successful.
Scotts spends his non-narrating time playing golf, kayaking and fishing and hopes that one day he might actually be good at one of them!

Hard to believe, but we've been at this for twenty years!

The BVWG is thriving thanks to all of you! And now, it’s time for the BVWG Summer Social - 20th Anniversary. Come join us on the second floor of Ryan’s Pub at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 18th, for an evening of pure fun and socializing with your fellow writers. Spouses and friends are heartily welcomed too! We'll be sure to use the outside upper deck of Ryan’s if the weather is good.

There will be a cash bar but snacks and appetizers are on us. Consider it the perfect night to join in the fun a little early, at 6:00pm, and have dinner with those gathered, in the spirit of celebrating our remarkable anniversary.

We're gathering lots of raffle prizes so everyone has a chance to go home with something memorable to support their writing projects. So far we have board members offering their time to provide critiques, editorial services, brainstorming and even fight scene writing advice! Much more is planned. Be there!
The Summer Social is a chance to get to know your fellow group members and writers better. Also, we need help stocking up the Tony Conaway Memorial Free Library, so bring a book or three to donate and take one home to read. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Members and attendees of the BVWG are eligible to submit manuscripts for which they'd like constructive input. This is a great opportunity to get your work in front of some experienced readers and writers. The goal is to help the writer make his or her work better. Here are the requirements:

Maximum word count is 3000 words. Double-spaced. New Times Roman font. 1 inch margins. Please include page numbers.

Your piece can be a section or chapter from a novel, a short story, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, non-fiction, or even poetry. We're open to all genres!

Submit work to bvwg.submissions@gmail.com. Please send your work as an attached PDF or Word file. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, July 3th.

On Sunday, July 7, we'll make all the stories available for readers to download and review by posting a notice via meetup.com with a link to the stories. Please note that dues-paying members get priority if we need to prioritize submissions.

Christopher Alden will be moderating the Critique Workshop. We'll focus on the strengths of the submissions as well as areas that could be made stronger with suggested changes. The goal is for meeting attendees to read the submissions in advance, make suggestions for the writer and come prepared to discuss ways to help the writer make the piece better. The authors are encouraged to bring extra paper copies of their stories in case there are attendees who have not read the stories.

Some notes for readers:

• Watch the How to provide input at a critique session video that our own Gary Zenker put together. It's short (less than 3 minutes), entertaining, and critical for getting the tone of your comments right. You can view it on the BVWG Message Board.

• Read these suggestions for receiving feedback on your work by Christopher Alden. You can view it on here on our Message Board.

• Read the stories and be prepared to discuss them! If you can summarize your thoughts in a 1-page summary that you can share with the author at the conclusion of the meeting that would be helpful.

Anyone -- whether a dues-paid member or a first-timer -- is welcome to read the stories and participate in a BVWG Critique Workshop, but we prioritize the discussion of manuscript submissions from current dues-paid BVWG members.