New York Scribblers

When our illustrious group started, three of us, it was intended to get us writing more so that we could legitimately share our struggles with writing with our teachers and our students. Margie wasn't too keen to start with (yet another demand on our time) but when I said we could actually use our "meeting" time to write she was a tad more enthusiastic and famously (within our circle anyway) said "Okay, so long as we are called the New York Scribblers- like my grandmother had in Brisbane." She then went on to suggest "Perhaps we could have our final event for the year at The Algonquin!" We, Julia and I loved it. Not only did we have a name but we had a celebration planned even before we had written anything.
And so we headed to The Algonquin tonight for our end of year celebration. We have only had three meetings! We sat at our table chatted-and we each had a cocktail- I had to have a Parker and then we all were going to have the DP burgers but decided instead on the quesadillas. After dinner we wrote for over 30 minutes in our notebooks- absolute drivel on my part but it was great fun, we walked home having set the date for our first meeting in September when we return to NYC. I suggested that perhaps we try writing in between but Margie was horrified at my changing of the ground rules!
So despite getting ourselves established as a group we are a far cry from the The Algonquin Round Table the much celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Like us they initially gathered in part as a joke, they dubbed themselves "The Vicious Circle," and gathered for lunch each day at the The Algonquin from 1919 until roughly 1929. At these luncheons they engaged in wisecracks, wordplay and witticisms that, through the newspaper columns of Round Table members, were disseminated across the country. Dorthy Parker we are not but one gets one's inspiration from somewhere and at least we have set up our own table albeit a small low(brow) rectangular one!