Members News
ALL Pen Women are invited to the 2nd part of this educational webinar on social media!
Presented by GPW Lisa D’Amico and friends.
Once you register, Zoom will send you a confirmation with the log-in details.
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For ALL Greenwich Pen Women:
Take you choice or enter both. Attached is a jpeg from National’s website. National is encouraging members for take part in both of their 2026-27 Cross-Genre and The Vinnie Ream Award competitions. In particular the Cross-Genre rules have been made easier so that more member will enter! Why not try both!! Detailed information: nlapw.org, Member Resources, Competition.
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Recognize anyone from the 52nd Pen Women Biennial? Three of our members are “front & center”. (Answer at bottom of page*)
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Leigh Grant is “VERY pleased to announce that the audiobook of Mask of Dreams will soon be out. We hired a wonderful English narrator named Lucy Archer-Woodcock who did an absolutely fabulous job! I just finished listening to the last portion on ACX. Hearing it brings a whole new dimension to the book plus the added benefit of an easily retrievable background for character development going forward. Wow! The recording is good enough that I’m sitting here amazed that I actually wrote this book. Pretty funny when you look at it that way”.
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Doris Mady‘s painting, Fury, which won 2nd Place in the Oil/Acrylic Category, is on display at the “Jules Bauer Award Show” at the New Rochelle Art Association (New Rochelle Library, Lumen Winter Gallery, 1 Library Plaza) until August 14.
Doris also has another marine painting, Hidden Moon Over Compo Beach, at the Rowayton Arts Center (145 Rowayton Ave., Norwalk, CT) until August 23.
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Vice president, writer, and artist, Heidi Matonis’ new book will at the Rockefeller Gallery, 125 Phelps Way, Pleasantville, NY in the “Between the Lines” exhibit until Aug. 22. Ricardo, The Guinea Pig is a delightful story just for children…and maybe adults too!
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Adrienne Reedy’s poem made The Pen Woman magazine. Here it is below:
Liquid Word
A sudden, salt-clear pearl,
unasked, unwelcome,
released from the well of waiting.
It is the heart’s single, liquid word.
It slides the track of skin,
carrying the weight of what the voice held back.
Reaching its narrow chin’s edge
Falling quietly whispering no no no
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Roberta Seret — has announced her novel, My Friend the Spy is available on AMAZON or under her name at Amazon:
Please share this with a friend who likes to read literature with politics, thrillers with romance.
If you or anyone you know is part of a Book Club, she would be happy to participate in a Q and A discussion.
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*Marla Chisholm, Adrienne Reedy, and Maria Friscia.
Laurie Heiss – “I was stressed and fretting about my feelings of loss instead of pride on July 4th. I thought writing a letter to my grandfather might feel cathartic. I cried about all we’ve lost, I’ve lost as I wrote. It helped me make it through July 4th.
My grandfather was Pennsylvania Dutch and my Grandmother, Swedish, both her parents arrived in the US between 1905-1910?, they migrated towards Chicago. My grandfather’s twin died in the massive flu epidemic; he was shuttled off to an aunt in Chicago to work as a kid. He was born July 3, and proud of it. We were a family that cherished the flag. My son was born on Flag Day. Attached is a picture of our old family flag”.
July 4, 2026
Dear Papa,
I’m writing just after midnight – yesterday was July 3rd; your birthday. You would be SO OLD were you still here. I know how much our family loved the 4th holiday, always kicked-off by your birthday. I am flying your old flag at my farm out in middle-western Connecticut— I’ve made my home far away from Northwoods, Poolwood Farm, SunMeadow Farm, DuWayne Motel and Chicago– my, my we had a lot of midwestern land back then.
As for the old flag — it is a bit worn out…but has been with me in Redding for a long time. As for my farm, it is 1/20th the size of SunMeadow but I carry on some of our farming traditions that thread back to our country’s battle for freedoms in the Pennsylvania farming countryside. I carry the DAR number of our earliest ancestors; kind of goofy, but I cherish our roots. As for the flag, the original pole is shorter now and splintered. I’ve wrapped it in good ol’ USA Duck Tape; it’ll survive.
The fabric itself has faded; almost pink…but all the flag-waving love of country our family has carried for the last 100 years is woven into it. I’m pretty sure you and Gramma were conservative; as farmers and industrious, small business owners. Certainly, Gramma’s Swedish parents were the soul of America, each of them starting businesses – with just enough left over to put all of their great grandkids through school. That is the dream, yes? We never talked about ‘party’ but I hope you’d be proud that I’ve been fighting for that old-fashioned dream of America that we were raised on, next to the great cornfields that fed our Brown Swiss herd. I’ve been struggling to eschew any label, but I’ve been fight alongside people from all different backgrounds that love this country, our freedoms and its moral ideals for 9 years now. Not what I’d planned for my third career! You’d be dismayed now, as would our patriot ancestors, your son who served in the Army, my other Viet Nam vet Uncle and those many Pennsylvanian farmers who protected that idea and then our flag.
I cherish it more than you would ever know, Papa. And I will listen to and work with anyone to make that tattered flag rebound, and mean something to the world. How much I loved our family’s 20th century life unfolding in and west of Chicago. It is what I feel when I look at our old family flag, no matter how tattered it might have become. It is fixable; I will always fly it on your birthday and this country’s birthday.
Your loving granddaughter,
Lauri