Congratulations to the 2011 Guild Choice Awards recipients: (back row, left to right) Burke Landry, Kim Davis, Lloyd Perry; (seated, left to right) Sandra Woodruff and M. Elizabeth Gage. Missing from photo Jim Daspit. (photo credit: Lou Popowskyj)

Tuesday May 17 marked the end of the year for the Madison County Writers Guild. They’ll be starting up again on September 20 at 6:30 PM in the Library Annex.

At this Tuesday’s gathering, members brought finger food and had a pleasant evening. President Joan Escamilla, Vice President Louis Popowskyj, and Secretary Frieda Michael were re-elected for another year. M. Elizabeth Gage gave a great presentation about writing for children, and the annual Guild Choice Awards were announced. The award winners were:

Anthology – Autumn
Winner: Jim Daspit for “A Strange Familiar Walk”
Runner Up: Burke Landry for “A White World”
Honorable Mention: Lloyd Perry for “Hundred Dollar Cowboy”
Christmas Anthology
Winner: Burke Landry for “Christmas in Harvey”
Runner Up: Sandra Woodruff for “Mara’s Story”
Honorable Mention: Jim Daspit for “Christmas on Magazine Street”
Open Readings
Winner: M. Elizabeth Gage for “Amare’s Spiders”
Runner Up: Kim Davis for “Finding Cabo Rojo”
Honorable Mention: Burke Landry for “Foxes”

The judge was Tom Knowles of Lone Star Publishing. In addition, two “Members Choice” awards were given to:

Rosa Allphin for “The Autumn of Life”, and Sandra Woodruff for “Mara’s Story”.

Award winning artist Karen Bonnie came to Madisonville to teach a 5 day workshop.

Artist Karen Bonnie arrived in Madisonville on May 1st and held a five day workshop for area artists. Karen resides in Del Norte, Colorado and paints horses and cattle in natural settings. Although Karen paints in oils, all medium will be welcome.

The plein air (painting outside) workshop kicked off Tuesday evening, May 3rd, with a meet the artist open house hosted by Debby and David Hammit at the Hammit Law Office, in downtown Madisonville. Karen Bonnie’s paintings were on display and Ms. Bonnie was on hand to meet everyone and discuss her work. Members of the “Art Affair” group of visual artists, who are sponsoring her visit in part, were on hand as well.

The workshop began the following morning on Wednesday, May 4th, and ran through Sunday May 8th. Participants traveled to several equine and bovine facilities in our area sketching, painting and honing their skills at rendering larger animals. Students learned how to keep large animals from becoming out of proportion when using photographic references and paid particular attention to light and color.

Karen is an expert with applying color and adding vibrancy to ones paintings. Her paintings hang in galleries across the country including Austin and Wimberly and she can be found on the web at karenbonnie.net if you would like to see examples of her work and read more about her. You can also find Karen Bonnie on Facebook.

The Madison County Writers Guild was well represented at the Annual MCAC Dinner, where a good time was had by all. Many thanks to the event organizers who made it a special evening.

RSVP by Monday!

NEXT SATURDAY
If you have not yet called in your reservation for next week’s
membership dinner, please do so right away! Here are the details:

Madison County Arts Council
Ninth Annual Membership Dinner
March 5, 2011 at 6:00 PM

Location: The Seton Center, 100 S. Tammye Lane

Music By: The Madisonville High School Jazz Combo
Catering By: The Madisonville High School FCCLA

$20 per person

RSVP by February 28, 2011 with numbers attending to Jan Ward (936)348-3115 or Glenda Collard (936)348-1175. You may also e-mail your reservations to jward19861@att.net or mizferret@yahoo.com

Meet the Authors

The Texas Authors Book Sale and Signing is Saturday February 26! Don’t miss this fun event!

The fabulous fundraisers of the Madison County Arts Council will be serving a sumptuous repast of gourmet sandwiches and salad.

Please come out and support the Arts Council. The event is from 10 AM to 2 PM at the Kimbro Center on the square in Madisonville.