Greater Los Angeles Writers' Society Xmas party

And a good time was had by all. We met as usual in the Ray Bradbury Room at the library in West L.A. Amazing dishes were contributed to the potluck, including my hubby'smouth-watering stuffing. Leslie contributed a homemade corn bread stuffing, there was chicken, lasagna, meatballs and more food and sweets than I can list here. I'm sure I'll be wearing all of it on my hips.
Byron Walls, singer-songwriter formerly of the New Christie Minstrels once again entertained us with his clever ballads, and a few of his renditions resulted in people collapsed in laughter.

 The man sings a wicked tale.He also acted as the MC for GLAWS members who read from their books or manuscripts. The selections were excellent, including a fun screenplay. There were almost more of our writers acting out parts than audience and I got to play a floozie named Shelia. Hey,  it was my acting debut and I almost flubbed my lines.Pretty hard to do when you're reading directly from the script. I did better when I was

opening reader. The readers got 5 minutes each, and I decided to read a passage from the latest Silver Sisters Mystery, Vanishing Act in Vegas. In this chapter the whole family visits Godiva's son's new swank condo on the Vegas Strip after a stagehand has died during Torch's girlfriend's on-stage magic act. I even gave Grandma Flossie an aged, quavery voice.

GLAWS president, Tony Todardo, ever in my corner, made an announcement about my book Writers' Tricks of the Trade, endorsed it and suggested that writers in the group consider buying their own copy.

We had a book exchange and I donated two copies of Chicken Soup for the Shopper's Soul, my first publication in a book after years of magazine and newspaper articles. My story, Shopping for Dancing Shoes, is the first one in the book and a very sweet short story for the holiday season. Cheers, everyone. More parties next week. Quick! Someone hide my scale until after New Years~