Welcome Back, Rich!

Tonight Rich came over to our Wildwood Writing Group (W.W.G.) meeting. He had been one of the original "members" of our group, but hasn't been able to make it for several months. It was soooo good to see him!
Rich is one of my favorite people. I met him about 7 years ago, when he worked at the b.s. during his summer and winter breaks from college. He's now got a degree in creative writing, and works for the b.s. as a community relations manager, at a different, but still local, location. He's a vastly talented writer - he writes beautifully minimalistic stories, similar to the short story writer Amy Hempel. Whenever I've read one of his stories, I've been struck by the skillful way he handles complex characters and often difficult topics, in a short amount of space - sometimes just a few pages. I still think about details and phrases from his stories that I read years ago. Reading or hearing his work inspires me to be a better writer.
He also writes and plays music, and does artwork - I admire (and sometimes envy) his widespread talents!
He's been a good friend, and has always encouraged me in my writing. He gives constructive, thoughtful criticism and caring support to all of us in W.W.G. We've missed him, and so we welcomed him back with much excitement!
Tonight was fun, rather than productive. We spent a lot of time talking and catching up with Rich, and discussing where we're at with our various writing projects, and what books we've read that have inspired us lately. We also celebrated Lisa's upcoming birthday with cake and gifts.
Rich plans to come to our next meeting in two weeks, so we gave him our current writing prompt, derived from the Story Spinner. Our challenge is to use the words: horoscope, echo, and password; the setting: in a bedroom; and the beginning phrase: Birthdays are... in a story. I've been thinking about it a lot, and realized I can use this prompt to write a scene from "What Luck." I've started working on it, and hope to have it polished enough to read in two weeks. I hope to get some good feedback from everyone, especially Rich. He hasn't heard anything from this new book project, so I'm interested to hear what he thinks about it.
Rich's presence tonight made W.W.G. feel complete again. Welcome back, Rich!!