News and Notes from the Director's desk

Prepandemic cup of coffeehouse wakulapi during a thunderstorm from the front patio of Cottonwood Coffee in Downtown Brookings. Photo by TB

Prepandemic cup of coffeehouse wakulapi during a thunderstorm from the front patio of Cottonwood Coffee in Downtown Brookings. Photo by TB

As the OLWS continues making progress towards becoming a full-fledged 501c3, the usual work of the members of the Oak Lake Writers Society continues.

This spring, monthly Zoom calls have reunited members as the pandemic has raged into 2021, bringing further vitality to our society. The OLWS Board of Directors has also met using the platform.

It’s also providing a chance to reconnect and find out what everyone has been working on, giving life to this first blog post of ‘News and Notes from the Director’s Desk.’ These will be semi-weekly or as I have content to share. Most of this will be happenings of our own members and the society, but I also receive items of interest from all our usual suspects, which I can add to this mix.

If you have anything to add please share in the comments, send me an email or use our contact form.

News and Notes for Friday, March 26, 2021

  • Diane has officially launched her new novel, Seed Keeper. Learn more here. Congratulations, Diane!

  • Sarah and Nick wrapped up the first season of the #NativeReads podcast series this week. Read our OLWS blog post with that episode and more here.

  • Ed’s book Colorizing Restorative Justice is a finalist for the IDBSA Benjamin Franklin Award. Gold winners will be announced in April. Read our post about this book and the award here.

  • Kim is busy teaching up in Canada, but she has a new social media offering on the platform Substack. This new platform is a favorite among many writers, and she told me today she hopes to use the summer to really engage with it. She has quite a number of pieces already, many free, and some available to her subscribers. Explore Substack and her collection called Unsettle here.

  • Nick’s The Red Nation project has now relaunched as Red Media Press. The Red Deal is also now available for publication. Learn more here.

  • One of the things we have worked to do as we put together as decolonized a version of a non-profit organization as we can is to switch up our leadership model deconstructing hierarchies while still ensuring cultural, fiscal and programmatic accountability. Current directors can be found on our website. A page dedicated to our Board Emerita who serve in a leadership capacity will be up soon.

  • A new OLWS membership database for member communication is now online. The guidelines for membership and the application for new members or renewing members can be found on our website here.

  • Last year, our fiscal sponsor NDN Collective, launched an online donation page for us. To date, we have raised over $5,570 dollars in individual donations, mostly through our website, and mostly from our own members. Donate here.