**PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A VIRTUAL PROGRAM THAT WILL TAKE PLACE VIA ZOOM. Registrants will receive a link to access the Zoom Meeting via email.** 

Are you a writer -- or an aspiring writer -- looking for some support? The new Tewksbury Writing Group, which generally meets the third Monday evening of every month, is open to everyone who's interested in writing -- all genres, all skill levels. Each meeting -- which will take place via Zoom -- features a guest speaker (typically a published author or editor) offering some tips of the trade. Between meetings, members can share their work for reading and friendly critiquing via the group's list-serv.

The February 2022 guest speaker is Tina deBellegarde. Tina deBellegarde’s debut novel, Winter Witness, the first in the Batavia-on-Hudson Mystery series, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel, a Silver Falchion Award and a Chanticleer Mystery & Mayhem Award. Reviewers have dubbed Tina “the Louise Penny of the Catskills.” Dead Man’s Leap, the second book in her series, is due to be released in April. Tina’s story “Tokyo Stranger” appears in the Mystery Writers of America anthology When a Stranger Comes to Town. Her short stories also appear in The Best New England Crime Stories. Tina also writes award-winning flash fiction. Visit her website to read these compact pieces. She is the vice-president of the Upper Hudson Chapter of Sisters in Crime. She is also a member of Mystery Writers of America and Writers in Kyoto. She lives in Catskill, New York with her husband Denis and their cat Shelby where they tend to their beehives, harvest shiitake mushrooms, and cultivate their vegetable garden. She travels to Japan regularly to visit her son Alessandro. Learn more about Tina HERE.

Tina deBellegarde will be discussing settings and microsettings. Setting is not just about where you choose to place your story. Every scene should be a micro-setting and Tina deBellegarde will explain how each scene in your story can be an opportunity to build and enrich your big picture setting and scaffold your character development.

The group is facilitated by author Dale T. Phillips, who has published novels, story collections, non-fiction, and over 70 short stories. Stephen King was Dale's college writing teacher. Dale has found time to appear on stage, television, radio, in an independent feature film, and compete on Jeopardy (losing in a spectacular fashion). He's a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Sisters in Crime.

Register directly on Zoom HERE. Sponsored by the Friends of the Library.