Meeting Minutes

October 2026

AGT Monthly Meeting for October 2026 

The Authors Guild of Tennessee held its monthly meeting on Thursday, October 1, 2026, at the Faith Lutheran Church, Farragut, from 10:30 until noon.

The following members were present:

Bill Barbour, Betty Block, Debbie Burke, Gayle Curtin, Barb Dunn, John Forcum, Daniel Gracely, Kaye George, Jim Hartsell, David Johnston, Ernie Lancaster, Jerry Morton, Kathy Parr, Cheryl Peyton, Nancy Pressley, Ron Pressley, Kit Sexton, Marty Shoffner, Frank Snyder, Art Stewart, Becky Tucker, Jeri Weems, Victoria Winifred, and Curt Young.

 Visitors:  David Gracely

Welcome – Cheryl

Treasurer’s Report for September – Bill

 Beginning Cash Balance   $       3,154
Ending Cash Balance   $       3,204
Less:  $        (465) Writing Competition
 $          (18) Outstanding checks
Net Cash Available  $       2,721
Income 
Vendor Book Sales  $             50
Fairs Festivals  $           121
Expenses
Author Payments  $             50
Storage Rental  $             34
Fairs Festivals  $             50

 Committee Chairs.

 Fairs and Festivals – Nancy.

Literary Legends Fall Book (Bookish) Festival on Saturday, Oct. 3, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hardin             Valley Events Center. There will be authors and vendors selling book-related items.

Writing  Contest – Art reports that five members have signed up to give a talk to the writing class: Kathy Parr, Carmen Flores, Nolen Rollins, Jerry Morton, and Jan Hahn.

Program

The featured speaker was AGT member Debbie Burke. She is an award-winning editor and a former newswriter and columnist. Her editing/author coaching company, Queen Esther Publishing LLC, provides editorial services for first-time and experienced authors. Burke is also a writing tutor. She is the author of fifteen books—fiction and nonfiction—covering photography, art, music, and publishing, including three series: Tasty Jazz Jams for Our Times ®, The Way the Light, and The Jazz After Midnight Series.

Debbie’s presentation was titled “How to Save Money When Hiring an Editor.”

She advised that you want an editor to concentrate on nuances of your writing, not the basic mechanics of writing, so it’s important to proofread your work before contracting with an editor.

There are two types of editing: Copy (punctuation, grammar) and Developmental (plots, sub-plots, character development, etc.)

Copy editing: you should complete before obtaining an editor:

  1. Nuisance editing – extra spaces between periods, dialogue tags – comma goes between quotation marks. Watch spaces before or after quotation marks.
  2. Debbie likes Times New Roman, 12 pt, 1.5 line spacing. Be sure to uniformly indent.
  3. Leave out graphics.
  4. Sci-fi and fantasy genres – include a glossary of fictional or unfamiliar terms and character names
  5. If you use Beta readers, don’t include their feedback with your manuscript. Make all the changes you think are good
  6. Use Assisted AI to catch spelling and grammar errors. Generative AI is the production of text. Debbie doesn’t care if you use this.

How to get started with an editor

  1. Advise the editor what your main points are.
  2. Point out possible problems in your writing.
  3. What areas may be sensitive, re: politics, gender, religion, etc.
  4. Don’t tell an editor about AI use.

You should be able to contact your editor, but not to make new changes while editing is underway.

Debbie’s services—

She teaches self-publishing without charge

Copy editing cost is 01.6 cents times the number of words in the manuscript.

Developmental editing is $85 an hour.

Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 12:10. Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 5, 2026, at the Faith Lutheran Church.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Cheryl Peyton, President