As is the Provincetown tradition, I’ve been working non-stop for the summer and only now finding the time to blog again. Not that I’ve got anything to show you yet, but I’m happy to announce I am now a founding member of Thorvald Road Writers and currently putting together our on-line presence.  We're a spin off from last winter’s workshop at the library except this group is writing novels.

So, no prompts, no poetry, just the difficult but very satisfying task of reading and revising and reading again in hopes of making it perfect. I’m still editing the same novel I was working on before but it’s getting better and better. One  member is self-publishing a book which is due out next week and has already begun working on the sequel. Another has started her first novel after writing short stories for years and it’s brilliant.

In fact, it was her idea we name the group after Thorvald, the son of Erik the Red and brother of Leif Erikson. He was the leader of a Viking expedition and spent some time in Provincetown around 1007AD when the keel of their boat was damaged and then repaired in our harbor. Local history tells of a stonewall discovered during the 1805 renovation of a house down the street from me that has Viking writing on it and is attributed to Thorvald. He is also said to be the first European to die in North America, perhaps by Native American hand, and thought to be buried near Boston.

We plan to do public readings together as a group and put out a collection of shorter pieces at some point in the future. But right now we’re just reading to each other and giving helpful feedback, the real work. Here’s a photo of mine that I’d like to use as our profile shot, stay tuned for further details!