June 2006

Margot Hird of Woodland Hills, CA is a member of the Ladies of Refinement Wednesday Evening Literary Society, aka the "LORWELS." In this interview, Margot explains the methods for conducting meetings that have served them well for about 10 years, and provides a helpful suggestion on what to do when membership attendance dwindles. She also recalls the group's first experience with an author visit and sheds light on the drawbacks of the "talking stick."

Q: Does your group have a name and/or a theme? How long has your group been in existence?

A: We are the Ladies of Refinement Wednesday Evening Literary Society ("LORWELS") and have been in existence about 10 years now.

Q: How many members do you have? How many men, how many women? What age are most of your members?

A: Right now we are hovering around 10 members (all women). It has been as high as about 20 in the past and as low as two. We find some members "burn out" after a while and want to be free to read independently.

Q: How often do you meet? Where do you meet?

A: We meet monthly on the last Wednesday (of course) of each month except during the summer. We meet at member's homes. At the first meeting in the fall each year, we have a dry-erase board and grid out meeting dates, locations, titles and authors. This first meeting of the year is also an opportunity for us to share what we've read over the summer, and is traditionally held outdoors at whomever's home we're holding the meeting.

Now and then we'll have our meeting on a "field trip." When we read Nicholas and Alexandra, we met for tea at the Ritz-Carlton. Or if there is some other place that would fit into a theme, we'll do that too. We went to see the movie Chocolat as a group after reading the book.

Q: Do you eat at your meetings? What do you eat? Who brings the food?

A: Whoever is the host of the meeting provides some kind of refreshment. Typically, an effort is made to tie into the theme of the book, but it's not required.

Q: Who leads the discussion? Do you use reading group guides?

A: Generally, the hostess is responsible for moderating the meeting, but we find we're just as happy to have a leader naturally emerge on a meeting-by-meeting basis. We use reading group guides when one is available and find them extremely helpful.

Q: What kind of books do you read?

A:All kinds of things! Historical novels are popular, as are some bestsellers. When making selections, you'll often hear something like "we were just in Afghanistan, let's read this book set in Africa next." We like to travel all over the world and all through history in our reading!

Q: How do you choose your books? Do you choose one new book at each meeting, or do you choose the books for a number of meetings ahead of time?

A: See above. We used to have the hostess select the book for the next month, but found that took too much time away from the discussion and socializing aspect of the meeting and like it much better when it's planned out at the beginning of the year.

Also, selecting the book by group vote takes the pressure off of one person to make the selection.

Q: What were some of the best discussions or favorite books the group read?

A: At a recent meeting we discussed I Held the Sun in My Hands by Erika Jacoby. One of our members happens to be friends with Ms. Jacoby, so she was able to arrange our first-ever guest author. We read her memoirs of the time she was imprisoned at Auschwitz and her subsequent flight to Cuba and the United States. Normally we are a happy noisy chatty group of women, but we were all rapt and attentive and each spoke in turn at this meeting.

We also LOVED A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. (Oprah selected this for her book club.)

Interestingly, we've had it happen more than once that Oprah will select something after we've read it, which makes us feel smug...lol.

Q: How do you keep things fun?

A: We just have to be together to have fun.

Q: What advice would you give to other reading groups?

A: Just do it! If you don't feel ready or feel you have too few members, you can piggy-back on the local bookstore book club. Almost all of them have them nowadays. In fact, some churches have them, too. We actually did that for a while when our membership was down. It was also good to have a "professional" moderator to keep the discussion moving along.

Q: Do you have any horror stories, amusing anecdotes, or other special tales to tell?

A: One time, one of our members grew impatient with all the interruptions and multiple conversations that tend to happen, so she got the bright idea of a "talking stick." You had to be holding the stick to speak. It went over like a lead balloon, made everyone uncomfortable and was scrapped after one meeting.

Also, when we read The Hobbit, we played a video biography of J. R. R. Tolkien at the meeting. That bombed, too. Everyone grew restless and bored watching the video.

Just about everyone in the group has suffered the dreaded embarrassment of suggesting a book that everyone hated.

Q: Is there anything else unique or noteworthy about your group that you would like to share?

A: We have a newsletter that we rotate responsibility for. We used to send it out through snail mail and would collect $1 dues per month to give to the editor for expenses, but then we switched to email. Usually the newsletter includes who was at the last meeting, details about the discussion, newsy info, etc., in addition to information about the next meeting. 

One thing we have a heck of a time with is R.S.V.P.'s. The newsletter almost always includes "don't forget, a refined lady always R.S.V.P.'s.," but people still often don't.

We also put in each newsletter that the L.O.R.W.E.L.S. always welcome guests and/or new members, whether or not they have read the selection.