Looking for Writing Feedback and Marketing Info?…
…Join the East End Writers’ Group
Celebrating our 23rd. Anniversary and Beyond
Design by Lee Parpart
“Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish growth, without destroying roots.”
Frank A. Clark
Who We Are and Our Mission
East End Writers is primarily a writing critique group which works along the lines of Fred A. Clark’s motto at the top of this page. We present feedback – the good and bad of what we are writing – in a positive encouraging way. We want our writers to get published or whatever their writing goal is, so if we can help them write better to get there, that is good. We writers sometimes get tunnel vision and as the saying goes “can’t see the forest for the trees.” We don’t charge for this feedback at our meetings; there is also no charge for attending these meetings or to be a member of the East End Writers’ group.
UPDATE AUGUST 11, 2024
The August 14th East End Writers group Zoom meeting is cancelled. Sharon is sorry to have to cancel the meeting, however, she has injured her arm and is unable to type. She is recovering and will see you all soon.
JULY 29, 2024
PLEASE NOTE: After the July 31 Zoom meeting for a fifth Wednesday in a month, we will no longer be holding fifth Wednesday Zoom meetings. The July 31 meeting is still on and the usual Zoom meeting, the second Wednesday evening of the month will continue except for December when we break from all meetings for holiday celebrations, etc. The list of meetings follows with any fifth Wednesday meeting marked “CANCELLED”
NEWS FLASH JULY 14, 2024
PLEASE NOTE: Because there are five Wednesdays in July, we have an extra Zoom meeting Wednesday, July 31. Same time as usual 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. It is in the list of Zoom meetings below. Members have the login. Any writers wanting to join East End Writers to get writing feedback, and attend our Zoom meetings, particularly July 31 and/or our meetings at S. Walter Stewart Library, please email words@samcraw.com More info about EEWG is below
NEWSFLASH MOST RECENT MAY 22, 2024
EAST END WRITER FIRST BOOK PUBLISHED AND BOOK LAUNCH
BENJAMIN REMPEL, an East End Writer who came to our meetings at the S. Walter Stewart library pre-pandemic and also attended some of our Zoom meetings, has released his first book – Infect a thriller. Ben moved with his family to Collingwood, Ontario during the pandemic. Here’s a quote from his email to me about his book and book launch.
“Collingwood is quite the drive from East York but anyone is welcome to attend the book launch event! And we are now taking book pre-orders at: https://www.chickenhousepress.ca/bookstore/p/infect-feral-winter-book-1
Full details can be found at my brand-new website: www.benjaminrempel.com
End of quote.
Ben will be guesting on an upcoming EEWG meeting on Zoom, probably the one the week of his book launch.
EEWG meeting Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Book Launch Saturday, June 15, 2024
7:00 – 9:00PM in Collingwood, ON.
Press Market
2 Mountain Road, Unit 3, Collingwood
NEWSFLASH May 8, 2024 UPDATE May 9, 2024
THIS EVENING (MAY 8) OUR MEETING HAS BEEN CANCELLED AS THE HOST CAN’T MAKE IT BECAUSE OF SUDDEN CONFLICT OF DATES. SO YOU WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO BE LOGGED IN. APOLOGIES. WE WILL MAKE UP FOR IT AT OUR JUNE 12 Zoom meeting. We also have an extra Zoom meeting May 29, 2024, as May has five Wednesdays. Our meeting at S. Walter library is still on May 22 and you are welcome to attend it as well as the Zoom meetings.. More details below.
Members who want to read their writing-in-the works for feedback at meetings, please email words@samcraw.com
Here are the Zoom meeting dates for 2024 from May. All meetings run from 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
MAY
Wednesday, May 8, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9 .30 p.m. CANCELLED
Wednesday, May 29, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
JUNE
Wednesday, June 12, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
JULY
Wednesday, July 10, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
AUGUST
Break for library meeting but one Zoom meeting
Wednesday, August 14, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. CANCELLED
SEPTEMBER
Wednesday, September 11, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m
OCTOBER
Wednesday, October 9, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
CANCELLED Wednesday, October 30, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. CANCELLED
NOVEMBER
Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
DECEMBER
Break for Christmas Holidays
Again, thanks to two of our members, Shane Joseph and Brian Moore, for looking after logins. We start these online meetings at 7.30 p.m. to get members settled in and for brief introductions and updates from members, then the writing feedback begins and finish at 9.30 p.m. Late comers will also be let in. Login will be emailed to members in the latest newsletter. PLEASE NOTE The newsletter is now sent every three months , so logins for three months will appear in the newsletter. For months with two Zoom meetings, both logins will be emailed tin the same newsletter.
WE HAVE BEEN BACK IN S. WALTER STEWART LIBRARY FOR IN- PERSON MEETINGS SINCE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2022. BUT PLEASE NOTE WE ARE NOT IN THE AUDITORIUM & THERE IS A TIME CHANGE.
Here are the S. Walter Stewart Library meeting dates for 2024 from May. All meetings run from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
August 2024 break for summer holidays
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
December 2024 Break for Christmas, etc. holidays
NEW MEMBERS WELCOME. NO FEES CHARGED. Published and unpublished writers welcome. More info below and at the top of this web page. If you don’t see answers to your questions below, email words@samcraw. com
A reminder for members and other writers who want to attend our meetings. You don’t need to register (unless you are reading for feedback – info below), just drop in at 6.30 p.m.
S. WALTER STEWART LOCATION FOR ALL LIBRARY MEETINGS
170 Memorial Park Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario
(corner of Durant and Memorial Park Ave., two blocks west of Coxwell Ave. and one block north of Mortimer Ave.)
Those wishing to join EEWG please email Sharon at words@samcraw.com
More info about East End Writers’ Group follows.
S. Walter Stewart Library
We can’t get the auditorium because something called The Hub for youth takes place in the auditorium, Monday to Friday from 3 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. including their cleanup time. This is a program that was the former Mayor’s idea for libraries. However, the branch head kindly offered the smaller side room (or end room as it is at the end of the hall by the auditorium in the basement) for our meetings and holds up to 20 people We have our writers circle with chairs plus a small round table for members and library writing events flyers, and sample copies of members’ published books.
The time has also changed to 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. so we can stick to library open hours. .Zoom showed us we could meet for two hours with up to four writers reading and receiving feedback.
We take a short break halfway through the meeting but not with food or beverage to share in the meeting room as we did pre-COVID. If you do want to eat or drink something before we start or during the break you might want to bring a snack and eat it at one of the tables out in the corridor or in the foyer as you enter the library. There are also restaurants a few blocks north on Coxwell Ave. if anyone wants to get together after our meeting for a bite to eat.
Although masks are not at this point mandatory in the library, the library strongly recommends wearing masks and that includes at our EEWG meetings. We meet in s small room and we are somewhat close together there.
What We Do at Meetings (including online)
- Read our fiction, poetry, non-fiction and drama (four readers per meeting) – about eight pages double-spaced; poetry – up to two short poems. All double-spaced in 12 pt.
- Receive and give constructive criticism on the above
- Members register by email to read words@samcraw.com
- Market Information Exchange
- Chat about our writing, including any writing events and workshops. We usually do this at the beginning of meetings.
- Short discussion on specific Writing Craft topic (member-driven and different topic each month), So far this is only online
- If we do any presentations open to the public in the future we can arrange with the library to do them on a Saturday afternoon in the auditorium.
Again, writers wanting to join this writing critique group (no fees), please email words@samcraw.com
NEW FEATURE FOR EAST END WRITERS
EEWG members – long-time and new – will be profiled on a monthly basis. This is another way for members to get to know each other and also for anyone who visits this site to do so. Links to members’ websites and related links will be included. Published and unpublished members will be profiled to reflect membership diversity.
First up is Liz Torlee. Her profile will remain up to the end of March.
Liz Torlee almost didn’t get her first novel The Way Things Fall published. Potential Publisher Blue Denim Press was interested but wanted her to remove all the paranormal content. While mulling over a complete rewrite, a writer friend sat next to this publisher at a writing event and heard about Liz’s manuscript. The publisher didn’t remember her name, but the friend knew. She helped convince Liz to rewrite the novel. Liz calls it “fate” which she says is the idea at the root of most of her writing, thanks to a diary gifted to her at age 12.
“The blank pages were so enticing. I felt strongly that they had already been “written” and I was following a path that had been mapped out for me”
The novel? Published in fall 2020 by Blue Denim Press.
While working in advertising and marketing Liz had limited writing time but took notes from her travels and wrote poetry and short stories. Now retired, she has time to write. Her second novel In Love With the Night was published by Blue Denim Press in late fall 2022.
Liz joined EEWG in 2022 with Zoom meetings and now attends the in-person meetings at S. Walter Stewart Library Branch. Her advice for writers comes from her first novel’s publishing experience:
“…when you loosen your grip and ‘let go’ of the proprietary feelings about your ideas and the way you have written them, you feel a tremendous sense of liberation. All kinds of doors open, all kinds of new ideas eventually come pouring in. To me, creativity cannot be a solitary pursuit. The perspective, critique, and objective insight of others almost always make your work better.”
More info on Liz Torlee and her books is on her website
Or directly to Liz Torlee on Blue Denim Press
See below, including some videos, on over 20 years’ history of the East End Writers’ Group.
A Little Backstory About East End Writers’ Group
We didn’t always meet at the library. When we started out we met in my tiny bungalow – usually in my living room, sometimes spilling over into the adjoining office. Sometimes we met downstairs in the rec room. But our first meeting in September 2000 had three writers attending- one of them was me. We have had as many as 17 for in-house meetings and more than that at some meetings in the library. Between house and library venues, we met briefly at a cafe around the corner from me (Sept. 2013 to March 2014); it went bankrupt and closed. Then we met in the workshop room of a nearby used bookstore combined quilting shop (April 2014 to June 2014). This one was for a per-arranged agreement with the owners for a few months. The shop closed this bricks and mortar location but moved their books and book selling online. After our summer break, we went directly to meeting at the S. Walter Stewart Branch of the Toronto Public Library, thanks to the invitation of Janet Nanos, a librarian working in the branch then. She also helped promote East End Writers through the library as did Jennifer Moffatt after Janet retired in 2019. We also held a couple of East End Writers anniversary presentations at the library. A third one,our 20th anniversary was in the works for 2020 at the library.
And then, in March 2020, COVID-19 struck and all Toronto Public Library branches closed. The branches went through several ups and downs with openings and partial closings, depending on the ups and downs and zig-zags of COVID-19 and its variants. As for the East End Writers’ Group we had to find another temporary venue. One of our members, Nick, suggested Zoom online; he supplies the logins and we were able to meet. Our meetings increased to two a month, but we always wanted to get back into the library for once a month – if and whenever COVID bit the dust and choked on it.
NEWSFLASH
The 20th anniversary celebration online was a blast. Here are the links to the two videos for it – first one with the presenters and their creativity. Second one with the panel on publishing. Each video is approximately one hour. So take a break and enjoy.
Sharon A. Crawford opened the presentation with a very brief history of the East End Writers’ Group and then turned it over to host A.D. “Kit” Laver.
The presentation featured seven of our members strutting their creative stuff: reading fiction and memoir, collision between the two genres, singing and songwriting, author interviews. These presenters: Jake Hogerterp, Ellen Michelson, Tom Laver, Brian Moore, Tom Taylor, Nick Nanos and Sharon A. Crawford. Plus the panel on publishing then (early 2000s) and now with panelists Shane Joseph (publisher Blue Denim Press), Nate Hendley (crime non-fiction writer who has had books published from the early 2000s) and Wendy Hawkin who formed her own small publishing company to publish her books. Hosted by historical novelist Tom Taylor. Followed by a q and a.
Other Anniversary Events:
East End Writers Appearing on TV
As part of our 20th anniversary celebration, a few of our members appeared remotely on a couple of Hugh Reilly’s Liquid Lunch shows on the online TV station thatchannel. The first show was taped remotely May 12, 2020 with Hugh interviewing longtime EEWG member Shane Joseph (literary fiction author and Blue Denim Press publisher) and me, Sharon A. Crawford, founder of this East End Writers Group. You can get info about me here on this website as well as some on Shane whose website is here. We talked about the early days of EEWG meeting in my home and somehow segued into today and how we writers are coping in these COVID-19 times. This show is live streamed and is also available to watch afterwards. The second guest appearance on thatchannel was in May 2021 and featred Jane Petrovykh a talented fiction writer and a newer member. View that episode here.
Upcoming Events like they used to be
Writing Critique Evenings – before COVID-19
r
Location: 
S. Walter Stewart Public Library Branch (auditorium)
170 Memorial Park Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Time:
7 p.m. to 9.45 p.m.
We break for August and December.
Some Past Events:
EEWG 10th anniversary. Teresa Petrie photo.
And More Recently…
Small Presses: Guerrilla Book Marketing in the Digital Age held May 29, 2019
We Blue Denim Press gang had lots of fun at the Small Presses: Guerrilla Marketing in a Digital Age, as you can see from the photo above and the one below. Barb Nobel read a very funny short story from her book Edgy People, Michael Dyet and I in our character reading duet brought some of our quirky and dysfunctional characters to life from his novella “Slipstream” in his book Hunting Muskie and my Beyond Faith. We both had a crack reading the part of my main character PI Dana Bowman. Dana, as usual was having her conflicts with family and enemies. Then there was this strange guy Sam from Shane Joseph’s Milltown who wandered onto the stage and proceeded to dis the setting and the year (2008) for the novel. He even had a few choice words for his author and as he lumbered off the stage was determined to get him for all this. He must have because a few minutes later Shane Joseph staggered onto the stage and managed to read the beginning of Milltown. We also mixed, mingled and kept going to the food table to munch on snacks even before the fun began onstage. But while we were on stage the audience was engaged. And so were we with them and with each other as we discussed how we did our guerilla marketing. And author Gail Murray our host kept us all in line. We also sold a few books in print there and some e-book sales are in the works – at least from my conversation with a few people from the audience. We will have to do this again somewhere else.
Barb Noble reading a story from Edgy People
And here are our recent books:
Muskie and Murder Presentation – June 27, 2018
Creativity from the Stacks
In partnership with East End Arts and S. Walter Stewart library branch was held from 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.,Wednesday, June 28, 2017, at S. Walter Stewart Library auditorium,170 Memorial Park Ave, Toronto.
East End Writers’ Group members emerged beyond the S. Walter Stewart Library stacks and shared their creativity in the library’s auditorium – Nishe Catherine (creative non-fiction), Gail Murray (travel memoir) Laura Jones (photography and memoir), Nicholas Nanos (singing and song writing), Lee Parpart (poetry and small press publishing), Paola Ferrante (short fiction), Shane Joseph (comedy skit) and Sharon A. Crawford (comedy skit), and a sample writing critique session led by Gia Petec. And Dana Bowman IS back between the book covers of Beyond Blood. But she’ll be back somewhere else later this year.
Co-hosted by group founder Sharon A.Crawford and Nishe Catherine. Table of members’ books, light refreshments and mixing and mingling.
East York Cultural Hot Spot was a success and fun.
What’s Your Story? East York Attracted a Crowd
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Sharon A. Crawford and her East End Writers’ Group presented sample writing critiques as well as showcasing group members’ published books as part of the East York segment of What’s Your Story? presented by the Ontario Book Publishers Organization, Toronto Arts Council, Toronto Public Library and East End Arts. This celebration of reading, writing and publishing occurred at the S. Walter Stewart Library, 170 Memorial Park Ave., Toronto, from 2 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. October 1. Event was free and open to the public. More information at http://eastendarts.ca/whats-your-story-east-york/
East End Writers’ Group 15th Anniversary Celebration Huge Success!
Celebration was held Wed. Oct 28, 2015. Despite a rainy and windy day we had a good attendance and a variety of presentations of members published works: a recreation of a community opera in PowerPoint, interview with a memoir author with the interviewer channeling Ellie Tesher, Toronto Star relationship columnist, parody and satire, a novelist who talked about her book’s connection to a social cause for youth, and a book character who “jumped” from between the book covers and dissed her author, poetry and memoir readings, and a panel on self-publishing. We chatted with lots of writing friends – old and new, and ate from the selection of refreshments brought by members. Thank you all for coming.
Here is the line-up of our presenters.
Non- Fiction:
Lynda Freeman
Ann Elizabeth Carson
Susan Siddeley interviewed by Gail Murray
Poetry:
Norman Allan
Jeremy Vernelli
Fiction:
Sophia Johnson
Sharon A. Crawford
Nick Nanos
Panel on Indie Publishing:
Steven Biggs (gardening writer and speaker) on his unique experiences self-publishing three gardening books and Ellen Michelson, (writer and editor) on an editor’s baptism by fire in Indie Publishing. Moderator: Sharon A. Crawford.
Other Stuff
Some Wednesday evening meetings feature guest speakers before the break. Past guest speakers include: Michael Carroll, former Publisher with Dundurn Press; Paul Sanderson, poet and photographer; Tina Tsallas, literary agent; Rosemary Aubert, mystery novelist and workshop instructor; Cynthia Gould, performance poet; Shane Joseph, Blue Denim Press, Stacey May Fowles from Descant Magazine, Andrew Borkowski -winner of the 2012 Toronto Book Award for Copernicus Avenue, Steven Biggs – co-author of No Guff Vegetable Gardening, Mark Battenberg – poet and guitarist, Nate Hendley – true crime writer and journalist, Lisa de Nikolits – novelist, and Sharon A. Crawford – author of the Beyond mystery series
One-day Saturday Workshops
Occasionally held in the spring and early fall Workshops run for a few hours between 9.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. We’ve had workshops on Writing Novels, Fictional Character Development, Interviewing Techniques, Finding Story Ideas and Querying Publication Editors, Creativity, Marketing, How to Get Published, Crafting the Short Story, Memoir Writing, and How to be Your Own Editor and Create a Better Story. Fee depends on instructor’s fee.
For more information on the East End Writers’ Group email Sharon A. Crawford words@samcraw.com