The Richmond Branch, National League of American Pen Women, invites women with interests in creative pursuits and achievements to participate in the Rev Up Your Writing seminar sponsored by the Richmond Branch on Sat., Sept. 19, 2009, 10am-4pm, at The Westwood Club, 6200 West Club Lane.

You might have seen the acronym NLAPW during Richmond’s Lincoln Walk on April 5 of this year. The Richmond Branch and its headquarters organization based in Washington, D. C. provided the bottled water with a colorful label for the walk: the labels carried the cover design of the national organization’s anthology of members’ contributions, Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln, honoring the 16^th president of the United States on the bicentennial of his birthday. Five of the contributors are Virginians; three, from the Richmond Branch.

Members of the Richmond Branch get together several times a year to hear speakers and share their creative pursuits in writing, art and music composition (different categories of membership within the NLAPW). If you share these interests and come to a meeting, you might hear someone talk about her latest magazine queries (or rejection letters!), a book manuscript that’s with an agent or a lecture that didn’t go as well as usual.

The speakers heard over lunch include David Baldacci, Colleen Curran, Charlie Finley and Gigi Amateau; author Woody Holton will speak at the “Rev up Your Writing” seminar.

More than 250 branches of the nonprofit organization exist throughout the United States, with each member receiving the quarterly Pen Woman magazine and having the opportunity to participate in competitions and annual awards. Members consider the opportunity to share diverse perspectives on a variety of creative pursuits the greatest benefit of all.

The NLAPW was founded in 1897 out of the need for an organization for women of the press at a time when other organizations were for men only. With an insignia comprising the owl, symbolic of wisdom, placed in a triangle formed by a red pen, blue pencil and a white brush, 300 women celebrated at the League’s first national convention in 1921. Eleanor Roosevelt was its most distinguished member two decades later, and the League was on its way to receiving the Literary Hall of Fame Award in 1978, its 80^th birthday. Other recipients of this award, given in recognition of contribution to the cultural life of the United States, have included Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Ariel and Will Durant, and Charles Schulz.

The 20-room, 1887 mansion that was the home of Robert Todd Lincoln, eldest son of President Lincoln, is official headquarters in the Dupont Historical District in Washington, D.C. The League purchased it in 1951 and entered it on the National Register of Historical Sites in 1978.

Anyone interested in the Richmond Branch’s September 19 Rev Up Your Writing seminar should send a check by September 12 for $45 (includes the sit-down, networking luncheon), made out to Richmond Branch, NLAPW, to Mary Jane Tolley, 2935 Weymouth Dr., Richmond, 23235-2259. Please note any dietary restrictions. For more information, call 804-272-1976. V