Daniel Umbehr, vice president of The Woodlands Writers Guild, holds the guild’s first published anthology, entitled ”Tales of the Forest.”[/caption]
Writers of both amateur and professional backgrounds have come together to form a group that stands for encouragement, constructive criticism and an open mind.
Active in the area for nearly 30 years, The Woodlands Writers Guild is a community of and for writers. Daniel Umbehr, vice president of The Woodlands Writers Guild and a writer of historical fiction, said he has learned significantly more about his craft since joining the guild.
“I joined about three years ago, and it was just what I needed to learn how to write fiction,” Umbehr said. “If you look at my original drafts and what I’m doing now, it’s like night and day.”
Umbehr said there are about 20 serious members who attend the guild’s meetings every second and fourth Saturday of the month at the Sam Houston State University Woodlands Center. Dues are $20 annually, and the main goals of the guild are for writers to read their current works to other members and then go through a critique process.
“The format is simple: You just bring up to 10 pages double-spaced and read it and then let people tell you what they think,” Umbehr said. “I don’t think we’ve ever turned anyway anything based on genre. You [have] got to be willing to get into everything if you’re going into writing.”
Rusty Rhoad, a member of the guild for eight years and a published author, said fiction writing is the most popular genre with authors in the guild. The group also came together for the first time this year to publish an anthology of short fictional stories, “Tales of the Forest.” The anthology’s Kindle version is already available on Amazon as well as the printed version, which costs between $8 and $10.
Both Umbehr and Rhoad encourage new and young writers to join the guild to not only expand their writing skills but also offer new criticism for existing members.
“Getting a flow of new writers is pretty important because if you get the same group of people critiquing each other, it gets pretty stale,” Rhoad said. “I feel like I’m offering a lot to new writers. When I came to the guild, I had works that were in progress. Then I started reading for them. Going from my skill level then to my skill level now was a really rapid experience.”
Umbehr echoed Rhoad and said the guild offered a learning experience for writing that could not be taught in schools.
“It does take a thick skin [to] do this—you’re giving them your work and asking them to tear it to pieces,” he said. “If you want to be any type of fiction writer, you have to learn there are no rules, only guidelines. But we’re always looking for new faces.”
