8th Literary Forum - In-person

presented by the Olney Writer's Group

Join us for a reading by local writers of newly-published works or works-in-progress. Please come out and support these talented authors from our own community!

Works are in a variety of genres, including memoir, fiction, fantasy, science fiction and poetry. Each presenter will read a ~10-minute excerpt from their work.

No registration required. Q&A and light refreshments to follow. Hope you can join us!
Sponsored by Friends of the Library, Montgomery County, MD, Inc.

ABOUT THE OLNEY WRITER'S GROUP:
The Olney Writer's Group provides a regular forum for the presentation, review, and critique of works in progress. This friendly group consists of writers who are in various stages of their projects. They meet twice/month, usually the 2nd & 4th Thursdays. All styles of writing are welcome; college-aged and older. Learn more here.

PRESENTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE):

DJ LEE, excerpt from speech, A Choice, Not The Destination
Dexter Lee, Jr. aka DJ Lee, has been living in Maryland for nearly 20 years. He is an African American who enjoys walking, writing, drawing and reading—mostly, the fantasy and science fiction types of stories, but is trying to branch out to other genres. Currently, Lee is working at the Giant grocery store, but has not forgotten about what inspired him in the past like writing stories and inspiring others.

BRYAN M. BYRD, excerpt from Surviving Paradise: the Perils and Pleasures of the Caribbean
Bryan M. Byrd, leveraging his corporate writing career and around the world travels, will read from his recently-published book, Surviving Paradise: the Perils and Pleasures of the Caribbean, that takes you, like a fly on the wall, on a romantic, death-defying sailing adventure from Florida to the Virgin Islands. The book debuted last year to rave reviews. To learn more, please visit http://www.bryanmbyrd.com.

ELLIS EDWARDS, excerpt from Jun's Ring
Ellis Edwards is a digital artist currently working part-time in childcare as she pursues her dream to be a traditionally published author.

WASIU LAWAL
Wasiu Lawal is a recent settler in Olney and is currently working on his first novel which features Tawa, a woman in her mid fifties who suffers an unexpected loss, and then immediately faces a battle to keep her empire intact. She then decides to leave her native Nigeria to make a new life in America.

DAVID GRIFFITH
David Griffith's career as a storyteller started when he was a preschooler and began making up long and winding adventures starring Ernie and Bert with the help of his extraordinarily patient mother. In his teenage years, he was a regular contributor to his high school's literary magazine. This helped him to secure a place in the electrical engineering program at the University of Delaware (Go Blue Hens), where he began using his writing talents to do research, starting with a senior thesis that explored novel methods for detecting the edges of objects in color images. He has continued doing engineering research ever since, while shifting his focus from signal processing in graduate school to advanced telecommunications systems in his post-graduate career. He has authored or co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed conference and technical journal papers, and two book chapters. Six years ago, he resolved to resume his long-neglected creative writing career, and is pursuing his long standing goal of publishing at least one novel.

SHANI HINTON-MILLER, "The Smell of Ink"
Shani Hinton-Miller (she, her) has a Master's Degree with an emphasis on Humanities from the University of South Florida, and thus embraces the arts, especially writing. In her piece, "The Smell of Ink," in the anthology Grit and Gravity, she describes her experience with her illness and what it takes to overcome tough obstacles. She lives with her husband and offspring in Maryland.

PRINCESS FRANCENE HILL
Francene Hill will present details about her upcoming book, Tiny Tots in Tiaras and Tuxedos, which chronicles the story of her mother, Kermit Bland Hill. As a pioneering African American woman, Kermit founded the "Tiny Tot Nursery School of St. Louis" during the Baby Boom era. Drawing from personal letters, photographs, and oral histories, the book provides an intimate look at Kermit's life and achievements. For more information or to join the mailing list, visit tinytotalums.com.

WEIMIN YUAN
Born in 1939 on eve of start of WWII and in a “poor and backward China, already invaded by Japan and partitioned by Western powers”, Weimin lived through the scary War years and saw deaths on the streets in Shanghai. At twelve, he was smuggled into Hong Kong, where he learned English and Cantonese. Given a full scholarship he earned a bachelor’s degree at the International Christian University in Tokyo and, subsequently, a master ‘s degree at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea before attending Princeton and Harvard. He characterizes himself as a “professional student” living from scholarship to scholarship for sixteen years. 

Weimin worked in banking and retailing in New York and China, later settling in Singapore in 1982. He worked in the oil trading business for the next two decades in Asia and Australia. After retiring in 2003, he briefly returned to teaching. These days he enjoys recording his life story for his two-year-old grandson, Rio. When not traveling the world, his other pleasure is playing pickleball with his “Better Half." 

LINDA R. MOORE, reading poems from Reaching for Resilience, and an upcoming book, Janus Poems: Looking Back to Move Forward
For nearly her entire lifetime, Linda R. Moore dreamed of becoming a writer but other considerations—raising a family and a career as visionary educator—got in the way.  The COVID pandemic shutdown provided her with an unanticipated opportunity to explore poetry writing, initially as a self-care strategy and later as a passion, at a time when nothing seemed to be as it should have been. Linda will read poems from her recently published chapbook, Reaching for Resilience, and more recently written poems that attempt to make sense of our nation’s changing norms.

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Questions about this program? Contact the Olney branch at 240-773-9545.

Accommodation Requests

People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing should request English-language captioning or sign-language interpretation at least five days before the library-sponsored program they plan to attend. Contact the Assistant Facilities and Accessibility Program Manager at 240-777-0002 with all other accommodation requests.

cm 1.1 01/03/2023

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