Today is the selection meeting for the Writing Roosters Scholarship for the Michelle Begley Mentor Program. Michelle was a dear friend and critique partner who created an amazing mentor program for the Rocky Mountain kidlit community. When she tragically died in a car accident, our critique group established a scholarship fund in her name. Each year, we get together (zoom again…sigh), along with Michelle’s mother and two sisters, to discuss applications and select a mentee to receive the $500 scholarship.
This year, we have ten applicants! I’m still writing notes for our meeting that begins in less than an hour, but wanted to document this event.
July 3, 2021
The sunflower is nearly as beautiful as Michelle whose light still shines on through her legacy to our writing community.
Tracy Abell 
So very sad, but your group has found a special way to continue her efforts.
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Yes, it’s a very special gathering each year. Last night was no exception, despite conducting the meeting on zoom.
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Wonderful tribute to your friend!
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Thank you, Becky.
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Yes, a nice way to honor your friend! I love the thought of supporting young writers. I feel I should be more visibly established to have some credibility to doing it myself. Most of my writing work has been invisible; in the form of unpublished stories and as professional technical writing for internal government manuals that do not bear the writer’s name. I found that no one ever questioned where the freshly revised policy and procedures manuals came from. Sometimes I was tempted to slide something funny in there to see if anyone would notice. Often times people would ask me questions, “because I know so much” and I would say, it’s in the policy and procedures manual. *Facepalm
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Oh, I wish you would sneak something funny into the manuals! That reminds me of a job I had, typing out copy for a little newspaper. The other woman and I would sometimes insert something silly in there for the other to catch. Until, one got past and made it into print. Oops. On second thought, maybe don’t do that!
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