The weekly meeting on Oct. 8, was led by visiting author Christina M. Abt.

She read an excerpt from her latest book Beauty and Grace, which is described on her website as:

Beauty and Grace is an intricately-woven work of historical fiction telling the stories of women and men institutionalized in asylums for reasons far beyond the bounds of acceptability. Readers will experience the journey of 15 individuals forced to spend their lives locked away, often under inhumane conditions, and the triumphant human spirits of those who endured and survived. While the background story of Beauty and Grace is historically accurate, the characters are fictional, including the main narrators, Teagan Cormick and Grace Reid. 

Her writing prompt for the group was the following:

If you were told that you were to be taken away and you could only bring with you what you could fit into a small suitcase, what would you choose to take?  (You can write from either a first person or third person perspective)