Berea Writers Circle

Berea Writers Circle Local Writers. Local Support. Each meeting features a program to foster good writing.

The Berea Writers Circle (BereaWriters.com) meets 1:30 - 3:00 PM on the third Saturday of the month at the Berea branch of the Madison County Public Library. The BWC welcomes all types of writers--novelists, poets, journalists, freelancers, short story writers, playwrights, bloggers, and any others. Whether published, self-published, or unpublished, we all look to grow and refine our craft. As par

t of that process, the BWC coordinates critique groups to meet regularly and provide feedback for writers ready to share their work.

05/12/2026

What are the trends in Writing Business English? CoPilot speaks and Berea Writers Circle responds. Business writing was one of the topics members said they would like to see covered this year. So, in May, we’ll be debating the trends in writing for business in this era of social media, texting and other forms of communication. Probably too broad a topic, but we’ll give it the old college try. We asked CoPilot to give us four trends in Business English for 2026, and it did. Louis Will and I will offer some ideas we had in response to the CoPilot offering, and then we’ll open the topic up for discussion. Business English is important for all of us, because at some point most of us are called upon to write a letter, a summary, a report, or some other document requiring this more formal mode of communication. So, join us Saturday, May 16th from 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm at the Madison County Public Library in Berea. We’ll have some refreshments. From 3:00pm to 4:00 pm we’ll have an open mic session, so bring a short piece, poem, chapter to read if you’d like. See you then.

04/14/2026

Hello Writers,
In April we will be examining the advantages offered by handwriting and typewriting, all in an era where we all live with the benefits and the disadvantages of technology. We’ll look at what handwriting offers us and what some of the new neuroscience can help us to understand about how we learn and how we create. Should be a fun session and we will have a writing exercise. Come join us on Saturday, April 18. 2026 at 1:30 pm until 3:00 pm at the Madison County Public Library at Berea in one of the community rooms. We’ll have some refreshments. And, we’ll have an open mic session for those who are interested from 3:00 pm until 4:00 pm. I hope you’ll join us.

03/16/2026

Zombies and Wizards, Mad Scientists and Spacewomen, maybe a little fantasy thrown in as a fine measuring instrument. This month we will explore some recent trends in science fiction. Elizabeth Heyrman will guide us through recent winners of science fiction awards, and we will have a discussion of sub-genres making up science fiction nowadays. We will have a writing exercise for all science fiction buffs, and for all other writers to release their inner, clamoring-to-get-out, creative scientist. Figuratively, bring your light sword.

We will meet at the Madison County Public Library in Berea from 1:30 to 3:00 pm on March 21, 2026. We will have refreshments. From 3:00 to 4:00 pm there will be an open mic session for those who would like to share a small piece of their own writing. See you Saturday.

02/17/2026

Organizing the Smorgasbord of Your Writing Pieces
Have you collected a myriad of bits and pieces of writing? Maybe you have a passel of poems or a mishmash of memoir items. Maybe you have a stack of short stories. You might have a flock of old flash drives. How do you organize them? How do you put the pieces together? Can you form some semblance of collection from these individual pieces? What does the end result look like? What surprises, what unexpected results do you encounter along the way? Carol Rice will provide some answers based on her experience undertaking just such an effort. She will suggest what you can do about some of those surprises. So, join us Saturday, February 21st from 1:30 until 3:00 pm at the Madison County Public Library in Berea in one of the community rooms. We’ll have refreshments. Stay from 3:00 to 4:00 pm for an informal open mic session where you can share a piece of your writing that you have been working on. Hope to see you then.

01/12/2026

The Berea Writers Circle will meet Saturday, January 17th at the Madison County Library at Berea from 1:30 pm until 3:00 pm. We will also have an open mic opportunity from 3 to 4 pm. Depending on attendees, we will spend a half hour discussing plans for the coming year. We will then have a short presentation on “paying attention,” followed by a writing exercise. I’ll be tying this session in with my experience with the Stafford Challenge to write a poem a day for a year. We will have some refreshments, too. So, I hope to see you all.

12/15/2025

Hello Writers,
This month we will be reviewing our past years and having a short discussion of what we’d like to do in the coming year. We’ll keep that review short so we can get to the fun stuff. We will review the Haiku and Limerick forms of poetry that we have delved into in detail recently. We will add Higgledy Piggledy as a new poetic form that we can attempt in a holiday themed splurge of poetic writings. And Higgledy Piggledy is not as complicated as it may, at first, seem. You don’t need a holiday sweater to attend. We meet Saturday, December 20, 2025 at 1:30 pm until 3:00 pm at the Madison County Public Library in Berea. We will also hold an Open Mic session from 3:00 pm until 4:00 pm, so if you have a short piece you would like to share, feel free to stay for this session. Refreshments will be served.

11/10/2025

If you are a white female, should you be able to write a story from the perspective of a Latin young man? Can a writer imagine what a character thinks if he or she has not lived in their shoes? Some say yes, some say no. How does the perspective of the “other” inform the character of the ingroup? Are there limits on what we can imagine? Limits to what we should imagine? Or should you just stay in your lane? Who gets to decide? Who gets to set the rules? Louis Will challenges us in a session inviting us to think about some of these dilemmas. Sounds to me like a session you won’t want to miss. Happening Saturday, November 15th from 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm. Of course, we’ll have some refreshments. Come be with us at the Madison County Public Library in Berea. I think you’ll enjoy it.

10/13/2025

Change in Meeting Time, Location
The Berea Writers Circle has had two memoir presentations recently: Mary Owens told us about several generations of her family in Hold My Foot; and Vikki Brooks shared some of her experiences with integration in Life Frames. We’re going to make it a th*****me in the memoir genre. We are suggesting that Berea Writers Circle members attend a program at the Berea Arts Council, featuring poet Steven Rhodes celebrating his newest collection Earthen Vessels: A Family Memoir in Poetry. The presentation will be from 3 pm to 4 pm on Saturday, October 18 at the Berea Arts Council, 444 Chestnut Street, Berea, KY, just down the street from the library. We will be back at the library for our meeting in November at our usual time. I hope everyone will be able to attend this presentation that blends memoir and poetry.

09/16/2025

Vikki Brooks will talk about her memoir, Life Frames, at our September meeting of the Berea Writers Circle. Today is 62 years after the bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, where 4 young Black girls were killed, and another girl seriously injured in a violent act of protest against integration of Alabama schools. Vikki had her own experience with integration, and you will benefit from hearing about these experiences and others.
Vikki’s presentation also fits well with our continuing focus on memoir. In July, we learned about Mary Owens experiences growing up in New Jersey. In October, we will hear about another memoir. So, you’ll want to hear about Vikki’s Life Frames growing up in Kentucky, becoming a lawyer in D.C. and then returning to Kentucky later in life. So come enjoy hearing about the rich experiences Vikki lays out in her memoir. We will meet from 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm on Saturday, September 20th in the Community Room of the Madison County Public Library at Berea. From 3:00 pm until 4:00 pm we will have an open mic opportunity. We will have refreshments. Please come and bring your friends.

08/11/2025

Renga Party
Celebration of the Start of Summer
June 21, 2025

One bright summer day
I thought I’d go walking; stopped
at yard sales instead.

Then hurried back home
‘cause I really had to p*e
but I sneezed instead.

Door key got stuck; I
told 'self to chill. The rush was
already over.

--Carol Rice (with great assistance from Ali O'Rourke)

The robins are aggressive!
They flash and flutter.
Are they guarding nests?
Brown fuzz inside twiggy home,
Beaks wide, waiting for mama.
Fireflies blanket
The lawn. They flash, on and off.
The brightest will capture mates.
I tried to catch one—a gift
for my sister—no such luck!

--Roger Jones, Libby Jones, Mary Owens

Cold droplets run down.
The ice clinks in the tea glass.
Down my throat streams sweet.

Down my throat streams sweat, droplets
Of heat, hormones, humid sweat.

Sticky sweetness, smile.
Popsicle runs down my arms.
Leaves blow in the wind.

As it blows troubles away
Into the cosmic ethers.

An additional one added

Did the leaves stick to your arms?
Come in and wash for dinner.

Helped by Ali and Elizabeth Heyrman

Hot summer sun roasts
Petals droop in heat
Ice cream holder melts

But solved this accidently
When I fell into the pool.

Darning needles flit
Near the pond’s shallow end bank.
The cat scatters all.
Bullfrogs leap making murky waves.
Dragon flies dance out of reach.

--Andrea Carr, Carol Rice and Ali O’Rourke

08/11/2025

This month The Berea Writers Circle will hear from a panel about the usefulness of writing about the small moments in life. We will hear from panel members who have successfully used this strategy to write fine pieces by focusing on some of these little moments that many might even fail to notice. Panel members will include Mary Owens, Sheila Wade and Cat Covell. We will listen to panel members presenting examples of pieces that have used these techniques, and the panel will talk about how they have turned these seemingly unimportant events into fine writing. We will discuss this method, and if there is time, we will have a writing exercise. The meeting will be held at the Berea branch of the Madison County Public Library at 1:30 pm until 3:00 pm on August 16th. We will have refreshments. From 3:00 pm until 4:00 pm we will have an open mic session for any writers who would like to read a short piece of their own writing, and hear the reaction of their fellow writers. Please join us for an informative afternoon this summer.

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Berea, KY
40403

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