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Recognitions

Vivian Reed

Welcome to Recognitions, where the writing successes of Writers’ Village University members are celebrated. Springtime brings a sense of growth and renewal. At WVU, the writers are not just growing; they’re thriving!

SHANNA LEWIS
In late December, Shanna Lewis learned that she’d received three awards from the Colorado Press Association, but she had to wait two months to find out which of her stories were being honored. “I was delighted that I won for both my writing and for my photography,” she recalls. “Since I split my time at the Wet Mountain Tribune between photography and writing plus some page design work, I was pleased to receive recognition in both areas.”

“Fire and Water,” Shanna’s prize-winning news story, covered the huge wildfire that destroyed some 12,000 acres in the eastern Rocky Mountains in 2005 and the resulting floods in 2006. Shanna also produced a radio story on this topic which can be heard at the Western Skies archives.

The Tribune sent Shanna to the convention to accept her awards in February. She stayed with her husband at the Brown Palace, Denver’s finest old hotel. They went to a luncheon for the press at the governor’s residence, visited the new Denver Art Museum and attended a Shakespeare play as well as enjoying some great restaurants. “We made the whole four-day weekend a celebration,” Shanna says.

She and her husband live in a tiny, off-the-grid, solar-powered straw bale house that they built themselves in the mountains of Colorado. Shanna works at the weekly newspaper in Westcliffe that’s been in publication since 1833. She says, “I like covering local events and people, and I’m glad to report about a variety of subjects.” Check out Shanna’s work at the Wet Mountain Tribune.

Besides working as a full-time journalist and doing freelance writing online and in print, Shanna is also an independent radio producer. She contributes regularly to programs on KRCC and has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition.  In print or on the air, she’s done stories about artists, musicians, archeology, astronomy, beekeeping, history, the environment, good sportsmanship, agriculture and many other topics.

“I think everything I do inspires my writing, but I’m particularly partial to yoga, tai chi, belly dancing, hiking, skiing, and reading,” Shanna says. Besides print, radio and photo journalism, she also likes to write fiction, poetry, essays, and plays. She collaborated with her husband on an adventure novel for middle grade readers which they plan to revise for publication. She says she’s wanted to be a writer since she was a pre-teen and adds, “I dream of having the time to write a science fiction novel.”

Shanna has participated in many classes and belongs to a number of different study groups at the Writers' Village University. Currently, time limitations prevent her from being very active. “During my time at WVU I’ve learned much about the craft of writing, about critiquing and editing, about the nuts and bolts of submitting writing and more,” she says. “I never really understood how to craft a good story until I joined WVU.”

The classes and study groups also helped her make the adjustment from “talking about being a writer to being a writer.” Shanna explains, “I realized that I wasn’t getting any younger and if I wanted to be a writer I’d better hurry up and get started.” Although she feels she’s moved from asking questions to answering them, she still turns to WVU for information. “If I have a question about writing or the business of writing, there’s a good chance that someone in the WVU community will have the answer,” she says. “Plus I still get great feedback on my writing.”

For beginning writers, Shanna suggests taking advantage of readily available writing resources like books, websites, seminars and writers’ groups as well as listening to experienced writers for tips. “The best thing to do with the inner critic,” she says, “is to lock it away. Give yourself permission to write poorly, get ideas down and then let the inner critic out to help you revise your work and turn it from bad writing into good writing.”

Shanna also believes that writing in different genres helps build skills that cross over into other genres. “Practice, practice, practice,” she urges, “read, read, read, learn, learn, learn and then practice some more.”

MARIANNE ARKINS
“Regardless of the trappings, it’s ultimately always about romance,” Maria from Timeless Tales says of her writing. Two of her short stories, “Tickle Fights and Barbecues” and “Now that We’ve Found You,” have recently been published at the Wild Rose Press under her pseudonym, Marianne Arkins.

“It’s a baby step in reaching my ultimate goal of having a novel published, but it has given me the confidence that I can attain my dream.” Maria says. “The editors at the Wild Rose Press are astoundingly good and have helped me strengthen my writing craft.” She also sharpens her skills by maintaining a website, “Marianne Arkins, Hopeless Romantic and Storyteller,” and a blog, “Reading, Writing & Stuff that Makes Me Crazy.”

Maria celebrated her stories’ publication “by hunkering down and writing some more.” She hopes to have dozens of stories accepted at the Wild Rose Press. “No matter how much I like my writing,” she says, “it comes as a surprise that someone is willing to pay me for it.”

California born and raised, Maria finished her first novel when she was ten and completed two more as a teenager. One of them, a mystery, was a finalist in the Avon Teen Novel Writing Contest. “That was all the encouragement I needed to get hooked,” she recalls. Now living with her family in New Hampshire, Maria homeschools her seven-year-old daughter. She writes in the basement, also known as the “Mushroom Pit,” and enjoys gardening and scrapbooking in her spare time.

“Timeless Tales is where my heart belongs,” Maria says of the study group at WVU that she moderates. “This group is dedicated to romance and women’s fiction, and no matter what genre I write in (from fantasy to mystery to contemporary), I can’t keep romance off the page. We have a wonderful core group of members who are talented and encouraging.”

When Maria first joined WVU, she was involved in two other study groups. “I give Creative Energies Unlimited the credit for getting me on my feet,” she says, “and Persist and Publish helped me get serious about being published. That group is chock full of talented writers.” Her two stories published by the Wild Rose Press began as prompt responses in Persist and Publish. “In fact, most of my short stories and the novel I’m currently editing for submission all began as prompt responses!” Maria says. “There is a power in letting your mind roam free.”

Besides the novel she’s currently editing, Maria has two others, a mystery and a “sweet romance,” that are in the beginning stages. Of her dozens of short stories, three are under consideration with editors right now. “I started out writing fantasy and mystery and sometimes I go back,” she says. “I am currently working on a romantic mystery that is challenging me, and I have the idea for a fantasy that I’ll tackle when I’m up to world-building.”

As a member of Romance Writers of America, Maria reads widely in the genre and particularly likes Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz, Julie Garwood and J. R. Ward. “Jennifer Crusie is my absolute fave,” she says. “I love her sense of humor and amazing ability to create characters that leap off the page.” Since she’s been involved in RWA, Maria says, “I’ve intentionally tried to seek out new authors and have discovered a few gems. Colleen Gleason and Paula Graves are two that come to mind.”

Maria gets up early every morning (typically around 4 a.m.) to have quiet writing time. “I also try to squeeze in an hour or two during the afternoon while my daughter works on her schoolwork,” she says. “I usually do the new stuff in the morning when I’m assured there will be no interruptions.” She has participated in National Novel Writing Month twice and feels it has helped her learn to “get the words down and get it finished.” Maria adds, “My goals this year were to submit at least two items every month, and so far, I’m right on track. I submit based on the rules set by the editor, BUT I always have something out somewhere.”

To new writers, Maria advises, “Hone your craft and never think you know more than other more experienced writers.” She also encourages them to submit work. “I know so many people who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. If you really want to succeed and be published, you have to get your work out there.”

CATRIONA ANNIS
“Just write, just do it,” Catriona Annis advises beginning writers. “Believe in yourself but don’t be obnoxious and don’t take critique personally. Editors are busy people.” Her poem, “A Single Malt,” was published recently in the Vanguard, the University of Queensland’s literary journal. “I knew it worked as a poem,” she says, “but it was a surprise to have it accepted immediately.”

Born in Scotland, Catriona remembers her grandmother’s tales of weird happenings connected to the Loch Ness monster. She grew up in the outskirts of London and won a scholarship to a posh English school before moving to Australia. Now she lives in Canberra with her husband, a sculptor, and her adult children. “There’s always something going on here,” she says, “almost too much to keep up with.”

Catriona posts her poetry at Word Weavers and Addled Muses. “Addled Muses are particularly encouraging, helpful and fun,” she says, “and I incorporate suggestions from Word Weavers.” She adds with a laugh, “I’m not precious about my poetry. It needs all the help it can get.” She was an early member of WVU and recalls Bob Hembree and Judy Hunt being in her classes. She re-enrolled after her husband gave her a membership to WVU as a Christmas present.

Her previous job as a journalist took Catriona all over Australia, reporting on agricultural shows. She also collaborated with veterinarians on three major textbooks. While promoting the books, she had to show a video called “Mating and Reproduction (Pigs)” to schoolchildren. “The number of dads who lined up to watch always amazed me,” she says. Currently, she works part-time as a research editor.

For relaxation, Catriona loves knitting and crochet, and she picked up another hobby, shooting a .22 caliber rifle, as part of a government research job monitoring wildlife. “Not many people have jobs which involve being an accurate shot, but I had to kill feral animals occasionally, which I hated, for test purposes. I felt it should be a quick death for them.” She recalls with a grin, “The staff slogan was ‘save our wild life’ and they didn’t mean animals.”

Poetry and articles are the targets of Catriona’s interest at the moment. “I’ve just completed a series of interviews with jazz musicians. Canberra had a Modern Jazz Quartet equivalent playing right here in the 1950s.” Catriona, who first got interested in writing through classes she took in preparation for writing her thesis for a master’s degree in education, has interviewed Diana Gabaldon and Bryce Courtney. She’s found that authors don’t mind being approached for interviews since the publicity helps their book sales.

“I am passionate about poetry,” Catriona says. “Canberra is known as cool-climate wine country and I am working on a suite of Tanka and Haiku based on wine language, which is quite rich and varied. At the moment, Canberra is experiencing strange weather changes and I want to put that into poetry too.” She lists bush poetry and sonnets along with science reports and interviews in the wide range of her writing experience.

“The most important thing for me,” she says, “is to write about the near death and partial recovery of my first daughter when she became a quadriplegic after a long coma. I’ve got two short books nearly completed, maybe as a verse novel.”

Catriona writes every day no matter what’s going on and almost everything she’s submitted has been accepted. She’s had short stories published but finds real life much more interesting. She observes, “People want to read or hear about real life experiences. Why else are reality shows so popular?”

RAMON COLLINS
“I am absolutely convinced micro and flash are fiction’s future,” predicts Ramon Collins. Besides being the “driver” of WVU’s Micro Bus study group, he’s had three recent publications online. Check out his work at Take Five, Shine...The Journal,  and David’s Coyote Den. His latest ink-on-paper story is available in volume 3 of Write Side Up.

Ramon’s enthusiasm for the short-short story is contagious. Two members of his Micro Bus study group (who are profiled below) won honorable mention at the Fiction Flyer in February. He explains the growing popularity of the form, “As online fiction submission guidelines grow shorter, a new reading audience is born. In order to capture these readers, print publications will have to publish short-short works. Short films are growing in popularity too.”

Known as Ramon at WVU, he says, “I had a nickname, Z34#973_GooGooGuy_K49#337, but I couldn’t remember it.” He revved up the Micro Bus about six months ago. “The riders (writers) on the bus offer positive and constructive suggestions to each other and to me,” Ramon says. “Their various styles and approaches to writing fiction have been a definite influence on my writing.”

On the staff of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for 30 years, Ramon advanced from staff artist to magazine art director to cartoonist. “I worked with some of the finest writers and editors in the Northwest,” he recalls. Even though he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1980, he continued at the newspaper until 1995. When he lost small-muscle control in his hands, he turned to writing in order to stay involved with the creative act. “I type with one finger and the top of my pointed head,” he says.

Now living outside Las Vegas “in a little Huckleberry Finn town on the northeast edge of the Mojave Desert,” Ramon says his main career these days besides writing is “defying gravity.” He explains, “I walk and talk like Donald Duck, and I have a high-pitched whine that drives the neighbor’s dog bonkers. Without the care of my Irish wife, Nicky (a.k.a. The Lucky Kid), I would’ve been in an assisted living home ten years ago. Other than that, we laugh a lot.”

While teaching cartooning at the university level, Ramon would remind his students, “To be a cartoonist, you MUST learn to write, to boil things down. There isn’t room in a cartoon balloon for adjectives and adverbs.” To new writers, he says, “Any creative act consists of giving birth to an original idea. There’s always a chance some stranger will peek into the crib and say your baby is ugly. Get used to it.”

The editor at a now defunct literary journal accepted Ramon’s first story and then revised it without permission. “He turned it into a corny Abbott & Costello comedy routine. I was not happy,” Ramon recalls. “I retired to my club, the Backstop Tavern, and consulted my therapist, Dr. Jim Beam.”

After that, Skyline (NY) Publications (also defunct) published six or seven of his stories and Ramon won its 2002 Short Story Competition. Since then, most of his stories have appeared online. He comments wryly, “I often wonder if I was responsible for these magazines going belly up.” He also notes, “With Mother Nature’s help, I’ll be 76 on Saint Patrick’s Day. My modest success writing fiction makes me proud.”

VEE SHANAHAN
“How did I feel when ‘The Secret’ was accepted for publication?” Vee Shanahan muses. “As if I’d been given an undeserved present. Actually, as strange as it sounds, it is a bit like having a new baby in the house, but you get to sleep through the night and there are no dirty diapers.”

Vee’s flash fiction story received honorable mention and appeared in the February issue of Fiction Flyer e-zine on page seven. She uses the name Dina Graham for her writing out of respect for her two grandmothers.

“I joined WVU early in its career,” Vee says, “and I consider that decision to be one of the more intelligent I’ve ever made.” She enjoys the classes and feels she’s benefited from interacting with the outstanding writers and personalities. “I am glad to know that I occasionally make an intelligent decision,” she adds. “All is not lost.”

A longtime member of Addled Muses, Vee points out the international scope of that study group. “Steve, our British leader, who denies he is a leader but acknowledges being British, writes brilliant stories, books and plays,” she says. “AJ’s contributions from France are terrific, along with those of my fellow Americans, Roy, Chuck, and Ginny.”

Vee hopped on board the Micro Bus study group only recently to learn more about the art of writing short fiction. “Ramon Collins, who is the driver on the Bus, is a gift to all of us who participate. An excellent writer himself, Ramon knows how to effectively critique without being sarcastic or mean,” she says. “How good is that? Priceless!” Her story, “The Secret,” evolved from her work in this group.

Born in Chicago, a city she adores, Vee went to school there and in California before attending college in central Illinois. “I was one of the country’s three hundred trillion English majors,” she says. “You have to be interested in writing to survive.” Later, she lived in Massachusetts and Connecticut with her mathematician husband and spent time in England, France and Ireland as well. “When we uprooted all nine kids to live abroad, people thought my husband and I were being a bit, well, crazy,” Vee recalls. “Having nine kids sounds nutty enough, but then to cart them around the world like that? Well, if the shoe fits!”

Now living in South Carolina, Vee starts the day by signing onto her computer. “I check e-mail, check Micro Bus, check Addled Muses, do some running around, complain about the news to my husband and then finally at noon, I settle down to writing.” She keeps a journal and often draws from it, particularly for her travel articles. She is currently working on two books.

One book involves a murder in an art museum. “I’ve worked in art museums. Love that kind of work, as well as the people involved in it,” Vee says. About her other book, which takes place in Chicago during the depression, she says, “I have a trove of stories handed down by family members, and this book is gaining prominence in my life. I keep shifting the protagonist around from a child to a father. I can’t decide where to settle it. Maybe I should work on the mother?”

Vee is also a published poet. “I was truly fortunate to belong to a group of outstanding poets led by Arnold Kenseth, who won first prize for the American Scholar Poetry Competition,” she says. As a young man, Kenseth had worked with Robert Frost and T. S. Eliot and also knew e. e. cummings and Wallace Stevens. “Talk about feeling humble! Yikes!” she says, laughing. “And yet, he was such a humble man himself. Well, as my mother said, ‘Comparisons are odious, so don’t go there.’

“My advice to new writers is the same advice writers have been handing out for years,” Vee continues. “Don’t give up. Read books about writing, but take them all with a grain of salt.” She struggles sometimes with her inner critic. “I keep telling myself that I should be no harder on me than I am on other writers, but that gets me nowhere because I don’t believe it,” she admits before offering one more writing tip. “Follow submission guidelines relentlessly.”

JILL O’CONNOR
Jill O’Connor, the other Micro Bus rider whose story won honorable mention in February’s Fiction Flyer credits her study group. “If it wasn’t for the Micro Bus, Ramon, and my fellow riders, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to submit the story,” she says.

The Micro Bus started in November, evolving from Ramon Collins’s flash fiction course, and Jill thinks he’s been a fantastic driver. “He provides us with weekly prompts and then we critique each other’s work,” she explains. “We learn so much from each other, what works, what doesn’t. Thanks to the positive support we provide each other, we have all become better, more confident writers.”

“Not a Martyr” was the first story Jill had ever submitted. “I was shocked that it was being published,” she remembers.” It was around Christmas time when I found out. I celebrated by getting ‘merry’ with my husband and a few friends.” The story, called a drabble and made up of exactly one hundred words, will also be posted at Dragon Eye, PI.

Jill grew up in central Pennsylvania and spent some time in New Orleans, where she met her husband Jerry, a musician. They moved to England and lived in Jerry’s hometown, London, for a while before moving back to the U.S. and settling in central Pennsylvania. Also in residence is their cat, Mini-Me, who’s a Sphinx (a hairless breed) and requires a lot of attention because he’s blind in one eye and has a seizure disorder. He loves to sit on Jill’s laptop. “Between my husband, my cat, writing and holding down a full-time job, I don’t have much time for hobbies, but during the little bit of down time I have, I enjoy watching English football (soccer),” she says. Her favorite team is Chelsea.

Flash fiction is currently Jill’s main writing focus. “My characters suit the story I write, but to be honest, they’re pretty disposable,” she says. As with longer fiction, dialogue augments character development. “On the Micro Bus, we usually only write stories of about 150 words,” Jill points out, “although Ramon was generous last week and we got to write 300 words. We don’t have much room for descriptions or background info on the characters.”

Her other writing interests are poetry and magic realism. Of poetry, she says, “I’m not very good at it, but I love it. It’s a good way to organize thought fragments.” She’s also involved in an online group that plans to create and eventually publish a collaborative magical realism project. Jill’s favorite authors reflect her writing interests. She enjoys reading Salman Rushdie, whom she met at a local university, as well as Tom Robbins, Angela Carter, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Aimee Bender, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. “I could go on,” she says, “but I don’t know how much space you have in the newsletter!”

An ideal writing day for Jill “would hold 28 hours instead of 24. I would have more ideas than I could write down, and I would be able to write in absolute quiet and solitude.” Her actual writing routine begins about 11:00 p.m. when she gets home from work, writing until 2:00 or 2:30 in the morning. On her days off, she also works on stories or assignments for WVU classes.

Regarding her inner critic, Jill says: “I let her have her say. Sometimes she’s right. I could have done better work on a story. Sometimes she’s wrong. I did my best work and have every reason to be proud. I will listen to anything fair and reasonable from my inner critic. Anything else I ignore.”

Although she says her submission technique is spotty, Jill finds time to look for markets that concentrate on magical realism and more surrealist stories. She’s recently submitted pieces to Glimmer Train, the Binnacle, River Styx and Mad Hatters’ Review. “I’ve been interested in writing all my life,” Jill notes. “I just didn’t do anything about it till last year when I joined WVU. Since then writing has taken over my life. It is my favorite thing to do, and I spend as much time as I can doing it.”

Congratulations Shanna, Maria, Catriona, Ramon, Vee and Jill. Your successes renew all of our writing aspirations. Many more writers at WVU have achieved writing success recently and will be featured in upcoming columns. Please contact me at recognitions@wvu.org about your acceptances, publications, e-launches or awards so your achievements will also be included. Be sure to use “T-Zero Recognitions” as part of the subject line.


About the Author
Vivian Reed lives and writes in Long Beach, California. With the patient support of her husband and two sons, she is currently “transitioning” into a full-time writing career. Several of her poems have appeared in literary magazines, and before she became a mother, two of her plays were produced in the Los Angeles area. She is proud to write the Recognitions column for T-Zero: The Writer’s E-Zine.