Hi Alphas,
This is our last “regular” Alphaday before we break up for our seasonal holiday. We do have another Alphaday in a fortnight which I’ve described in the Alpha calendar as “summing up & finishing”. In other words, it’s our end of season party and we’ll nominate the Season XIV Alpha Laureate (a well-kept secret so far) who’ll be presented with the prestigious virtual Alpha Cup by the previous season’s Alpha Laureate (Chris) who’ll be expected to make a speech. There will be virtual champagne and fireworks as well – of course.
More serious matters are also involved when we wind up an Alpha Season. I’ll be sending out a questionnaire for everyone to answer. These are general questions about your membership and your opinion re. our activities and the general organisation of the agenda. We always find bits that can be done differently and this can lead to minor or major changes. We cling on to the Lincoln and Lydgate quote and I’m going to say it again: “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” Some people call it the democratic way to go about it. The main thing is that everyone has their say.
For today our agenda is slightly vague. That is quite normal when there’s so little left of our regular activities, but I’ll propose the following version:
- Results and feedback for The Open Page Edition 3
- A Writers’ Reads prompt from Morgen?
- A final round of Log news prompted by Sally?
We can take our time about it; there’s no hurry.
General news that might be of interest to us as writers is that the death of Philip Roth has probably caused a lot of people to remember that they ought to read his novels. Me for one, as I haven’t read any. Perhaps some of you have? But it’s quite a sad thought that the death of a writer is often the trigger that brings potential readers to pick up their books.
Other than that, there’s tennis. That’s my favourite spectator sport.
Christine
Well, yes. So many books, so little time! I just wish people would stop churning them out… I’m still trying to catch up with Dickens, Thackeray, Conrad…Dostoevsky! And then a really good one dies and you’ve not even started on their stuff… It’s all very trying.
Oh but the wonderful books you could miss out on if we were to wait for you to get through your backlog! Happy reading.