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 T-zero Xpandizine
 The Writer's E-Zine

 

 Produced and published by the members of Writers' Village University since 1998    ISSN 1521-2639       
09 February 2010
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Author Interview

Janet Smith Interviews J.A. Short

 

J.A. Short is a Writers’ Village University member and has recently published an e-book titled, A Gentleman’s Tale. This bittersweet romance/adventure story will take you on an unforgettable journey through the life, loves and adventures of Jacques Murlione in the time period of 19th century London.

Cindy Speer of Midwest Book Reviews says of A Gentleman’s Tale, "All the things that we want to see in this kind of story, huge, unbeatable odds, a well done background and people that you can genuinely care about."

It was my pleasure to interview J.A. Short to learn more about her, the world of e-books and e-book publishing. Thank you, Jo, for sharing your time with T-Zero readers.

T-Zero: How much work was involved in getting an e-book together and then having it published? Are there such people as e-book agents?

J.A. Short: For me, the majority of the work was bringing the manuscript up to par. An e-book is the same as a paperback; what matters the most is the story in its pages. And no, I haven't heard of e-book agents yet, probably because it's so easy to make e-books these days (as long as anyone has the right software and a bit of designing and business common sense). Publishers can eliminate the go-betweens and deal with the author directly.
T-Zero: You have written your endearing e-book romance from the perspective of your main character, Jacques. You give an interesting perspective of writing through a male voice. Do you normally write from a male character’s perspective?
J.A. Short: First off, thank you for the compliment. I used to think during the early drafts that if either the characters or their story didn't inspire heartfelt feelings from the readers, then it wasn't worth writing about. Plus, if that were so, I wouldn't even be inclined to take the time nor trouble to re-read, rework or make it better. <grin> Usually, I like to listen to my characters talk to me. If the character or the story captures my imagination and grips it, then the writing will just flow. In this case, it was Jacques' perspective that got me the most engaging view, so I chose him.
T-Zero: Do you plan on writing more e-books, and will Jacques and Amy return?
J.A. Short: Yes, I certainly plan to do so. As for the second question, I'm not sure at this time.
T-Zero: Are the characters Jacques and Amy based purely from fantasy or did they evolve from real-life experiences?
J.A. Short: I would have to say purely out of fantasy on this one. Real-life experience? That would be too messed up. People who know me and have read the book now think my mind's another matter. :)
T-Zero: Who are three of your favorite authors? I know it is difficult to choose only three.
J.A. Short: Okay, these are the ones I remember at the moment... Marguerite Duras—she can impart what she means in her stories and evoke strong emotional reactions without having to be long-winded in her prose at all.
Roger Zelazny—the first time I read a collection of his short works, they struck me as so credible. It's hard not to believe they could be happening now.
Sidney Sheldon—I like his heroines; they kind of have this hint of timelessness about them, even though they're definitely modern.
T-Zero: How long have you been a WVU (Writers’ Village University) member and how important is it to you to be a part of a writing community such as WVU?
J.A. Short: A year and counting. The support and friendships that I have found there are invaluable. A writer can certainly benefit much from that.
T-Zero: Can you tell us a little bit about when you started to write and why?
J.A. Short: I was an avid reader when I was a kid. My dad bought me tons of picture books when I was little and read them to/with me, until I memorized most of them by the time I was two. My mom always believed that reading was "food for the brain" so she encouraged me to spend my time with books and magazines whenever I had nothing else to do. By the time I was in high school and most people I knew were hooked on reading YA stories, I believed that I could write one better. 'Twas kind of a cocky conviction but when my short story was first published in the school paper, it was well-received, even by upperclassmen. And the rest is history of being on my writerly way.
T-Zero: What are your writing aspirations and dreams for the future?
J.A. Short: To get these characters out of my head and have their eternal moments on the page and beyond, to grow and improve with my story-writing skills and connect with others through my works.
T-Zero: What advice can you give to new writers trying to break into the e-book market?
J.A. Short: The market is just another opportunity to break into print. It is important to learn what they can about it and how it can help their publishing goals to make informed decisions. Above all, they shouldn’t lose sight of their stories and writing, but make them the best they possibly can at whatever skill level they have and will acquire. In this way, their writing will endure.
Thank you Jo, for taking the time to answer these questions. Continued success and happiness to you in all that you do!

Visit J.A. Short’s website at: http://vibrantbooks.bravepages.com


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Craft of Writing The Writers' Ezine - T-Zero Xpandizine

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Craft of Writing

George W. Bateson

Rejection Slip Blues
And Some Thoughts On How To Overcome Them

Okay, so you have researched, written your piece, and sent it off to an editor — only to find it back in your mailbox with a polite, impartial, or even a downright soul-destroying rejection slip. What then? Maybe a black cloud of despondency settles over you, or the angry thought that the publisher does not have brains to see what a masterpiece he has lost, or you simply decide that writing is a mug’s game and not worth the effort. We all know these feelings, but all is not lost; there may be a very valid reason why that editor rejected your piece, and it’s that reason that needs to be looked at and sorted out. So start by re-reading your rejected material and asking yourself the following questions.

Was It The Right Market?
Take a good look again at the publication you sent the piece off to. Yes, I understand that you may be sitting there saying, "This is a load of nonsense." You would not have sent it off to the wrong editor in the first place, but the basic rule for breaking into journalism is as ever — study the market thoroughly. Knowing what the editor wants is of paramount importance, but many writers do send off material on a subject that is completely wrong for that publication.

Details of what an editor wants can be obtained by writing to the publication for guidelines or checking publications such as the:

  • "Writer’s Markets," which are published by "Writer’s Digest" and list more than 4000 markets
  • "Writer’s and Artist’s Year Book,"  which is a U.K. markets book published by A&C Black of London, England
These books can be found in most popular bookstores and through online booksellers.  You also can use Web sites such as www.writersmarkets.com/index-guidelines.htm. Getting your guidelines from Writer’s Market’s publications or the Internet can save a great deal of time, but remember that these print publications are usually updated only annually. Web sites may be more up-to-date, but you still should not rely on them blindly. Editors and editorial policies change, once you've looked over the guidelines, you should follow up with the publication, either by letter or phone, to be sure that there have been no changes. (Editor's Note: You also can learn a lot by looking over several recent issues of a publication.)

Did You Query First?
This sounds pretty basic, but you would be surprised how many new writers don’t realize that for nonfiction articles, and even for some short fiction, most publications want you to query first. Many a rejection could have been avoided simply by sending a query letter. So, before you start to write that brilliant article, ask if the editor you have in mind wants it. Even if it is the right piece for the right publication, should the editor have recently received a similar piece, then you will suffer yet another rejection. So it’s better to know this before you put all that time and effort into the writing.

Treat your query letter as your “foot in the door.” Make sure you address it to the right editor. Many large circulation magazines have editors, or assistant editors, covering the various sections. A telephone call to the publication will normally get you the name of the right editor.

The way your query is written will give that editor an immediate insight into your ability as a writer. Finding out whether the publication is aimed at a highbrow, middle-of-the-road, or popular market can help you customize your query letter to that particular publication.

Find out if the publication accepts queries — and submissions — by e-mail; many do. It offers advantages both to writer and editor such as:
  • It saves postage. In some cases, only a single stamp; in others several. In any case, they all add up.
  • It saves time. E-mails are instant and not affected by postal delays. 
  • It can get your submission directly to the person you want. Your e-mail is sent directly to the editor’s desk and, as a matter of course, many check their e-mail several times daily. It takes but a few minutes to read your query, make a decision, and type a reply, be it acceptance or rejection.
    • Remember, just because you send your query by e-mail, it does not mean that your query itself should be sloppy and informal. Presentation is just as important as in the letter sent by snail mail. So follow the same format you would use for any query.

Did You Do Enough Research?
Most editors are extremely busy people. Their responsibilities extend far beyond reading through the piece you have sent them, and like all busy people, they have to have a certain amount of trust that what you have written is correct. If there is the slightest doubt regarding the validity of your work, it will be rejected. In order to prevent this, research is very important.

There are many sources of information available: archives, past issues of a publication that could be relevant to the piece you are doing, libraries, and the Web. Through the advent of the Internet, sources not readily available just a few years ago are now at your fingertips. Remember, though, that research is more than simply gathering together several facts and lumping them into an article. The way to an editor's heart is to research that extra bit that makes your piece stand out from the rest, be it an anecdote, a personal experience, or that little known fact gleaned from simply www.profnet.com. This will have the editor reaching for the checkbook rather than the rejection slip.

A Final Word On Beating The Blues
Stop using that rejection slip as a tissue to wipe your tears. Instead, look at it in a more positive way. Professional writers always have several pieces on the go at one time. They may be researching one piece, sending a query letter on another, and, even though they are pros, receiving rejection slips on others. However, they have learned over the years to combat rejection slip blues with work and by taking a good hard look at what the rejection slip actually says.

If you are lucky enough to get some comment on the piece, try to find out what they want, re-write it, and submit it again. If the piece was rejected out of hand, don’t despair. What is not suitable for one editor may be just the thing another is looking for. So take a good look at your piece, forget the “I love yah, baby” thoughts about it, and ask yourself why it was rejected. That’s the best way to overcome the “rejection slip blues.”


About The Author
George W. Bateson was born in England, where he still lives with his wife Marjorie. He has had articles and short stories published in various magazines and newspapers as well as having material broadcast on BBC local radio. He contributes a regular feature in a U.K. quarterly magazine and, at the moment, is working on a crime genre novel.


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Drabble Corner

Michelle Swisz


Well, a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do — in this case, write her own Drabble after having chosen a theme for this month that was more promising than it was productive. And below this month’s "selection" is that theme, our theme for next time.

The theme is Peace, and the Drabble is:

FOR A PEACEFUL FEELING

by Michelle Swisz

But I thought it was over . . .

You mean you never knew that he. . . .

No, I never would have guessed. I couldn’t have guessed.

You’re crying.

Yes, it hurts that I thought for so long. . . .

Yesterday you were ready to. . . .

Yes, I was even ready to file for, you know. . . .And now I’ll do anything.

Don’t cry, baby; you two might have another chance yet. Shh. Don’t cry.

Hello, I’m Dr. Davis. Ladies -- your son, and your husband, made it through the surgery.

Lover, I know now. I love you.

I love you, too, dearest. We have all that matters now.


I wonder what everyone else has been thinking about lately. That reminds me — don’t forget to send in Dribbles if you’d like to — they’re one-sentence long responses to the last Drabble.

For me, the theme for the past few weeks has been cooperation. I’ve found that, for myself, I apparently seem to default to stubbornness every once in awhile (I wonder if my ex is reading this — he knew all about it). Really, I never knew how much I did that. And I’m finding out now, because it’s a nightmare getting one’s home remodeled while holding onto a spirit, if it can be called that, of feeling put upon and even invaded the whole time. But as a much more willing partner now in the venture, I’m finding myself actually having a lot of fun, even with finding out that the shower waste line has been accidentally nicked, and the electrical insulation has been accidentally cut, both on the first day. It’s fun too because I’m learning something, and one thing I’m learning is that nicks are not the end of the world — things get broken, and then they get fixed.

Our theme for October, then, is Cooperation. Here are the guidelines once more for Drabbles. See everyone again next time.


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Fiction Short Story

by Robin Flinchum

The Girl on his Desk

On TV his daughter looked smaller than he remembered her, and Senator Demming wondered, without quite meaning to, if people ever thought the same thing about him. Lydia had appeared suddenly on the evening news, jammed between two armed men with dark wool masks over their heads, and that was the first thing he noticed—how small she seemed.

He was used to looking at Lydia in a framed studio photograph on his desk. In it she smiled, her cheeks rounded to just this side of pudgy. She wore her dark hair in a conservative style, chosen by his own image consultant, and was dressed in something simple and pastel, elegant but appropriate for a high school senior.

Back then he had been blissfully unaware of how little he understood her, how angry she was becoming inside. Back then he had assumed that everything was as it should be, that she was properly grateful to have the wealth and social benefits that came with being a senator's daughter, that she was well adjusted and reasonably happy. But eventually she informed him, with ever-increasing rage, of her deep and consuming misery, of her shame at being the daughter of a man who promoted the policies he did. She told him of her disgust at the way he had ignored her mother's alcoholism, just as she said he had ignored her mother for most of the years they were married until breast cancer mercifully claimed her.

He had not seen his daughter, Lydia, in person for over two years and now there she was on the television, looking thin and wretched with a gun to her head, each of the two men holding roughly to each one of her arms. She was speaking as if under great duress but he wondered about that. Yes, he wondered.

"They say they're the Earth Liberation Army," Lydia said into the television camera without blinking. "They say they want to enter into negotiations with my father about the nuclear waste dump." She continued to stare into the camera with an intensity that frightened him because he saw no readable expression in her eyes. One of the guards joggled her arm and she lowered her eyes for a moment, and then looked back at the camera. "They say they'll kill me, Dad," she said. Then the screen went blank before the feed switched back to a blonde reporter in a red skirt suit.

"Christ," he muttered under his breath as the phone in the study started ringing. "Christ almighty on a cross."

               *              *              *              *      

"Gordon, is she capable of that kind of deception? Is she that radical in her thinking?" Paul West, Demming's advisor, sat across from the senator in his living room less than half an hour after the news aired the disturbing footage of Lydia Demming and her captors.

"I don't know," Demming answered. "She was never sly or deceitful as a kid. She never had that awful temper until after her mother died. I don't know where it came from. She told me she was disappointed in my support of the nuclear repository. She even said she was ashamed to call me her father, but I never expected anything like this. What if she's not in league with them? What if she's really a victim in this?"

West met his eyes briefly, tried to form a supportive expression and failed. "We've been keeping track of Lydia since she started attending UCLA. She's a registered member of several environmental groups and has actively participated in petition drives and protests against the repository. The local press out there has a field day with it but luckily we've been able to keep it from seeping into the national media. We cannot assume that she is innocent here."

"She looked frightened," Demming said after a brief silence.

"Well, if I were in her shoes, I'd be scared shitless," West answered. "What she's doing is a felony and a conspiracy to commit a terrorist act."

"You don't know that yet," Demming said slowly. "This is all speculation."

West threw up his hands. "Work with me here, OK?"

Demming bowed his head and focused on the polished surface of his cherry-wood desk. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.

               *              *              *              *      

They arranged a press conference for the best time of day, early morning when the light was not yet harsh enough to wash the senator out, and when he was not yet fatigued from the rigors of the day. He stood on the steps of the federal building, wearing a dark blue suit with an understated burgundy handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket.

"I will not negotiate with terrorists," he was saying into the bank of microphones on the podium West had set up for the occasion. The photograph of Lydia, the one from his desk, had been blown up nearly life size and leaned on an easel behind him. "I will take the strongest measures to insure my daughter's safety and to see her rescued from the lawless people who have taken her, but I will not dishonor my family by consorting with terrorists in their name."

A smallish cheer, more a muttering of approval, went up from the onlookers in the crowd while the reporters jockeyed to get into Demming's line of sight.

"Is your daughter involved with the Earth Liberation Army?" one reporter shouted. Demming did not respond and instead focused on a television anchor on the other side of the throng.

"What are the strong measures you propose to take?" the anchor asked.

"I can't divulge that information," Demming answered, looking serious and important, as if there were a great deal of strategizing and activity going on behind the scenes. In fact, no other contact had been made with either Lydia or the kidnappers in the twelve hours since the broadcast. He was aware of a growing uneasiness under his ribs, at the place where his esophagus regurgitated stomach acid like an artesian well scorching him from the inside out.

What came next happened so quickly that in later days Demming could never explain how his daughter and the two masked figures from the video footage were standing near him on the steps of the federal building—those innocuous gray granite steps that he climbed each day on the way to work, that he trod upon without thinking, that evaded his consciousness while they had worn away the soles of several pairs of his Italian leather shoes. There was Lydia, in a soiled white t-shirt that hung on her, and baggy pants, the kind with large pockets all over them, held up by a rope tied around her thin waist. She was flanked by the same men and threatened with the same gun. Gone was the pudgy all-American girl who had grown up eating popsicles in his kitchen, who had accompanied him to the children's hospital and played with the sick kids, who had seemed so well adjusted in every way.

The terrorists and his daughter stood perhaps five yards away. Armed police had surrounded him and them quickly while camera shutters clicked constantly in the background. He looked at his daughter, trying to peer into her face and find something there that he recognized, some remnant of himself. She looked back at him with the same, unreadable expression she had worn on the news.

"Senator Gordon Demming," one of the masked men called in a loud, unaccented voice meant to carry out over the sea of reporters. "Are you ready to negotiate?"

Demming stood still. Too many thoughts attempted to enter his mind at once, jamming his neocortex and leaving him blank. He could think of no answer, could not formulate a reply. He simply stared at his daughter, who stared back waiting for him to speak. As they looked at one another it seemed at last her expression began to soften. He saw in her a flicker of the girl on his desk and a brief moment in which she pled with her eyes the way she had done that spring, when she wanted to go on the class trip to Paris like all the other girls but his advisors had cautioned against it.

"Yes," he said at last, but the words came out too soft to be heard over the voice of Paul West, who spoke at exactly the same time.

"The senator will not negotiate with terrorists," West said, stepping up to the microphone and leaning slightly over the senator's shoulder.

"If you do not negotiate, your daughter will die," said the man in the mask, looking only at the senator. "Will you place your political interests above the life of your child?"

Again that numbing blankness pervaded his mind and prevented him from speaking but in his desperation he moved a step away from the podium, a step toward his daughter. The gunman pressed the barrel of the pistol harder against her head and he could see it digging into the pale skin at her temple.

Paul West hove into the podium and took control of the microphones. "You can't win this standoff," he was saying. "There are guns on you from all sides. You will not walk away from this alive unless you put your weapons down and release Lydia Demming now."

"We want to speak with the senator," the gunman said. Again Demming moved forward toward his daughter. He saw her expression soften a bit more, saw there the same kind of fear as when she was six and had broken her ankle falling from a tree in the back yard. Then the pain and the visit to the hospital had terrified her, in the same way he realized that this thing she was in the middle of terrified her now.

"Let her go," the senator said. "Take me instead." But the last of his words were again drowned by the man at the microphone.

"Let her go," West echoed the senator.

The gunman, the one who did all the speaking, took a paper from the front pocket of his flack vest and began to read. "If the government of the United States is not willing to negotiate a reasonable future for its children, if Senator Demming is not willing to save the lives of countless American children by putting an end to the production of nuclear energy and eliminating the need for a waste repository to poison the heart of the American wilderness, then the senator will be the first to feel the loss of a child to a painful and unnecessary death."

The gunman straightened the arm with which he held the pistol to Lydia's head and she continued to stare at her father with the hardness in her eyes melting.

"I will negotiate," her father cried, but once again his voice was drowned by a louder noise, the sound of the pistol report as the gunman sent a bullet into Lydia Demming's brain.

               *              *              *              *      

After the funeral Senator Demming retired from politics and public life. He did not dedicate his days to the eradication of nuclear energy nor to the fight against terrorism. It was enough for him that Lydia and her two captors had all died, in a freakish bloodbath on those grim granite steps that lasted only moments but replayed endlessly in his mind, while he had been powerless to stop it.

In that moment he understood that despite whatever power the offices of man might bestow upon him there was little he could do to stem the tide of human emotion. Lydia Demming's body had been formed of his own DNA, she had lived in his home for eighteen years and her perceptions of the world, like raw clay, had been molded by him and by his wife. And yet he had known so little about her. She, a warm-hearted child who gave freely of her hugs, had drifted away from him and he let her go. Then her clay hardened in the kiln of the outside world until he knew her not at all—if he ever had.

It was never proven, or disproven, that Lydia was working with the Earth Liberation Army, and to Demming, it didn't matter any more. What he knew now was that it had taken the threat of life or death to soften his daughter's eyes when she looked at him, and he had realized too late that he would have sacrificed everything he held dear in order to save her life.

With that realization it occurred to him that if he knew so little about himself or his own child, it was surely not for him to pretend that he knew what was best for an entire country.

© Copyright 2003 Robin Flinchum

About the Author:
Robin Flinchum is a freelance reporter trying to convince the world that fiction is much better than the truth. She lives in the Death Valley desert.



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Fiction Short Story

by Russell DeJarnette

The Good Samaritans

I helped guide Larry down the steps of our house to the waiting taxi. It was like participating in a game he must have created for the occasion, the semi-controlled lurch. It wasn't a team sport either. He had gained a lot of weight since I'd seen him last and he now outweighed me by a hundred pounds. (And, his legs had turned into the stuff rubber was made of.)

When I finally huffed my way back into the house and closed the door my wife asked solicitously, "You gave the driver his address, didn't you?"

"Yeah," I said, settling into a kitchen chair. "Larry was in no shape to put two words together."

"Couldn't have him drive home in that condition," she continued. "I hope he doesn't pass out and the driver takes advantage of him. You know, like rob him and roll him out on the sidewalk."

"No chance," I said emphatically. "I tipped the driver really big and made him promise to deliver Larry inside no matter what it took."

"He looked so awful when I saw him at the grocery store this morning," she said. "Didn't look like he'd slept or even had a good meal in a long time. One look at him and I couldn't help but ask him to come over for dinner." Her tone told me she was asking me to say again it was all right for the hasty call to my office earlier in the day to tell me what she had done without asking first.

"You did the right thing," I responded. "Never hurts to be a Good Samaritan." Guess I felt guilty too.

She sighed. "He just dropped out of sight for a few months. We should have been more supportive during that time."

"Yeah, the divorce is really knocking him out," I said. "It's tough to be so much in love with a woman and have her casually say one day at breakfast she doesn't want to be married to you anymore. Then to make him move out of the house so quick."

"I heard she had a mover come that very morning after he went to work, pack up his stuff, and set it out in the garage," she replied with a disapproving frown.

"I know. He told me later. Didn't say a word to anyone about it for several weeks. Just kept thinking about it day and night, calling the house, trying to reason with her."

"Didn't he say you were the first person he told when you ran into him at the diner that morning?" She said it, not as a question, but as a statement to reaffirm once more that he should have been invited to dinner, regardless of how it had turned out.

"Yeah, it's too bad," I said, momentarily slipping into fond reverie. "The four of us used to have some nice times at their house. I even bought Larry's favorite scotch and cigars for tonight. Thought that might cheer him up."

"I feel bad about sending him home that way." She sighed again. "And all we were trying to do was make him feel better. And, I thought he was able to hold his liquor, but it didn't take much to get him potted, did it?"

"Surprised me," I said. "He hit the scotch pretty heavy before dinner. I thought he was okay. But, it seemed like the wine really got to him. By the way, wasn't that one of the wine glasses that he broke we got for a wedding present?"

"Well, let's look at it this way," she said, slightly defensively, "we were lucky to have them all these years without one getting broken."

"Those were the one of a kind hand blown glasses for a wedding present, weren't they?" I continued, already knowing the answer. I wanted to continue with the topic not far enough to exact a pound of flesh but perhaps a couple of ounces. She knew how much I loved those glasses, had seen me stop by the china closet and admire them often, like they were a work of art.

"Yes," she admitted, knowing that the only way to move the conversation along was to accept responsibility. "By that guy who went on to become a really famous glass-blowing artist in New York. I know they should have stayed in the china closet, but I wanted the table to look really nice for Larry."

"It was lovely, especially with the linen tablecloth." I said, reluctantly returning to a rehash of the evening.

"Yes, dear. And I think the wine stains will come out." But he was really apologetic, even offering to replace the wine glass and the tablecloth.

"Let's see," I mused, "two hundred dollars for the glass, maybe more. Seems like I heard some of his early work is in the Smithsonian now. And the tablecloth, hand-made by your mother's sister, wasn't it? The one who won all those prizes at the county fair?"

"Yes, dear," she responded wistfully, trying to conceal her disappointment about the tablecloth.

"Well, maybe Larry could get her to come back in a séance. You know, ask her to make another one for us," I said sarcastically.

"Honey," she gently chided me by putting the accent on the last syllable and drawing out the word, "we need to remember he's going through a really tough time. You know, I even thought I heard him mumbling something about AA when I brought the coffee into the den."

"I thought he was trying to talk like a sailor, you know, aye, aye. Besides, that's all he did for the last hour was mumble," I said rolling my eyes upward.

"Well, drunk is one thing," she said, "but the hole in the carpet that he made by dropping his cigar is another. Think insurance will pay for it?"

"Don't remind me," I replied. "I think the cigar must have slid out of his hand during my speech about how we'd be there for him through thick and thin. Right after my earnest soliloquy, I noticed a funny smell. Then I saw the smoke coming up from the carpet. Perfect timing. What could I say?"

Trying to be helpful, she said, "I'll call the insurance company tomorrow. If they won't pay to replace it, I'll call the carpet company where we bought it. Maybe they'll look at it and see if it can be repaired."

"Speaking of carpet," I said, “ask the cleaning people tomorrow when they clean up the mess of vomit from the living room rug. Jeez, talk about smells. I hope they can take care of that one."

"I don't remember him getting sick like that," she said. "He's changed a lot during the time we lost track of him."

"Yeah," I said, trying unsuccessfully not to be sarcastic, "he didn't used to be incontinent."

"Oh, you mean the living room couch?" she wrinkled her nose.

"Better add that one to the cleaning people's list," I said with a sense of resignation.

"It just shows how tough it must be on him, trying to cling to a woman who just wants to get rid of him. Maybe that's part of the reason he gained so much weight. And he was a big guy to begin with."

"Yeah," I said. "With that extra hundred pounds, the coffee table didn't stand a chance. I'll put the pieces out back in the morning."

"I was sure he was going to knock over your grandmother's lamp when he fell on the table." She immediately realized she had hit a sore point with me and tried quickly to come up with something to redirect the conversation.

But I was mentally out of the blocks before her. "No," I said, "he got the lamp later when he was sitting on the couch and swung his arms around in that anguished tirade about his soon-to-be ex-wife."

"Boy, did you hear him talk about how she hates him? Do you think all that is true?" asked my wife.

"I sure hope so," I responded with a self-satisfied smile slowly spreading across my face. "I gave the cab driver her address."

© Copyright 2003 Russell DeJarnette


About the Author:
Russell DeJarnette, born in Kentucky, lives in North Carolina where he is restoring an antebellum house. He lives with Mr. Puss whose former residence was the pound.



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Fiction Short Story

by William Meikle

One Spring Eve

Why won't they just go away and leave me alone? she thought, but didn't say it. That would be impolite.

All her life, all seventy-eight years of it, she tried to live up to her standards — always be polite, never shout, always comport yourself with dignity. But sometimes it was hard. Especially when your son-in-law was of the opinion that old age meant you should be treated like a two-year old; you were automatically deaf; and you were not to be trusted on your own.

He was at it again.

"John — come away and leave your Gran alone — you'll tire her out."

As if she wasn't capable of a few minutes play with the boy. Hadn't she brought up three children of her own? And not the easy way either. They were always going on about how hard life was today. They didn't know the half of it.

Did they have to queue for hours — ration book in hand — just to get a couple of eggs? Did they have to walk home in the dark in fear that any light might bring a bomb down on their heads? Had they had to stand by helpless as their eldest son died of pneumonia through lack of medicines? She knew the answer to all of these.

But she mustn't complain. Her life had been easier than her mother’s, which had been easier than her mother's before that, and so on, back to the Roman times she supposed — it was they way of things, that was all. Sometimes she wished that the way of things was a bit more exiting, that she could tell them all just to go away, that she could leave everything behind and go, just go somewhere, anywhere, apart from these few square miles which had bound her whole life. She realised that Dick was looking down at her.

"Are you all right, Gran?"

She wished he wouldn't call her that — it only made her feel even older.

"I'm all right,” she said. "Don't fuss over me — I'm not a dog."

She saw the look he gave over his shoulder to his wife — eyes wide in amusement. She had to do something, otherwise she was going to scream in frustration.

"I'll just go and put the kettle on," she said, pushing herself out of the chair.

"No — don't worry Mum — we're just leaving," her daughter responded.

She tried not to show her relief.

There was a flurry of coats and handbags, and umbrellas were found, a brief wetness at her cheek as she was kissed goodbye, and then they were gone, leaving her alone once more. She was always guilty about the relief she felt when they left. They were her only family, and you were supposed to feel happy when they came to visit, but recently she just wanted to be left alone. Too many people had been fussing over her — the butcher who insisted that her meals would be delivered to save her the walk into town; the postman who always waited until she answered the door just to make sure she was okay; the doctor who always called twice a week. It wasn't as if she was an invalid — it had only been a little fall. She hadn't even broken any bones.

Ever since he had found her at the foot of the stairs, Dick had been trying to get her to move down to the town to stay with them. She'd refused point blank, and he couldn't understand why she'd been so angry.

She had been born in this house, her mother had been born in this house, and she wasn't going to leave it — no matter how much she might want to. She had her duty and she wouldn't leave. Not until they came to take her out in a box.

Nestling back in the armchair, she looked around the room — the clutter of a long life surrounding her, with the place of pride taken by her wedding photograph. Tears welled up in her eyes as she started to fall asleep, dreaming of John and the long years, which separated them.

She woke, bleary, tired and stiff, still sitting in the armchair. The light above her shone hard and bright in her eyes as she struggled to sit upright. Outside all was quiet and the clock on the mantelpiece told her that it was past four o'clock in the morning. The noise — the same one which had woken her — came again — a rustling and a crackling from just beyond her kitchen door. Groaning, feeling the old age, which had settled into her bones, she pushed herself out of the chair, teetering unsteadily at first as the blood rushed back to her legs causing them to tingle and tremble before she was finally steady. The noise came again as she headed for the door.

The kitchen lay in darkness, only a stray shaft of moonlight illuminating a piece of faded linoleum. Outside the door there was only a wall of silvery blackness. She couldn't make out any detail through the slightly warped glass, but as she peered out, something moved smoothly and silently across the lawn.

Fox, she thought. Many times over the years she had watched them from her upstairs window, seeing them slinking through her garden as they stalked some small prey. They never ceased to bring a sense of wonder and a sense of jealousy. She envied them their freedom.

The old door handle rattled as she touched it; a small, almost insignificant noise, but she knew it was enough to scare away anything that might have been there. She opened the door anyway, just in case.

The lawn stretched out before her, silver and grey in the moonlight. The beech tree overhanging the garden at the far end rustled slightly in a sudden breeze, but apart from that all else was still and quiet. She turned her back to go indoors and the noise came again — a whispering and a rasping and a cracking.

It was coming from under the hedge, over in the left hand seedbed. There was something there, something swaying in the stray moonbeams which made their way through the foliage. She tried to peer into the black shadows, but the night was too dark, and her eyes weren't what they used to be. She moved across the lawn, feeling the cold seep through her carpet slippers.

Where, the day before, there had only been dark brown earth, there was now a profusion of thin, silver shoots. The noise she had heard was their growing, thrusting themselves up through the soil, cracking as their leaves unfolded and stretched upwards for the moon. She leaned forward for a closer look, seeing the silvery lightness of the leaves, the thin black veins. Her heart beat heavily in her chest, thudding its beat into her ears as she realised that these were not leaves, these were something new, something rich and strange, something wonderful. Her eyes shone in the moonlight as she stretched out a hand. And, just as her fingertips threatened to brush a shoot, the silence was broken by a laugh, a girlish giggle. The moon went behind a cloud, darkening the shadows and banishing the silver shoots into darkness.

She looked around, but the garden was all in blackness, all silver leeched away. She stood still, scarcely breathing, feeling the cold eat its way to her bones, but not wanting to move, afraid to break the spell.

And she was rewarded. The cloud moved on and the silver returned, spreading away from her across the lawn, hitting the beech and causing its branches to light up in a white, blinding, radiant skeleton. The laughter came again, but she was unable to pinpoint its source. She walked across the lawn, eyes fixed on the tree. Small shadowy buds had formed on the branches and, as she got closer, she could see them sprout, like in a time-lapse film, opening and blossoming into long, fine, diaphanous leaves which glowed with their own inner light. And there, high up in the branches, a brighter light.

It was a boy, about ten years old, but like no boy she had ever seen. He sat, high in a fork in the tree. His silver hair fell in a long swathe to below his waist and his eyes sparkled like diamonds. He seemed to be wearing a cloak made of tiny leaves and he glowed, silver and clear blue and white, all at once. She reached up a hand and was about to speak, but another cloud blocked out the moon and the scene faded into blackness.

Small tears of frustration welled up at the corners of her eyes. She did not notice that her legs had gone numb with the cold, nor that she had no feeling in her fingertips. She waited, eyes raised to the clouds, for a break in their sullen darkness.

The cold sank deeply into her, slowing her heart and thickening her blood until it thudded, slowed, then thudded, then slowed, barely reaching the extremities of her body. And still she waited as the cloud hung heavy overhead. Time passed as she prayed for a wind, a breeze, the hand of God, anything to let the moon shine again. And, finally, she was answered.

The laughter began first, high and clear and beautiful, just as the darkness parted and the silver streamed through the garden in an explosion of blue and grey and silver and white. It was too much for her old eyes. She blinked, twice, and raised a hand to shade them from the glare, then stopped. Her hand was grey and white, radiating pale glimmers of moon dust.

She could see her veins pulsing darkly, could see the small crystalline diamonds of her skin writhe and dance in the cold night air. The cold finally took her and she fell, backwards, full length onto the glassy spikes of the lawn, her eyes full of stars. She heard a movement, a padding of tiny feet, and she looked up into the face of the boy. His eyes watched her, sad and lonely, as he stretched down and placed a feather light palm on her forehead. She felt the cold spread, slivers of ice piercing her brain. Suddenly she knew what he wanted.

She strained her neck in order to lift her head, one last look at the house, her house which now sat dark and empty, a prison waiting in shadows. She looked up into the deep black eyes and saw a question. She nodded, only once.

He pulled and she parted and now she was young again.

Two young people giggled and danced in the light of the moon as the first light of dawn spread in the East. She had one last look back at the old thing she had left behind on the grass, but it was soon forgotten as they chased the darkness into the West.


© Copyright 2003 Willie Meikle


About the Author:
Willie Meikle is a forty-something Scotsman, with two novels published, Island Life (Barclay Books 2001) and Watchers: The Coming of the King (Black Death Books 2003). In 2003/2004 he has two further books coming in the Watchers series, and a new vampire trilogy, Eldren (Black Death Books). He has over 130 short story and poetry credits in the genre press, with four honourable mentions in the Datlow and Windling's Years Best Anthology. For more info visit his web site at: http://www.willie.meikle.btinternet.co.uk





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Fiction Short Story

by John M. Floyd

Sightings

Jack Crowe was waiting with the engine running when his partner came out of the McDonald's restroom.

"Get in," Crowe said. "We got a call."

Officer Linda McBride jogged around to the passenger side and climbed in. "What kind of call?" she asked, as their cruiser rolled out of the lot and into the late-night traffic.

"A UFO sighting."

"You're kidding, right?"

Crowe shook his head, but couldn't help smiling. "Lady says it flew over her house. Something big, fast, bright, and loud."

"Sounds like the Channel 5 News chopper."

"This one had green lights."

McBride chuckled. "To match the color of its passengers, probably." She turned to watch the dark city drift past outside her window. "This lady the one we're going to see?"

"No. She wouldn't give dispatch her name."

"Then where are we headed?"

Crowe held up his notepad. "Her neighbor's address. Fred Hargroves. She said whatever it was landed in his back yard."

"Why didn't Fred call us himself?"

"Who knows? Maybe he's asleep. Or not home."

"Or kidnapped. That's what aliens do, isn't it?"

Crowe grinned, hung a left, and headed west on Rosecrans. "How should I know? You're the X-Files guru."

"Am not. I didn't even like the show."

"Then why'd you watch it all the time?"

"I liked Agent Mulder," she said.

Fred Hargroves's house sat on a corner lot ten blocks from the beach.  The front yard needed mowing; the back was fenced. They parked in the street, put on their hats, and walked through the weeds to the front porch. Crowe rang the doorbell. No answer.

"Let's check the back," he said.

The gate in the six-foot cedar fence was unlocked. They peeked inside, looking for (worst case) a dog and (best case) a spaceship. What they saw instead was a bald guy in a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts, sitting in a lawn chair on a lighted patio.

"Mr. Hargroves?" Crowe said.

The man turned to look at them. His face was blank, his eyes faraway.  On the table beside him was a can of Bud and a paperback novel. He showed no surprise at the sight of two of L.A.'s Finest standing in the dark at his back gate.

They crossed the yard to the patio, Crowe watching the man and McBride the house. You couldn't be too careful. "Are you Fred Hargroves?" Crowe asked.

No reply.

Crowe and McBride exchanged a glance.

"We were told you might have seen something unusual here tonight. Any truth to that?"

"Feenydoodle," Hargroves said.

"Excuse me?"

Hargroves just stared at them. His expression—lack of expression, really—was spooky. "Zockyjabberdoo," he said. "Googlepollywog."

Crowe studied him a moment, then looked at McBride. "What do you think?"

"I think that's not the only beer Fred's had tonight. Isn't that right, Mr. Hargroves?"

"Crinkendiddlebaum," Hargroves said.

Crowe sighed. "Let's get out of here."

Ten minutes later they were parked in their cruiser on a palm-lined street near the airport, sipping coffee from a Wendy's drive-thru. "Want to know my theory?" McBride said. "My theory is, the whole country tilted a little once, a long time ago, and all the nuts rolled to the West Coast."

"That would explain it," Crowe agreed. He took a swallow from his cup and rubbed his eyes. "What do we do if we get another report of a sighting?"

"We let Jones and Kanosky check it out. Those two could use a little—"

She never finished her sentence. A low hum filled the air, and then a roar like a hundred jet engines. The palms beside the road tossed and swayed as if in a hurricane; the police car rocked on its shocks. Thirty feet from its front bumper, an oblong ball the size of a doublewide trailer appeared, hovering just above the pavement. The entire scene was bathed in green light.

And then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone again.

Officers Crowe and McBride sat staring at the windshield. Both their coffee cups were empty, the contents soaking unnoticed into uniforms and seat-covers. The only sound was the metallic voice of their radio:

"One-tango-fourteen, come in please. One-tango-fourteen?"

The cruiser sat dark and silent. The officers' faces remained expressionless, their eyes unfocused. Overhead, a fingernail moon rode a cloudless, purple sky.

"Calling one-tango-fourteen, do you read?"

Very slowly, never once moving his head or his eyes, Officer Crowe reached down and unclipped the radio mike. He raised it to his lips.

"Come in, one-tango-fourteen. Answer me."

His face calm and dreamlike, Crowe thumbed the transmit button.

"Feenydoodle," he said.


© Copyright 2003 John Floyd


About the Author:
John Floyd's short stories and fillers have appeared in more than 120 different publications, including Strand Magazine, Grit, Capper's, Woman's World, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Two of his stories were recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and another for the Derringer Award.



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Poetics

Jeanette Oestermyer

How Free is Free Verse? Should it be Called Open Form?

Is free verse really free? One definition of free verse is 'unmetrical verse; lines that are not measured or counted for number of accents, or number of syllables; lines that are free of meter; also called vers Libre.' However, some poets do not agree with that theory. T.S. Eliot said it best, "No vers is libre for the man who wants to do a good job."

If one wants to write a good poem, the verse is not going to be truly free. It has to be poetic through the use of various poetic devices. It is not simply prose written in short lines, but there has to be a rhythm that is felt when read aloud. That rhythm can be found in alliteration, metaphor, simile, consonance, assonance and imagery.
  • Enjambment, or what was once called "run-on free verse," is another way to create the feel, or sound of rhythm. In using enjambment, be cautious of where you break a line. It can be a place where one would catch a breath, or place a comma if writing prose. It has been said that enjambment tends to quicken the reading of a poem if it is used frequently throughout. Among the early poets who explored and enhanced the idea of run-on free verse were William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore and Ezra Pound.


  • End-stopped free verse, generally has longer lines because the lines are not broken until a complete thought is written. There can also be short lines, so line lengths may vary in this type of free verse.
Walt Whitman has been called the father of end-stopped free verse, that is if one discounts some books of the Bible, including Psalms, Ecclesiastes and parts of Job. Some poets also use the same words at the beginning of several lines. This works well if done with discretion.

In Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," an elegy for Abraham Lincoln, the poet kept all lines about the same length. He also repeated the same words at almost every line's beginning, as below:

- Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, -- Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, -- With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in black, -- With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women standing, -- With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,

So, is what we know today as free verse really vers libre? Perhaps it would better be called "open form." In X. J. Kennedy's book, An Introduction To Poetry, he states:

"Poetry in open form used to be called free verse liberated from the shackles of rime and meter. Writing in this form, a poet seeks to discover a fresh and individual arrangement for words in every poem."

The last sentence is my favorite: "If one can derive a fresh arrangement of words, one that is unique to the individual poet -- it may not be free, but it can be open to experimentation by every poet in each poem written."

Free verse, or open form, can have an occasional natural rhyme, or a rhyme that simply happens. It can also be rhymed throughout, but this is difficult without discovering a rhyme that is forced, or that appears to be forced somewhere in the poem. Whitman used repetitions such as every line ending on an 'ing' word; i.e., walking, spooning, going, which provided a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Internal rhyme was also used in many of his poems. Other poets use rhyme at the end of their free verse poem as a reflection of another word earlier in the last stanza.

In open form poetry, sound and rhythm are practical forces. In reading an open-form poem aloud, it is best to pause at the end of each line only briefly, but do not let your voice drop. Because open-form poems lack meter, they are enhanced by recurring pauses at the ends of all lines.

Call it what you choose: free verse or open form, but the careful choice of words is also extremely important. A good thesaurus is an invaluable tool for the poet no matter if writing free verse or rhymed and metered verse. The rhythm in free verse is found through a myriad of devices, most included above. A note of caution: do not over-use any one poetic device in a single poem, as it loses its effectiveness if overdone.

 

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Poetics Presents

Gordon Bain

In the year 2000, Gordon Bain and his wife and decided to leave twenty tumultuous years of living in large cities, for the serenity of one of the world's most picturesque islands, Prince Edward Island, Canada. To do so meant leaving behind a maturing family, and a business life that took him to many parts of the world as a non-tourist, risk-taking entrepreneur. He hopes to put that experience into love of writing fiction and poetry.
 

A Blade of Grass

I sat on a bench as the world rushed past,
Aware of the dew, and a blade of grass.
The warming sun had begun its climb,
The grass, the dew, and a need for time.

From out of the morning, a sudden breeze
Played hide and seek among the trees,
The grass blade trembled, the wind went slack,
Dewdrops were moving along its back.

Then down they went along the stem,
Where thirsty roots were awaiting them.
High in the sky the sun looked down
Dewdrops now safely underground.

It stood there proudly in its cloak of green.
I was in awe of what I had seen,
How infinitely wondrous is nature's task
The sun, the dewdrops, and a blade of grass.

Copyright ©2003 by Gordon Bain


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Poetics Presents

Carol Malley

Carol Malley was poetry editor of Peregrine literary magazine, and received a commendable award for a poem in the William Penn Warren contest sponsored by New England Writers. She earns her living as a journalist for the Republican. A poet and fiction writer, she has had worked published in numerous literary journals including AIM, the Larcom Review and Freezer Burn Magazine, and in anthologies, including When a Lifemate Dies: Stories of Love, Loss and Healing (1997) by Fairview Press, and Inside Grief (2001) by Wise Press. She leads writing workshop for inner city Latino teens and low income women and is the facilitator of several on-line poetry workshops. She has published three books of writings by inner city teenagers.

What I Learned from Langston Hughes

Poetry speaks in the voices
of ordinary people,
pulses in the blood
of cotton pickers,
creaks

on the planks of boats
that carried Irish,
Russian, Polish
to Ellis Island,

roars in the salty swell
of refugee loaded rafts,

utters the language of near do wells,
hums the folk talk of slaves,
kick dances on inner city streets:

da dum da dum

Poetry tells the story
of your mama, my Mom,
someone else's mother

ironing,

making her own starch from silken flour,
testing heat with blistered water,
the bubble of sizzle.

It's the pulse beat of remembering
Daddy kissing
the neck of a bottle,
the gurgle and slurp
of liquid lie,

the sound of your sister,
my brother,
someone's lover
sliding into home plate,
hot and dirty,
or sliding long and down
Yo Mon, you got a dime
down.

Poetry sings the rolling pen
as it flattens dough,
the melt of butter on hot bread,
women and men doing that thing
they do when bodies thrum.

Poetry sings
in crusted, sugared over dreams
realized, deferred,

exploded.

Copyright ©2003 by Carol Malley


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Poetics Presents

Tommy F. Scott

Tommy F. Scott is a poet, playwright and visual artist who shares his time between the Chicago and Memphis TN areas. He holds degrees in Theatre and Visual Arts and has worked professionally in both fields. He has also taught at secondary and college levels in those fields.

Revelation

The picture starts to fade away.
Will I forget my yesterday and never find an answer,
To what the past has given me,
And what my life is meant to be.
It's hidden in my future.
I never really knew at all,
That everything and every call from heaven had a reason.
I keep on trotting onward still,
I climb the dark and endless hill, toward my revelation.
Perhaps I shouldn't give a damn
'bout where I go and who I am, sometimes I really wonder
If life is really worth it all,
The endless pains both large and small that frequent my illusions.
But still I just keep plodding on,
In aimless steps towards the dawn that lies beyond perception
Perhaps I will not ever know
Just why my fears envelop so, but still I must continue.
To walk the unknown path ahead,
Until at last my soul is dead and but a drop in chaos.

Copyright ©2003 by Tommy F. Scott


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Recognitions

Joan McNulty Pulver

Welcome to Recognitions, a column dedicated to proclaim the writing successes of Writers' Village University members!

Nannette Croce's short story, Dora's Memoir, will appear in the winter 2004 issue of Beginnings Magazine. "I thought I had a pretty thick skin, but I didn't realize how much those rejections ate at me." remarks Nannette. "Now I feel like I can tell the world that I'm a writer without dreading the inevitable question, 'Where have you published?' It's never too late. I put my dream of being a writer aside for many years while I had a career and raised a family. I'll be 50 next month and have just published my first short story ever."

Nannette joined Writers' Village University a little over two years ago but never joined a particular study group. On average Nannette signs up for at least one course every couple of months, sometimes two at a time. She took F2K, Writers' Village University's free writing course, twice. The second time she won the short story contest. "WVU provided me with a place to learn and practice my craft on a regular basis. Many of my best stories have come from assignments that I re-worked based on feedback from my peers."

For the past year, Nannette volunteered as Assistant Nonfiction Editor at T-Zero. She said she learned a lot about both editing and writing from Nonfiction Editor, Whitney Potsus, and her fellow Assistant, Perley-Ann Friedman. "In fact, the entire staff at T-Zero has been great to work with."

Lori Romero was ecstatic when she found out that her two poems, This Side of Paradise and Last Call at Kelly's, would be published in Mobius's November edition. One of the poems, This Side of Paradise, a simultaneous submission, had been selected by two publications. "Unfortunately, I had to turn one down but it's still a welcome dilemma."

Lori joined Writers' Village University over a year ago. She is a member of P123 Senior Poets Workshop and the Persist and Publish study group. "I feel so fortunate to have found WVU — it's an incredible community of writers. I feel challenged every day, and it's a place that I can constantly hone my craft through support and excellent feedback. There is one facilitator that, in my opinion, deserves special recognition: Carol Malley. In P121, Carol designed a special assignment called the "Sending Out Project." The project, among other things, helped us select and evaluate markets for our poetry. It is because of Carol's knowledge and helpful tutoring in this area that two poems I sent out were selected. Carol is an amazing writer, poet and facilitator who gives so unselfishly of her time."

During the spring and summer months, Lori can often be found on the Great Plains, storm-chasing! She is currently working on a chapbook of her adventures.

Gwen Austin, author of two published novels, Twilight Manor and Fateful Days, recently self-published Through a Dusty Lens, a book of 44 poems written about her experience in Vietnam from 1967 through 1968.

"I took F2K and before I was even finished with the course, I knew WVU was the place for me." Gwen became a WVU Lifetime member on May 12, 2001. A member of P123 Senior Poets Workshop for over two years, she sometimes participates in the Word Weavers study group as well as Poetry Triggers and other courses that catch her attention, such as the Pleasures of Reading Poetry. "WVU gives me a chance to interact with other poets, to hone my skills at not only writing poetry but in reading poetry and giving useful feedback."

Gwen worked for 25 years in the therapeutic recreation field and now lives in the woods in Washington State not far from Mt. Rainier. To find out more about this amazing author and her writing, visit her website.

Shanna Lewis recently completed her first week at her new job, writing feature stories and other articles for the local newspaper, the Wet Mountain Tribune. "I was thrilled to be offered a writing job!"

Shanna took the F2K course in 2001 and then joined WVU. She participates in the Natural World, Fantasy and Science Fiction and the Writing Process study groups. "Joining WVU gave me the means to stop talking about being a writer and actually become one. I've learned a great deal about the entire craft of writing from first ideas through final edits and manuscript preparation to critiquing from so many folks at WVU. I've benefited tremendously from both the classes and the study groups."

In addition to her job at the newspaper and another one as the Business Development Manager for a local environmentally conscious forestry and wood products company, Shanna plans on continuing to pursue a freelance writing career. "Life is busy!"

Sally Rogow's new book, Faces of Courage, is available in bookstores now. "I was delighted that my book was accepted. I think it is very important that young people have knowledge of history and of the lives of young people who demonstrate courage in difficult or dangerous situations. It took a few years to collect the information and write the stories. All the stories are based on factual information. Every story tells of a rescue, act of resistance and/or survival of a young person in Nazi-occupied Europe."

Other books written and published for young people by Sally are Lillian Wald, the Nurse In Blue and Rosa Minoka Hill: Native Woman Physician. She also has written books and articles for teachers. Her most recent one is Language, Literacy and Children with Special Needs.

Sally, a retired Professor for the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, taught courses in Special Education and did research studies in language development, literacy, play and social development.

"It is so good to be part of WVU, an organization that supports, encourages and actively assists writers. Belonging to WVU has certainly benefited me. I have participated in informal critical groups within WVU. I belong to a recently organized group in Vancouver B.C. and will share this information with them. You can be sure of that."

Congratulations Nannette, Lori, Gwen, Shanna and Sally. We wish you continued success in all your writing endeavors.

We look forward to reading about your writing accomplishments in this column. If you or someone you know received recognition for writing, please send the information to recognitions@wvu.org. Let us know!



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Signs of Life

Nancy L. Horner

Out With the Old

There comes a point in time when even those of us who embrace the “Drive ‘em Till They Drop” philosophy of car ownership have to give in to the facts and fork out the money to acquire a working vehicle. After two years of avoiding the inevitable, I realized time was running out.

My husband and I narrowed down various car options for several months before the day I climbed into our van and saw that the rear-view mirror was, for the second time, on the floor instead of the windshield. This annoyance merely added growling points to the embarrassment of driving with one hubcap missing ("the kudzu ate it," my husband told me, after watching it roll down into a gully thick with our prolific kudzu vines) but it was still one more step toward new-car ownership.

Perturbed about the mirror but eager to get to the park for my morning run, I backed out of the driveway and headed out. By the time I got to the end of the block, though, it was obvious from the high-pitched whine coming from beneath the hood that the van wasn’t shifting out of second gear. I was on the verge of turning around to return home when the automatic transmission made a heavy clunk noise and shifted into third. Saved by the clunk.

The next day, in spite of protest from my husband, I traded cars with him. Our eldest son now lived at a university, car-less, so the Mazda was available to fight over. I wouldn't dare touch the Honda because it had not one but two flashing warning lights glowing. And, our elderly Nissan was experiencing what I liked to think of as one of its “dormant” phases, during which it would reluctantly crank up and then staunchly refuse to go anywhere. So, I snatched the Mazda from hubby. He’s not stupid; he wasn’t willing to drive the Honda, either.

I loved driving the Mazda, partly because a standard transmission is loads of fun. Yes, even females like an excuse to make “Vroom, vroom!” noises while shifting gears. Besides being a hoot to drive, after 180,000 miles our Mazda still idled so quietly that we sometimes questioned whether it was running at all while stopped at intersections. Even better, our teenager replaced the long-dead cassette deck with a used CD player during the time he drove it regularly. Okay, so the entire console fell toward the gear shift if you pushed a button on the CD player with a bit too much force and then tried to yank the stereo back out after it fell backwards into the console. At least it functioned.

But, my beloved Mazda did have one slight problem: the suspension was totally shot.

Let’s face it; a bad suspension is really a mere inconvenience by comparison with something like, say, a dead engine or a non-functioning transmission. So, I didn’t mind that particular foible as long as I was able to safely drive from Point A to Point B—my major requirement for any vehicle. Occasionally, I did feel like the entire car body was going to fly off the wheels, but I made light of it.

Once, after driving down a bumpy back road, I called my husband and joked, “Uh, Houston, we’ve got a wicked shimmy.” He knew exactly what I was referring to.

Another time, I made the mistake of picking up a friend in the Mazda when we went for our weekly walk. Every time we hit a bump, the car bounced back and forth a bit and my terrified friend shrieked, “Watch out!” I tried to explain to her that I was driving the same as I always did, the car body was just attached a bit loosely; but, well, she just didn’t get it. The earache at the end of the drive home was enough to convince me I should take a gamble on driving the van to the park, the next week.

Meanwhile, I let the car dealer I’d been conversing with by e-mail, Ian, know exactly what I was looking for in a new car. I wasn’t eager to indebt myself, but I knew we were reaching Threat Con 5 on the car situation and pretty soon I’d have to give in.

The final straw came on a Thursday. I headed to my youngest son’s school to pick him up—a drive that included hopping on one highway for about 4 miles, then exiting to another highway for a similar length. The problem with both of those stretches of highway was that they involved left exits. Because of its bad suspension, the Mazda shook rather violently over about 55 miles per hour. That fact, along with the fairly short highway distance involved, meant that it was better for me to drive in the left-hand lane, risking the wrath of people in a hurry, than take a gamble on the possibility of becoming totally blocked off so that I couldn’t get into the left-hand lane in time to exit.

In spite of the fact that the speed limit doesn’t actually rise above 55 miles per hour on the second highway stretch, people fiercely tailgated me on both trips to school, so I pulled into the pick-up line, Thursday afternoon, with a sigh of relief. After turning the car off, I opened windows part-way and began to read the book I'd brought along to help pass the time in a hot car.

I was immersed in my reading when one of the teachers, Shirley, walked up to the open car window. Shirley writes down the names of the children whose caregivers have arrived to pick them up and then calls their names out, in order, over a walkie-talkie. I looked up and smiled at her.

“Hey,” Shirley said. “Have you got a big vibration problem when you’re driving on the highway in this car?”

“I do,” I told her.

“Well, I was behind you on the highway and your car was shaking around like crazy on its suspension.”

“Yeah, it has a bad suspension,” I admitted with a nod. “We’ve got four cars. One’s dead on the driveway and three have problems.”

Shirley laughed. “So, it’s the lesser of four evils, huh?”

I nodded. But, I was rather horrified that an acquaintance of mine was unfortunate enough to end up driving behind me on the highway.

The next morning, I called Ian at the car dealership and told him I was ready to test-drive a car. I set up an appointment to meet him on Saturday and late Saturday afternoon I headed home in a new Toyota.

On Monday afternoon, Shirley laughed when I held up a bright orange sign with my youngest child’s name printed on it in big, black letters. “You got a new car!” she said. “Oooh, it looks so nice!”

Later that day, I thought about the Nissan, which we planned to donate to an organization that actually sent out a tow truck to fetch non-functioning donated vehicles, whether they were dead or simply taking a serious nap. The Nissan, I reflected, served us well for most of its 19 years. Come to think of it, we really did drive it till it dropped. Satisfied with that thought, I knew it could happily part with the car and move on, especially given the fact that the new Toyota had a 5-speed, standard transmission. There’s nothing like a little “vroom-vroom” fun to assuage the pain of those monthly car payments.



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Writer's Group

Capturing Those Elusive Ideas When They Strike


It's been a busy summer for the editors of the Craft section — lots of queries, lots of ideas, lots of good things to come in the remaining months of 2003. Still soothing sunburns, scratching mosquito bites and, for some of us, restocking our refrigerators after the Big Blackout hit parts of the U.S. and Canada, we know the holidays will be bearing down on us in no time.

The holiday season can be the best of times, and the worst of times, for writers' productivity. No shortage of inspiration and nostalgia to draw from, we're often short on time to capture ideas in a way that will be meaningful to us three or four months from now. That's why, when these ideas came through our mailbox this summer, we knew we had to change our plans and publish a second Writer's Group a little earlier than scheduled. We think you'll agree that these are creative ways to harness one's Muse — or at least put her on hold for a bit.


From Idea to Article With An Idea Bank — by Radhika Meganathan
Got an idea? Store it!

An "idea bank" ensures that you have your facts ready and, most importantly, it gives you a great query — one you can fill with lots of details. Having an idea bank on hand is particularly great during tight deadlines and sudden assignments.

When I get an idea that I can’t immediately query to a publication, I open my idea bank and a future story is born. Create a separate folder (or a notepad) for future articles. Is there any background work to be done: interviews, quotes, old historical references? Make a note of them along with the idea. You can even talk with experts on the subject, the people involved with the story, or do a little library study. Prepare a list of future articles and store it in a separate folder. When you find the right market for an article, open your query letter template, add the right details, and then ship it off.

“How do I store my ideas? That's a good question!” says Peggy Tibbets, author of "Carly’s Ghost" and managing editor for Writing World. “I have written several story ideas in a spiral notebook labeled 'Story Ideas' and dated them. If the story idea grows into research, and I've collected newspaper and magazine clippings and articles printed from the Internet, I put them in a file folder and give it a working title.”

Once you get the go-ahead from an editor, roll up your sleeves and start. You will find it easier to write your article because your background work is already (mostly) done and you can concentrate on the more difficult details.

  • Evaluate — Is the story still alive? Do the available facts amount to nothing or do you have the makings of a good article? Cross-check if you have enough details (this way you can have a roaring start in less time).
  • Focus — What is most important? Your original story may have taken off in a different direction. Begin to focus the story by thinking about the theme, the approach, and thrust area. Pieces will soon begin to fall into place.
  • Organize — If your ideas are all jumbled together, then your internal editor needs to do a little cleaning up. Start cutting text, form sentences into a cohesive train of thought, and organize everything into interesting paragraphs.
  • Structure — Structuring your article according to the relevant facts makes it complete and readable. If you get stumped, look at back issues of your target publication (or other similar, favorite publications) or have someone read an early draft. If you submit the article and an editor sends it back with a request for some revision, take the suggestions! The editor is telling you what you need to do to guarantee publication!
  • Update — If the initial idea is a little too old to include in the submission, then a Web search or a relevant interview might be necessary in order to strengthen the article's topic and give it a sense of recency or immediacy. Take the time to update your article with relevant facts and additions.

Grab That Memory Before It Slips Away — by Uma Girish
Writing about one's life is healing. It cleanses us of accumulated emotional debris. Yet, when I arrive at my desk all charged up to spin out a 1000-word essay about my tree-climbing childhood, the words do not trip off my pen. Instead, my "memory bank," to borrow a "Rowling-ism," becomes petrified. Anecdotes and events stored in little niches refuse to dislodge themselves and grant me access.

After many mental maneuvers, I discovered a memory trigger idea that serves me well. All it took was a stroll to the local stationery store. I returned with a couple of sheets of chart paper and an assortment of colored pens. I spread out my white chart sheet and, with a felt-tip pen, divided it into a neat grid. Then, using my amateur drawing skills, whenever an object, phrase, book title, piece of music, smell, or color triggers a memory, I draw a picture into one of the squares on my chart grid.

Walking down the market one summer day, an old woman shuffled ahead of me holding a black umbrella. The image of that black umbrella took me back to when, as a seven-year-old, I had walked down a long, narrow road, with spring-green paddy fields on either side. Rain battered down, and a sudden gust of wind plucked the black umbrella from my young fingers and carried it away. I remember standing there watching this awesome sight — an airborne black umbrella. When I returned home, the memory of that black umbrella found its way into a square on my chart.

Once I have several memories pinned down, I return to the chart and pick a memory to write about. I close my eyes, focus on that single moment, and ask myself a few key questions.
  • What do I see? A white house? A vat of toddy?
  • What do I smell? Petrol fumes? Lentil soup? Incense?
  • How does the air feel? Electric? Muggy? Cool?
  • What sounds do I hear? Car horns? Shouting? The eerie stillness of night?
  • Do I taste something? Metallic? Sweet? Sour?
I work hard at drawing out the wholeness of the experience and the richness of the surroundings. I write it all down, in no particular order. Sometimes details elude me, only to surface at the oddest of moments. But a picture does emerge, like a negative that sloshes around in the chemicals of the mind. First fuzzy, then gradually the focus gets clearer.

Much like inspiration, memory triggers don't always knock before they arrive. The connection, very often, happens in a split second. And if you're late in catching it, it slips through the edges of memory and stays hidden until it feels like teasing you again. Now, when I have these unannounced visitors, I grab hold of them and pin them down as drawings in my chart.


PDA: Techno-gadgets That Make Useful Writing Tools — by Eugene Matthews
Want to finish a writing project, but can’t find the time? Need to track more than one project? Writers can write more and write now, using a personal data assistant (PDA).

The PDA keeps any writing project less than 30 seconds away. The traditional writer may feel limited by having to write at a desk, but with the PDA, a writer can write virtually anywhere quickly and efficiently. If it can be written with pen and paper, it can be written using a PDA.

Once a document is created or added to the PDA, you can revise and edit it whenever or wherever you find a few spare moments. The PDA give you the flexibility to “chip away” at a writing project and complete it — typically faster than when you use more traditional methods. Having your writing project constantly available on your PDA, and having the PDA constantly available, every spare moment could be used to review or modify your document. You are no longer hampered by the need for traditional writing equipment.

Tracking multiple writing projects and a busy schedule can be a chore. Calendar applications are standard with most PDAs and are a powerful asset. By using the built-in PDA calendar program, it is very simple to keep track of all types of tasks. Adding the date and time an interview was done, complete with notes taken during the interview, lets you keep your research material within reach. A calendar containing all the deadlines, speaking engagements, writing opportunities, and other scheduled events lets you accurately maintain a clear picture of where you stand and helps you to focus your activities. You can even set a reminder alarm to alert you of a scheduled commitment, preventing anything from falling through the cracks.

The PDA is easy to learn and simple to use. The added benefit of compactness and lightness lets you discreetly carry your PDA in a purse or pocket. The key advantage is the ability to write virtually anywhere, anytime. Since the PDA takes only moments to activate, and documents can be created immediately, you are able to write in the moment, instantly capturing ideas. As the artificial writing boundaries are overcome, you will find yourself writing more often — in the park, on your camping trip, in a waiting room...virtually anywhere a PDA can be taken.

From "how to" to "whodunnit," poetry to travel, whether the goal is to write an article or a book, the PDA let you write faster, write more, and write now!


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Writer's Read

Wynelda-Ann Shelton

The Ultimate Writer’s Resource….

For many of us, the ultimate resource for our writing is the public library system. I, personally, am often at the library every single week. Sometimes I get books for research, but often times I get fiction books. Many of the books that I have reviewed in this column found their way into my hands because of the public library system. Ahab's Wife is one of many books that I have enjoyed because the library makes it easy to branch outside of our comfortable genres.

As a child, I often went to the local library. It was about the size of a 7-11 store. But I can still remember the comfy bean bag chairs to flop in while reading. The librarian was always helping me to find books on my latest passion. She helped me to find books on horses, race-car driving, living in the “olden” days. It was at the library that I learned how to do research and that there was a whole big world outside of my little part of it.

Many of my friends at WVU have heard of my “library intervention” scene. I was told that I was checking out too many books; the library has a limit of $700.00 worth of books or 70 books. I successfully argued them around to my point of view. They were all books that I needed for research after all. With a pointed look, he motioned towards the stack of fiction books. “Market research,” was my reply.

It was with great sorrow that I heard of the budget crisis facing my local library. And it’s not just my library. As the economy slows down, many communities are slicing their libraries budgets. The county library system where I live had to cut their book buying budget by 40%. I decided to get involved. And now I’m asking you to get involved with your public library.

Many libraries are posting a “Call for Books” on their websites. These are books that they would like to add to their collection. They are also in need of recent best-sellers, fiction, reference, CDs and videos. You can make a cash donation, which they will use to great effect. I, myself, have donated two books to my local library and hope to donate more soon. I talked with the librarian of my local branch to see what I could do to help.

Libraries are wonderful friends to writers. For many, it is a source not only of information but also inspiration.



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Submissions Guidelines (Updated)

Until further notice, only plain text submissions in the body of the email will be considered.
NO ATTACHMENTS.

What We Pay For

Fiction: Stories should be of interest to writers in general, not just a narrow group.

Fiction should be submitted to fiction@thewritersezine.com. Payment starts at $15.00.

If considered for publication, you will be asked to return an email agreement including your name and address.

Craft Features: Queries about Craft features should be sent to nonfiction@thewritersezine.com.

Payment starts at $15.00, and, if considered, you will be sent an email agreement to fill out and return.

Poetry: Due to the large number of recent poetry submissions, a temporary hold on further poetry submissions is in place until early 2008.

Please do not email us to ask what we pay for in other categories. When we can add to our list, we will include it in these guidelines.

What We Publish

Original short fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, particularly non-fiction related to the craft of writing and interviews.

For fiction we prefer something with a plot and resolution. If we like the main character, we are more likely to accept the story. If the main character has a problem to resolve or has to make a choice, that's conflict, and we love conflict! Too many writers confuse conflict with fight scenes. Don't be one of them. Give us a protagonist who acts, makes choices no matter how hard they are to solve his or her dilemma, not a wimp who drifts along and has to be rescued.

Non-fiction should be related to the craft of writing or be good resource material for writers. Accuracy and originality are vital. No reprints. If it has already been published somewhere else, our readers will spot it and let us know.

What We Won't Publish

Anything that inspires "hate," is defamatory or is pornographic.

Simultaneous submissions.

Material that has appeared elsewhere (reprints).

Seasonal material submitted during the same month (i.e., a Christmas story in December). Our lead time is short compared to print publications, but we do need time to edit, html and proof submission. A good guideline is to submit the manuscript by the first of the preceding month (i.e., submit a Christmas story before November 1st).

Length Recommendations

  • For Fiction, under 1500 words is preferred. We will consider excerpts from longer works.

  • Poetry should fit on one printed page if possible. A maximum of five poems may be submitted at one time (when the hold is lifted).

  • Non-fiction or Craft features have the most leeway in word count. In general these manuscripts should be 750 to 2,000 words. We like to take advantage of the hypertext capabilities we have available and link to charts, graphs, lists and so forth. Thumbnail versions may be included in the body of the article.

Rights

All rights other than first electronic, non-exclusive 'anthology' (for collections of T-Zero: The Writer's Ezine works only), and non-exclusive archival rights (we keep back issues online) are and remain the sole and exclusive property of the author.

Formats We Will Accept

Plain text in the body of an email.

T-Zero: The Writer's Ezine is an HTML publication. This gives us access to a variety of options but it is also a limiting factor.

  • Underlining is used exclusively for links in HTML. Please do not underline in your manuscript. It you are including a link to a webpage for reference, please mark the link the following way: (WEB LINK) http://thewritersezine.com (END WEB LINK).
  • The less than (<) and greater than (>) signs are used to enclose HTML encoding. If you need to use brackets, please use the square [ ] ones instead.
  • Paragraph indentation requires time consuming insertion of multiple HTML symbols. Please separate paragraphs by inserting a hard, blank line between them.
  • Fonts need to be simple. No multiple fonts. We prefer standard fonts such as Times New Roman, Courier or Arial set at 12 point. If your subject matter requires something else, ask us first.
  • The curly (smart) quotes, apostrophes, the em dash (two hyphens together) and ellipsis … (three periods) become strange and exotic characters when copied from your word processor into email. Check your preferences or options to see if you can use straight quotes. 
  • Text formatting such as bold, italic, centering, bullet list, etc., should be noted in the text by using all caps in parentheses. For example, if you wanted to italicize the word submission, you would type: (ITALICS) submission (END ITALICS).

Editing

We expect you to run spell-check and to check your grammar and punctuation before submitting. We will not reject a submission for a few typos or errors, but will if there are an excessive number of errors.

Note: Since our reading audience is international, we do not require a specific version of English. Use the spelling appropriate to your region.

We will automatically correct obvious typos such as “ton” for “not” and may correct simple agreement problems. For anything beyond that, time permitting, we will return the submission to you with a request for corrections.

Getting to Know You

Fiction and Craft features published in T-Zero: The Writer's Ezine include brief third person biographical notes on the writers. For all submissions, please compose your own bio and include it to save our editors and yourself time later if/when your piece is accepted for publication. We suggest sharing a little about your background, occupation, geographical location and what inspired your story.

How and Where to Submit

We do not accept submissions via US mail. Email submissions only, to the appropriate department, in the body of the email. No attachments accepted.

Fiction should be sent to fiction@thewritersezine.com.

Craft Non-fiction should be queried first. Send query to nonfiction@thewritersezine.com.

Poetry: Due to the large number of recent poetry submissions, a temporary hold on further poetry submissions is in place until early 2008.

Include the type of submission (fiction, non-fiction) in the subject line.

Be sure to include your name and email address in the body of the email.

If you do not receive an acknowledgement that your submission or query was received within a week, please send a follow-up query with “Did you Receive?” in the subject line. In the body of the email, please include your name and email address, the title of the work submitted, and if different, the email address sent from. Do not resend the submission unless we request it.

Good luck!


T-Zero: The Writer's Ezine
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Copyright 1998 - 2007, Writopia Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

© Copyright 1998 - 2007, Writopia Inc. All rights reserved