Algonquin Hotdish began with a writers' lunch at Lucia's on Oct 29, '04. The ostensible reason for getting together was that my friend Gail Jones Hansen's birthday is Oct 28 so this was also sort of a birthday lunch for her. An old college pal, Gail had recently moved to Minnesota from Chicago and I thought it would be nice for her to meet some other woman writers so I set this up.
Present at the creation were:
Kit Naylor
Gail Jones Hansen
Cathy Madison
Bev Bachel
Kris Henning Bartel
Pamela Espelund
At that lunch we talked about how isolated we all feel working out of our home offices (well, except for Kris at The Rake).
So I followed up and sent out an invitation for people to come to my house on the First Friday of December. That would be 12/3/04. The notation on my calendar for that event is "First Friday Writers' Salon."
Here's the original invitation;:
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004
To: Creatives
From: Kit Naylor
Subject: Creatives/Clients Salon Dec 3
Hey, everybody -- During a long lunch at Lucia's a couple of weeks ago, several of us writerly types commiserated that the freelancer's life, while it has many advantages, can be lonely at times. Sometimes we're so hungry for human contact, we find ourselves having extended conversations with people behind cash registers. Something must be done, we decided. We really should make more of an effort to connect with other creatives, not to mention with our clients and friends. Few of us accomplish anything worthwhile/billable on Friday afternoons anyway, we figured, so we might as well get together with like-minded colleagues. You know, to network, and probably swap war stories and tell a few lies. Whatever. So save the date -- Friday, December 3, from 3-7ish -- and plan to attend the first monthly Artists/Writers/Designers/Clients Salon. I'll provide the venue in Minneapolis -- you bring whatever you want to drink and, if you're feeling generous, possibly a snack to share as well. Come on, it'll be fun. Please reply by email for directions and/or to RSVP. Cheers from Kit (who lives alone and enjoys discussing events of the day with her two ill-behaved cats). --
I can tell you (should you be at all interested) who the hosts have been and when we became Algonquin Hotdish. The name was Cathy Madison's idea. I suggested "Bloomsbury Minneapolis" but Algonquin Hotdish won in a landslide. I even have the original poster Dan Wallace made where people checked off their choices.
