President's letter

                                                                        March is Women’s History Month

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park has 30 statues of people. Only one is of a woman—a nameless pioneer heading west with her children. Up until 2020, New York’s Central Park has to the best I can discover, had “many” statues but only two of women—both fictional—Juliet (as in Romeo and Juliet) and Alice, from Alice in Wonderland. In 2020, the Women’s Rights Pioneer Monument was installed in Central Park. It depicts Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth seated at a small table. Truth is speaking. Stanton is writing and Susan B. Anthony, standing between them, is organizing.

Here is a short biography from Wikipeidia of a woman named Margaret—born in Berkeley, California on March 5, 1952. A few years later her family moved to Alaska. At age eighteen she married Fred Ogden. Fred was a marine engineer. Both the Ogdens loved the sea and Margaret “enjoyed journeying on Fred's ships.” The Ogdens had four children. Margaret wanted to write.

She kept writing.

She later described her writing process as fitting “into odd corners” between her children’s eating, bathing, and napping, Margaret also worked as a waitress and a mail delivery person. By this time, her husband Fred was involved in commercial fishing and spent months at sea. She said the family’s income was based on “fish and editors.”

She kept writing.

She published her first novel at age thirty. It did mildly well, but did not earn back the publisher’s advance. 

She kept writing.

Six years later, she produced a novel described as speculative fiction (an umbrella term for all fiction involving fantasy in everyday reality). Though critically acclaimed, it did not sell well.

She kept writing.

Nine years later she adopted a pen name and wrote the first of what became a commercially successful series. Most of us know her by her pen name, Robin Hobb.

Perhaps not all of you are into urban fantasy, but I suggest that her perseverance is an example to us all.

There are four events in March.

• Our monthly meeting will be on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, at the Center for Spiritual Awakening, 522 Central Ave, Pacific Grove, CA. It is across the street from the Pacific Grove Public Library. If you want to help set up, doors open around 5:00 p.m. Scotty Cornfield, our Vice-president, will lead a fifteen-minute networking discussion beginning a little before 6:00 p.m. Our meeting will start soon after. This month's speaker is Anthony (Tony) Pino who will be speaking on Demystifying Poetry.

• On the Sunday following the monthly meeting (March 23rd) is our Literary Salon from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the PG Meetinghouse (formerly known as Juice N’ Java) 599 Lighthouse Avenue, Pacific Grove, CA. Bring a piece of writing to share if you want, or just come to listen. 

• Sat Chat for March will be on Saturday, March 22nd, 2025, from 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon at the Seaside Library, 550 Harcourt Avenue, Seaside, CA.

• Round-up will be on March 29th when Nancy Middleton and Elizabeth Stacey present on Obtaining an Agent. This event runs from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at The Little House in Jewel Park, Pacific Grove, CA.

And meanwhile —

Keep writing,

Sarah E. Pruitt

CCW president