Poetry . . . and More

Have you ever seen a living poet inhabit the body, mind and spirit of a deceased one? I did recently during one of the literary events I’ve attended in 2013. We live in an extremely rich literary region, and here are a few amazing venues that prove it!

Dunbar and Martin

Last Saturday, April 13, I experienced the first installment in the Ohioana Library’s “On the Road” Saturday Literary Adventure Series, touring both the Paul Laurence Dunbar house and Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center. The highlight was a performance by Herbert Woodward Martin, a Dunbar scholar, who hasn’t lost any of his enthusiasm for performing the work of Dayton’s most famous writer. From the standard-English classic “We Wear the Mask” to dialect delights such as “An Ante-Bellum Sermon” to Martin’s own original poetry, the former University of Dayton poet-in-residence brought the written word to life with his flawless performance.

Due to tardiness of some participants, the tour began almost an hour late. However, because a video was not shown, Martin’s part of the program was fortunately not shortened. If you missed this one, check out Ohioana.org for the rest of the series. From now through December, there’s at least one tour per month celebrating Ohio authors, including such gems as “The Mysteries of Amish Country” in September to “Thurber’s Haunted House” in October. Hop on the bus!

Troy-Hayner Poetry Series

It takes me only thirty-five minutes to drive from Yellow Springs to Troy, Ohio, where Professor David Petreman has been hosting his winter poetry series for twelve years. A well-published regional writer reads on a Thursday evening every January, February and March, culminating in a reading by winners of the annual contest. Last February I decided to drive up and hear Petreman himself read. I was extremely glad I did.

The Troy-Hayner Cultural Center, a beautiful, stately mansion, was given to the city by a family who made their fortune from whiskey. The rooms where the readings and reception occur make you feel like you’re waiting to hear Poe or Twain take the stage. Dave entertained with diverse poems about everything from losing his daughter in the Chilean outback to travel in Tierra del Fuego.  His seventh-grade daughter Amalia, a Stivers School for the Arts student, played solo violin during brief interludes:  a real treat. It’s a classy series in an atmospheric setting, well worth the trip.

Montage Café

It’s a short hop west of Troy to historic Greenville, Ohio, home of the Friends of the Library‘s  varied-genre readings that take place at the wonderful Montage Café on a Friday night once a month in January, February and March. Last month, I read from a novel-in-progress to an incredibly attentive and appreciative audience. Librarians, readers and writers, these folks take their literature seriously. You can tell from the photo how atmospheric and inviting Montage is, and friends who attended said the food was yummy. I sold a passel of books and made some new friends. Mark your calendars for next year.

Yellow Springs Library

Spring, Old Blue Eyes
Spring, Old Blue Skies—
The sun a flower in Easter’s hat—
And every robin’s bobulating . . .

These lines were recited by Robert Paschell when the Yellow Springs branch of the Greene Country Library sponsored its first poetry reading in honor of National Poetry Month last Tuesday, April 10. Hosted by Paschell, the living embodiment of Walt Whitman himself, the reading also included poets Maxine Skuba and Jack Whitacre. (Everyone knows Robert, the gentle, bearded guy who sells his pun-delicious hand-made tee-shirts on the street.) After opening with the poem above, Robert circulated a two-page list of opening lines, urged us to make requests and then held forth with the memorized poem, often lengthy with dazzling imagery and language. No dull monotones here, these poets enacted their work. Maxine’s often humorous, Jack’s slightly Buddhist with a hip-hop edge. We kept dragging out more and more chairs, a healthy sign that poetry is alive and well in Yellow Springs. It was suggested by many that another poetry event be held in the YS library this year.

Readings to Come

And while we’re on the library scene, a poetry reading that’s become an annual fixture is the one hosted by Conrad Balliet at the Montgomery Country Library’s downtown branch.  This year’s event is slated for April 20, Sat. 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Star of WYSO’s “Conrad’s Corner,” Conrad is a one-man support system of local poets. The annual reading features poets from his program and always includes an open mic. He’s always scouting for writers who’d like to air their work on radio. Conrad limits poets to three minutes each, so it’ll be a brisk smorgasbord. You’ll hear exciting new voices alongside veteran performers. I read a couple of years ago, and I can promise you won’t be disappointed.

While you’re at it, you may as well mark your calendars also for Friday, December 13, when Tecumseh Land Trust and Vernet Ecological Center will sponsor the second annual Glen Helen Poetry Reading. Last December more than twenty local poets performed, and this year promises the same sort of riches when the theme is “Solstice.” Stay tuned for more details as the year wanes.

Poetry’s Purpose

At the conclusion of his performance noted above,  Robert Paschell said he considers his mission as a poet is to praise. Perhaps, too, as the final lines of his poem with which I began this blog state, it’s “to show the hidden sparkle/In the depths of every living thing.”  Amen, poets and writers everywhere.

At Montage

“Do you want to know the two writers your work puts me in the mind of?” was the first comment I received from the audience after my reading last Friday night, March 22^nd, at Montage Café in Greenville, Ohio. The answer:  “Barbara Kingsolver and John Steinbeck.”

Note that she did not say my work was as worthy as theirs, just that I reminded her of them. It made me wonder, in retrospect, what characteristics I might share with two of my literary heroes—and what it might mean for my own writing.

The Physical World

I think I share with Steinbeck and Kingsolver a passionate interest in the physical world. I re-read Grapes of Wrath at the end of 2011 and East of Eden a year later for the first time. I can’t imagine an American writer with more appreciation for the natural world than Steinbeck. Whether it’s the hard road from Oklahoma to California or the incredible beauty of a Salinas Valley homestead, Steinbeck paints his canvas in bold, primary colors. And whether it’s Africa of the 1950s or present-day Appalachia, Kingsolver’s keen eye and training as a biologist translate into unsentimental, realistic portraits of the natural world she knows and loves.

One of my jobs in writing The Measure of Everything was to capture to the best of my ability why Ohio ground was worth saving from development. In my novel-in-progress Between Home and Hardwoods (6,000 words of which I shared with the Montage audience),  I try to dramatize how land in southern Ohio has been removed from the economy to save its diversity of species. Trees are the novel’s featured species. Will my readers accept that a human being can so powerfully connect with a couple of 500-year-old oaks that they seem sentient? We’ll see . . .

Themes

It’s hard to think of two American writers more concerned with social issues than Kingsolver and Steinbeck. Grapes of Wrath definitely showed how hard it is to make a living off the land, but it’s not the ravages of nature during the dust bowl that finally defeated the Joads as much as it was the anti-unionist corporate farming machine they encountered once they arrived in California. Kingsolver powerfully showed in Prodigal Summer (her best, in my humble opinion) why economics isn’t the only measure by which species (for example, coyotes) should be allowed to survive. And her most recent, Flight Behavior, tackles the greatest current challenge to the planet’s existence, suggesting society’s failures.  (Please read it, if you haven’t.)

I tackle suburban sprawl and unsustainable economic activity in, respectively, The Measure of Everything and Between Home and Hardwoods. But, unlike my betters, my focus is micro rather than macro—I lack their broader national if not international scope, tending to focus on what’s right in front of me.

Family:  Seeds of Identity

American novelists have always turned a keen, critical eye on the family, usually  the dysfunctional family, and I agree that it’s inside this basic unit where many if not most of the Grand Dramas are worked out. How better to show the destruction capitalism hath wrought than to show it killing, literally and figuratively, the characters we’ve come to know and love in Grapes of Wrath. Likewise, the family is the best vehicle for re-telling East of Eden’s Cain and Abel story, in which we meet possibly the best embodiment of the evil anti-mother in literature.  Kingsolver matches Steinbeck’s portrait of evil with the obsessed, abusive father-minister at the heart of Poisonwood Bible.

I suppose it could be said I write about little other than the family. I Was So Much Older Then dramatized a poor West Virginia kid’s attempt to find a family other than the one biology gave him; The Measure of Everything’s Billy Acorn’s relationship with his father has been poisoned by his father’s focus on the same greed motivating some of the developers. Between Home and Heartwoods concerns a city woman who shucks the culture in which she was raised in order to join a rural Appalachian family.  For me, family—dysfunctional and functional, nuclear and extended—is where the seeds of identity are both sown and grown.

World Without Soul?

These two writers give all of us a high standard to aspire to.  They help me assess the performance of my peers, my country, myself—and let me know how far we all fall short of the principles, of say, Lincoln and King. They depict evil, yes, but they also give us towering characters to measure our own lives against:  Grapes of Wrath’s Ma Joad, East of Eden’s stereotype-busting philosopher-nanny-cook Lee and Flight Behavior’s entomologist-ecologist Ovid, who asks, “What [is] the use of saving a world that has no soul left in it[?].”

Literary Parents

Their ultimate value to me as a writer is to offer guidance, as a parent would, by example rather than exhortation. Steinbeck comes across as a gentle father and family man in Journal of a Novel:  The East of Eden Letters,  which he wrote alongside the novel. Kingsolver is, by her own admission, a shy person who prefers her computer to crowds of admirers. It’s the passions, fears and joys conveyed through their characters and conflicts that inspire me to be the best writer I can possibly be. In the end, it’s an impossible standard but one I’ll aspire to, anyway, as I consider the next extensive revision of my latest book and the revision after that and maybe even the one after that.

After the Flood

Just wanted to let you know, if you don’t already, that Xenia’s Blue Jacket Books (BJB) is back in business, better than ever, after a burst water pipe destroyed 20,000 books in January 2013. They’ve now moved to 54 South Detroit Street, just a few storefronts north of their former location (the old Xenia Gazette/Democrat Party HQ offices), and it’s a really nice, large space with room to expand.

Refusing to Go Gently

If you haven’t already heard about the inspiring story of how BJB’s disaster became bliss, check out the story on their Facebook site, including the blog of Zhenya Dzhavgova, of ZH Books in California–describing how two national booksellers’ organizations as well as the local book-lovers’ community came to BJB’s aid with financial support, donations, muscle and meals. Not only were thousands of great books donated—including one bookseller’s entire inventory of 4,000—but also money was donated to ship books all the way from Michigan! (View “Xenia Book Drop” on YouTube to get a feel for the new-old store’s revival.)

“We simply refused to accept the involuntary demise of a bookstore,” Dzhavgova said. How sweet it is that such sacred spaces where we share words, wisdom and some of our best thoughts don’t have to go the way of big-box stores like Border’s; that they can be saved at the grassroots level by me and you.

Big Plans

BJB owner Lawrence Hammar described to me his plans to install the facilities enabling him to serve coffee and tea, sandwiches, soups and desserts. (I recommended he consider selling Stoney Creek Coffee, from the fine roaster in Cedarville). Of course that might take a while, but I’m hoping Blue Jacket Bookstore/Cafe might be a biking destination by summer or fall of this year.

Please join me in supporting one of the last remaining independent bookstores in our area. Lawrence was happy to receive my box of books, mostly literary fiction, since the literature section, from F to Z, was mostly wiped out in the flood. But while a dumpster’s worth of books were ruined, you wouldn’t know it, due to the donations. They had the book I wanted yesterday, gently used, for three bucks.

Please visit and do what you can!

The Police

Sometimes I’ve been labeled the “exposition police” in writing groups—and I wear that badge both proudly and humbly:  proud to be of use to my fellow scribblers, humbled by the knowledge that I learned it from talented peers.

So I’m going to attempt to give back what was so generously given me.  Dialogue and exposition are two of the most important craft issues a fiction writer faces. Please join me on Saturday, March 2nd, from 2-4:00 p.m. at Wright Memorial Public Library in lovely Oakwood, Ohio, 1776 Far Hills Avenue, for a free workshop on The Art of Exposition and Dialogue.

Advance registration is required and limited to the first 20 people.  Contact the Reference Department at 294-7171 to register beginning Friday, February 15th.  Visit the library’s website for more details. Please join us for a lively time! If you’ve never visited, you’ll love this jewel of a library.

What to Expect

I’ve been wrestling with the dialogue and exposition demons and passing along the fruit of my labor to students at Sinclair and elsewhere for the better part of four decades. So feel free to avail yourself of my handouts on these as well as many other topics. However, I’m got some new stuff for the workshop, including an exercise I’ve used only once at the Mad Anthony Conference April of 2012, where it was a big hit.

Exposition First, Please

After a bit of literary triage to see where my audience is, vis-à-vis exposition, we’ll get right down to business. Once I’m sure we all know what the stuff is (the easy part), I’ll discuss the best ways to manage this most telling of fictional techniques. It’s fun, but it ain’t always easy. I should know. Of nearly 23,000 words I’ve recently cut out of my latest novel, I’m guessing 10K was exposition I discovered that I can do without.

Yes, the easiest way to “manage” exposition is to simply eliminate it. However, that is not always an option—just ask a fantasy or sci-fi writer who’s into “world-building”; some of these writers even use appendixes! But literary writers often need to convey a lot of factual information, too, especially the farther into the story they begin their tale.

Dialoguing About Dialogue

As soon as possible, we’ll segue into a conversation about dialogue. Every aspiring fiction writer wishes her dialogue was zingy enough to sing harmony with Crosby, Stills and Nash—or at least with the Rolling Stones. But the last thing you want is to earn the critique I did upon submitting my first novel many years ago:  “No one talks like this.” My critic was wrong:  I did! But his point was well-taken:  Writers must use a variety of credible voices or the reader won’t believe a word of it.

My handouts on “good dialogue” and “advanced dialogue” will be referent points as we move into the delicate and difficult art of incorporating exposition into characters’ speeches (one way to manage exposition—we’ll definitely discuss others—but one of the most difficult, if your characters aren’t to sound like idiots, telling each other what they already know and/or making us tear out our hair in boredom).

Safety First

And now it’s the audience’s turn to alchemize all they’re learned into gold by completing a brief exercise, watching for dialogue that’s overladen with exposition. Then the best part as participants share what they’ve written—volunteers only, of course.

“Oh, no,” you’re saying, “I couldn’t produce anything in 15-20 minutes worthy of reading aloud to real writers.”  Au contraire, my fabulist friends. Here’s what thirty years have taught me:  Fast, spontaneous bursts of writing, performed in a supportive setting, frees rather than constricts. (I’ll do my best to provide the safe, friendly environment; I know the library will do its part, too.)

Full Disclosure

Okay, once I made an elementary student cry when I asked his class to do one of my exercises, but, believe me, he was an exception—and not only did his teacher eventually exempt him; she hugged him, too! Positive results are much more likely. Writers who’ve never done this type of writing are always amazed at themselves as much as their peers. In my college classes, I always did the exercise beforehand so that I could share if no one volunteered. I can’t recall a single time when I needed to share, but I recall getting so inspired by my students that I wanted to!

And, yes, I’ve been on the hot seat many times in workshops I’ve attended—and always enjoyed the result. Many’s the time I’ve heard a writer say that an exercise turned into a real short story. It’s happened to me, too.

Writing at Wright

As my hero John Gardner famously wrote:  students produce some of their finest doing writing exercises “because the stakes are so low.” It’s just an exercise. Everyone knows you ripped it off in twenty minutes! Trust the process, my friends, and it may shock and amaze you. If not, what have you lost? And I’ll hug you if no one else will.

See you at the library, pen in hand or laptop in bag, rarin’ to write? Right?

I hope that Helen Birch Bartlett lay a little easier in her grave on the evening of December 14, 2012, when a heavenly host of poets took to the stage to praise her namesake: the 967-acre repository of cliffs, waterfalls, springs, forest and soaring heron, hawks and owls known as Glen Helen. With the Vernet Ecology Institute’s auditorium pretty much filled by 7:00 p.m. when the reading began, folks kept coming, and we kept putting out chairs. In thirty-some years of participating in poetry readings throughout the Miami Valley and elsewhere, I can safely say I’ve never seen anything like this one.

If You Versify, Will They Come?

Now that the dust has settled, the magic put back in its box for now, I’m pondering why so many chose to come out on a cold December evening a couple of weeks before Christmas to imbibe imagery, lyric and rhyme. After all, there were plenty of other options: Mills Lawn Elementary’s play; a theatrical performance by Byron Crews at the Spirited Goat; great music and dancing at the Emporium—and that’s just in Yellow Springs! I can only speculate…

Sacred Daughter

Maybe the Glen itself was the big attraction. Named for the daughter of the nature-loving Antioch College alumnus and wealthy Chicago attorney Hugh Taylor Birch, this ground is considered sacred by many. First, the Shawnees trod this ground; later Boone and Kenton came, then eventually travelers from all over, to bathe in the springs’ healing waters and eventually stay at the elegant resorts built nearby. By the 1920s, the Glen’s popularity to tourists ended, and Birch bought the many parcels into which it had been subdivided to make it what it is today (and shall remain, now that Tecumseh Land Trust and the Glen are about to close on an easement to permanently protect it from development). Wisely, he gifted the land to Antioch College to keep in its natural state.

With all the springs-seekers and buildings gone, the land reverted to a sanctuary for diverse flora and fauna…and spirit. While Friday night’s audience seemed to literally lean forward and hold its collective breath, each of the eighteen scheduled poets (and five more during open mic) imagined the land into life for over eighty reverent listeners. Often what was delivered was like prayer, like hymn, like the rushing of cascades or the tiny chimes of stream over stone. Maybe it was the prospect of hearing homage paid to place that brought so many in from the cold.

The Words?

Or was it a deep love of poetry that attracted this reverent audience? It’s a cliché to say that poetry, once at the very center of public life, has a bad reputation with the general public these days. Too obscure, too self-indulgent, too damned hard to understand to be relevant, much less vital. Thus, we poets are accustomed to tiny audiences of 10-12. But Friday’s poets were concrete, compelling, visual and aural, accessible. No wonder poets wore shining faces and big smiles. The large audience seemed hungry for their words and images, the silent spaces between the words, the evocation of the natural, the beautiful…

These Poets?

With only six weeks to get this reading together, I gathered a mostly well-known, well-published group of consummate performers at the top of their game to help me out. But I owe a special debt to a couple of younger poets, Antioch College student Gabe Amrhein and new Yellow Springs resident Jack Whitacre, who lent their youthful vibe to us more—ahem—mature poets. Was it the reputation of this esteemed group that created such excitement and interest? Or do these poets have a lot of friends? I believe most in the crowd did not personally know many of the scheduled poets who so generously gifted us with their time and energy.

Timely, Timeless Timing?

Perhaps it was the timing of the event itself—the holiday season, winter solstice—that made people want to hunker near the hearth and become introspective with language. If so, TLT director Krista Magaw’s idea, on November 1, to have a poetry reading at this time, was indeed wise. Frankly, I wondered if the tragic news from Connecticut, circulating all day, would hurt turnout. Reeling from the deepest wound imaginable, would many of us want to herd together and hear poetry? Yes, as it turned out.

Maybe people came despite the sorrow rather than in an attempt to heal it—who knows? The only thing that’s certain is that they came and stayed, most of the crowd even returning after the break for the open mic part of the program, which included several Antioch students; Tim, a new resident who lives adjacent to the Glen; Jim, a retired Sinclair professor; and even Conrad Balliet, of WYSO’s “Conrad’s Corner,” participating!

But Maybe…

…there was just that ineffable something that drew folks to the Glen Building that evening. They just knew they had to be there, that they’d really miss something special if they didn’t  I’d love to hear from anyone who could enlighten me as to why the auditorium was so full of poetry-lovers that night. Can the magic strike again? I know sequels have a tough time in Hollywood, and there’s only one first time for everything; however, annual events have a way of getting into our blood and telling us it’s time now. Will you come if we do it again next year?

P.S.—Thanks to everyone who helped me put this event together so quickly and publicize it, including the poets, many of whom drove a long distance to be with us; staff and volunteers of Glen Helen Ecology Institute and Tecumseh Land Trust; the Yellow Springs News and Dayton Daily News for their wonderful articles; and my friend Dave Garrison for helpful advice.

photo by Dennie Eagleson

Want a great antidote to holiday stresses and strains? Need a good opportunity to feed your soul and relax with nature?
Look no more! “In the Spirit of the Glen,” a poetry reading featuring some of the area’s best writers performing work inspired by Glen Helen nature preserve, will take place in the newly refurbished Glen Helen Building auditorium on Friday, December 14, from 7-9:00 p.m.

An Invitation

The reading will take place at the ecologically state-of-the-art Vernet Ecological Center (formerly the Glen Helen Building ) at 405 Corry Street directly across the road from the Antioch College campus. Recently the Glen received stimulus funds to install geothermal energy, a new roof, auditorium floor and other cosmetic and systemic upgrades. It even has a new name in honor of inventor/philanthropist Sergius Vernet, whose company’s foundation gave the building to Antioch College many years ago. If you haven’t been to the Glen Building in a while, you’ll be impressed with the changes.

Diverse and Inclusive Gathering

Co-sponsored by Glen Helen Ecology Institute and Tecumseh Land Trust, the evening will include readings by many well-known poets from Yellow Springs, Xenia, Oakwood, Cedarville and Greenville , Ohio. There’ll even be an appearance by a member of Antioch’s first new class since the college reopened last year. (For the entire list of poets, see www.davised.com/bifpoetryposter.pdf.) A brief open mic period following the announced readings will provide an opportunity for audience members to share a Glen poem. The event is free and open to the public.

Since I’ve heard almost all of the scheduled poets read their work live, I can guarantee you’ll be awed, inspired and moved. You’ll laugh some, too. It might be all you can do to stay seated rather than tie on your boots and head out to the Cascades, the Blue Rock, the Yellow Spring or Pine Forest. Come early and take a hike first!

What to Expect

As you know if you’ve ever attended such an event, listening to poetry is a rich, intense experience. Be assured that poets will read only poems that are Glen Helen- or nature-related and adhere to a 3-5 minute time limit. With eighteen scheduled readers—and perhaps a half-dozen more during open mic—we want to leave the audience energized and craving more!

And I hope you’ll linger afterward to meet and greet the writers. Glen Helen Ecology Institute is sponsoring a wine and cheese reception immediately following the reading. Published poets will have their books for sale and will be glad to autograph them. The gift of a personally-inscribed book of poetry can be a meaningful, unique gift.

The Glen is Forever (we hope)

In a year that has seen Krista Magaw and Nick Boutis, directors of Tecumseh Land Trust and Glen Helen Ecological Institute, respectively, working tirelessly with others on an easement to protect Antioch College’s 967-acre nature preserve forever, this is a great time to celebrate one of the Miami Valley’s most sacred sites through the power of the written word. There’s even talk already about making this an annual event. I sure hope to see you there!

The latest issue of Dayton’s own Mock Turtle, a first-rate, independent grassroots literary ‘zine, hits the streets on December 7. Distributed for free at selected coffeehouses, colleges and bookstores, this will be the sixth issue, and if it’s like the previous ones (available at their website), it’ll be another beautiful work of art.

I’m quite proud that two of my poems appeared in Issue #4, and a memoir piece, “Unexplored Country,” will appear in the upcoming issue, #6.

Love’s Literary Labors

Appearing at Antioch Writers’ Workshop last summer, editor/founder Christina Dendy and managing editor Matthew Birdsall appeared, wise, witty and dead serious about what they’re doing.  When they said they needed more nonfiction to accompany the rich feast of poetry, fiction and artwork the ‘zine provides, I did my best to accommodate. Maybe you, too, have some nonfiction gathering cyber-dust for a future issue?

Check out MT’s excellent website for a clear, complete description of their editorial board, submission and selection process; all former issues are housed there as well. Named for Lewis Carroll’s storyteller character, this “labor of love” should be a well-kept secret no longer. The ‘zine was appropriately lauded by Sharon Short in her Sunday, November 18 “Literary Life” column in the Dayton Daily News . I’m adding my own kudos from personal experience.

The Mavericks

Having founded and edited the literary magazine Flights at Sinclair Community College in the 1980s, I have an inkling of the amount of work that goes into producing a quality literary magazine. But Dendy, Birdsall and company, as independents, lack a major advantage I enjoyed:  the support of an academic institution.  I even received some “release time” from teaching duties to work on the magazine. Plus, the college underwrote the expenses.

Collaborative Approach

True, Dendy and Birdsall are editorially aided by some of the best writers in the Miami Valley, who read, review and ultimately select the work they’ll publish. However, they lack financial support other than the ads tastefully included in the ‘zine—plus contributions (please make one!).  But the editors solicit help on all fronts, and this would be a great venue for volunteering time as well as money. If you’re a writer who wants to be published, you should definitely know the other side, especially the sacrifice necessary to shepherd authors’ words lovingly into print. Almost all editors of literary magazines are writers, and those who produce Mock Turtle are definitely no exception. I offer them a bow and a salute.

In Good Literary Company

So if you share the Mock Turtle collaborative’s passion for art and the written word, please support this great Dayton literary project, which follows in the footsteps of Kim Willardson and Michele Whitley Turner’s The Vincent Brothers Review, and Scott Geisel and Brady Allen’s Mudrock, both maverick Miami Valley lit-mags financed out of the editors’ own pockets, both of which had long, honorable runs before they eventually ceased publication. Above all, pick up a copy of the Turtle at Ghostlight, Wright State or Dark Star (see Short’s column for a complete list of places where the ‘zine can be found).

Above all: read!

Familiar Story

We who play the writer’s sweepstakes game know the feeling. You find this contest that seems to have been conceived to reward your kind of writing.  You enter with high hopes, beating the deadline by at least ten minutes. Then you wait. And wait some more. Finally you fire off a query, and the sponsors send you an e-mail with the winners’ names (yours conspicuously absent). Not only did you not win, but the sponsors didn’t even bother to inform you! You receive exactly nothing for your investment of time, money and hope.

Ah, contests:  the pain and the glory. I’ve entered many and won a few, and I quickly learned what to expect.  Since entering writing contests can be expensive and time-consuming, I’ve got two primary pieces of advice:  “Target the Market” and/or “Go Local.”

Do Your Homework

I’ll get back to my two points in just a moment. First, the opposite:  going national.  Anytime you enter a national competition, you should know that you’re up against serious (and numerous) competitors, perhaps hundreds of writers with credentials, experience and a LOT of talent. How do you know if you’re ready for that?  Experience, of course, including research.

I recommend studying Poets & Writers magazine and getting a taste and feel for what’s being published, where and by whom (very intimidating). If you think you’re ready to submit, then seek the opinions of published writers who write and publish the kind of stuff you do.  Let them tell you when you’re ready to go national (you might have to attend a conference, take a class and pay them).  You can throw a lot of money away if you don’t have any idea what you’re doing. For instance, there’s no sense submitting genre fiction to a contest that clearly only rewards ultra-literary work or the sponsors’ friends.

Contests Galore

If you’re a beginner, or even intermediate writer, why not achieve some modest success on the local level first?  Any city of any size has an active writing/reading community and offers contests.  Dayton, Ohio, is no exception. My former employer Sinclair Community College has sponsored a writing contest for over thirty-five years; while the cash prizes are modest, one’s work is always nicely published, there’s a great banquet and several past winners have gone on to fame and glory.

The Dayton Metro Library also has an annual contest (check with them for details).  Also, the local literary journal Mock Turtle co-sponsored a poetry contest with Antioch Writers Workshop (AWW) in 2011, whereby I won a full scholarship to AWW’s annual conference last July. Furthermore, the Dayton Daily News offers an annual short story/poetry contest, also in conjunction with AWW (info about last year’s contest; check the website later for 2013 info).  Except for Sinclair, none of the above required an entry fee—and Sinclair’s fee is low.  Such contests are publicized in local newspapers and newsletters and sometimes flyers in bookstores and libraries.

True, local contests do not carry nearly the prestige of winning ANY national contest, but they do have other perks. The Mock Turtle/AWW prize above was worth at least $600 in workshop tuition—nothing to sneeze at for a single poem!  (And I had a wonderful time at this extremely well-run, national-quality workshop.)  Plus, winning and being published locally means that there’s a greater chance your friends, family and co-workers will see and read your work. During a tough day, it’s nice to pass someone at work who says, “Hey, your story in the Daily Snooze rocked!”

Hit the Target

By “targeted,” I mean a contest where, due to membership in a special group, ethnicity and/or geography, you’ll have an advantage (these contests can be local or national).  I am, among other things, an “Appalachian” writer by virtue of being born and raised in West Virginia; my “rootsy” works make me eligible for contests limited to “Appalachian” writers.  Peruse the ads in Poets & Writers and you’ll see announcements for contests targeted to residents of certain states, under-thirty or over-fifty writers, and other demographics.  Thus, you’ll only be competing against others in that group, and some of them are targeted enough to be pretty small, greatly increasing your chances of winning.  When I write my check for such a contest, I’m usually convinced I have a pretty good chance of actually winning.

Of Judges & Manuscripts

It doesn’t hurt to consider the judges (if they’re named) and what their interests are. If they’re published (and they should be, or have academic credentials), Google their publications and see if your work is anything like theirs. This may not always be an indicator; winning usually depends on simply the quality and quantity of entrants, but studying the judge might give you a nudge one way or the other. Choose carefully, then take the plunge!

Of course I must point out that the only thing the writer really has control over is the MANUSCRIPT itself—so of course it must be the absolute best you can do. At the very least its mechanics must be perfect.  Revise, revise, revise—with the help of your writing community and/or teachers.  You don’t want to be instantly eliminated due to your spelling or use of a hard-to-read font. (Also, follow submission instruction to the letter. I was always shocked, while judging Sinclair’s contest, at how many entrants failed to submit the fee, exceeded length or other requirements.)

“Third Best”

After writing and entering contests for over 30 years, I finally won a national contest for fiction writers:  the annual Hackney Award for the novel in 2010.  Way back in the 1980s, I submitted my first completed novel to the Hackney; it didn’t win, but the manuscript was returned with a penned note on the first page:  “Judged third best.”  On another more recent entry, best-selling novelist Lee Smith wrote one word:  “Wow.” Each comment, coming at vastly different points in my writing career, meant a lot.  You can see why I submitted to the Hackney again, 30 years later, and why I’m still submitting the story that earned Smith’s small but significant compliment.

What to Avoid, What to Seek

Of course there are things to avoid:  cronyism, contests whose judges seem to publish their friends (be sure submissions are “blind”—no names on manuscripts); and contests whose entry fees are out of line with the offered prizes, e.g., an entry fee of $25 for a mere $50 prize.  (So far I’ve never entered a contest costing more than $30). Unless you really need the money, it may be more rewarding to submit to contests that offer publication or some combination of publication and money. While I regret the Hackney Award did not include publication, I can, however, now mention the prize in my cover letter as I continue to submit the novel.

Personally, I prefer contests that reward several, not just a single, writer; and those that guarantee writers at least something for their money:  a subscription to a journal or a copy of the compilation of winning work (which can be enjoyable, educational and supportive of the art you profess to love).

Poison!

It’s good to have some humility, too. Try not to resent winners, when they ain’t you!. “Resentment,” says one of  Ann Lamott’s characters in her novel Rosie, “is like swallowing rat poison and waiting for the [person you resent] to die.” Amen. Life is too short to waste a moment on envy. I should know; I’ve wasted many.

“How Could You Write Such a Book?”

My wife didn’t come right out and say the above words, but she strongly implied them. The day it happened, I felt a terrifying, liberating mixture of emotions. I’d always wanted my personal muse to tell me what isn’t working well or what’s even broken in my writing—but I mostly wanted her to believe in the work, to believe in me. However, I’ve recently discovered that expecting someone to be your muse can be asking way too much; it’s an insight that has led me to face something perhaps you, if you’re a writer, will face, too, if you haven’t already. It could save your marriage or a good friendship.

What’s a Muse?

Writers and artists often speak of their muse with quasi-mystical reverence, but what does the term mean, anyway? My muse has always been my wife, the first person to whom I show a draft of a new work in order to get her valuable feedback, certainly, but to receive some other indefinable something as well. I’ve usually sought the opinions of my fellow writers only after she bestows her blessing. But lately it became uncomfortable, even impossible, for this process to continue. Something would have to change.

Expectations

Last spring, I completed a draft of a novel I was pretty sure my muse would like. Set in southern Ohio, with a female protagonist, nature themes and environmental conflicts, even a footwashing at a Primitive Baptist Church, the book seemed sure to appeal to her Appalachian roots. My writer-critics might give me hell for my flaws, but I expected her to be sympathetic, her basic approval tempering the shellacking I might receive from fellow writers. The key word here is expect. Although I’ve learned that it’s always best to have no expectations in life, I apparently still needed a solemn reminder.

Mr. Needy

For thirty years, my muse read my novel drafts and made solid contributions to their rewrites. In the case of my last novel, Running from Mercy: The Psalms of Israel Jones, she joyously collaborated with me in the early planning and pre-writing stages, and read and critiqued the entire manuscript more than once. Thus, we shared the euphoria when it won the Hackney Award for 2010. This time, though, things could not have been more different. While formerly it was easy to forget my muse was in the same room dissecting my work, that wasn’t the case this time. From the beginning, she vocalized strong objections rather than merely jotting them down until she’d finished reading. Furthermore, her increasingly emotional tone was not encouraging; she seemed angry, distressed—it became an uncomfortable chore.

Thank God my skin has grown thicker at the same time my ego has shrunk (not nearly enough). I won’t say this experience was pleasant by any means, but it has been interesting. Of course I wanted her to like if not love a work into which I’d poured so much blood and sweat. But when she disliked most of what I’d written, I was not devastated. Instead I felt curious, approaching her increasingly harsh critique—by now she was practically shouting—with wonder. What in the hell had I done to earn such a visceral reaction?! This restrained curiosity was really different for me, a guy who once, many years ago, tore a literary magazine in half after his muse damned him with faint praise (an admission I do not easily make).

End of the Line

As her reading of the Appalachian Ohio manuscript continued, I hoped things would get better; instead, they worsened, until one day I told her she should quit, since her task had obviously become too painful to bear. She agreed. Was I sad? Yes. Devastated, angry, vindictive, resentful? Strangely, no. By this time I’d gotten critiques from a couple of writer-friends who, while mirroring many of her criticisms, weren’t as negative, holding out a lot of hope for a successful rewrite. But, instead of puzzling over who was right, I decided that the worse problem was the absolutely untenable position I’d been putting my loved one in for years. It had to stop.

Acceptance wasn’t immediate. At first I told her I couldn’t imagine not sharing this intrinsic part of myself with her. In retrospect, I see my thinly veiled demand as bargaining. I was saying, “See, you can be as critical as you like; I’m not hurt, just as long as you continue to shoulder this burden for me.” It was a necessary phase, I think, to get me to a more mature acceptance of the inevitable.

The Indefinable Something

Resolution took a couple of weeks, during which I didn’t know if I could even return to the novel she’d thought so poorly of. Then one fine day I woke up, hopped on my bike, and as I sped past glorious forests and fields, I felt revelation descend: “The only muse you need is yourself.” And at the moment I was finally able to put myself in her place; I got it. I’d finally realized that I have no right to ask my soul mate, with whom I share so much, to validate me as a writer. That was the “indefinable something” I’d been expecting—no, demanding—for nearly three decades. It’s not the responsibility of a muse, or anyone else, to tell me I’m a writer. Only I can do that, every day, day after day.

The New Deal

This probably doesn’t mean my wife will never read another word I write. But she’ll be invited, not required. I do expect her to take a break; after three decades, she deserves one. In the meantime, she’ll no doubt be reading other writers’ works (she’s much sought after as a critic by some of my best writing friends), and I’ll try not to be envious. In the meantime, those aforementioned writer-friends will, I hope, continue to excoriate me for my shortcomings as well as, I hope, point out any assets. And I’ll try to do the same for them. (You know who you are, and you’re all damn good critics, helpful, smart, exceedingly kind and compassionate.)

As for the Appalachian novel, the rewrite is proceeding well, thank you very much. I’m quietly hopeful that I’ll have a new, improved draft by next spring. Maybe I’ll even be an improved writer by then. But I believe I can depend on being an older, wiser one.

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.”
—Herman Hesse

Tree School

As we went around the circle and introduced ourselves, explaining what we were doing here at the Arc of Appalachia’s Forest School’s week-long Tree Identification Workshop, I suspected I was in the right place. But when the soft-spoken young naturalist from Cleveland said, “I believe trees are sentient,” then I knew I was. You see, the protagonist of Heartwood, my novel-in-progress, has been trying to convince me for some time of the possibility that trees not only can feel but communicate. And now here’s a young believer with whom I’d spend the week saying the same thing? Coincidence, synchronicity . . . or literature and life meeting head-on? I guess I’d soon see . . .

The Great Forest

First, I’ve got to tell you about the mythic place out of time that comprises the Arc of Appalachia. When I mention the name to locals, I mostly get blank looks, even though the Highlands Nature Sanctuary, the heart of the Arc, is only an hour and a half away from my home in Yellow Springs, Ohio, between the lovely towns of Hillsboro and Bainbridge, off Route 50 on Cave Road. Some that never heard of the Arc will brighten upon hearing “The Seven Caves,” the name of the former tourist attraction that became the first property purchased seventeen years ago by the non-profit grassroots organization. The Arc now seeks to preserve the remnants of our moderate broad-leaf forest biome by buying land and removing it from the economy, preserving the home of incredible species diversity.

According to www.arcofappalachia.org, the Arc currently comprises fourteen pieces of land, “between the Scioto and the Ohio Rivers on the Ohio-Kentucky border [where] the forest-clad Appalachian foothills wash up like an emerald sea against the shores of the highly developed farmlands covering the Midwest, where the forest has mostly vanished.” The Arc recently even took over the management of legendary Serpent Mound from the Ohio Historical Society. You haven’t lived till you’ve hiked to the top of Barrier Ridge, right off the parking lot at Highlands Nature Sanctuary, one of many great hikes among the preserves prairies, wetlands and woodlands.

Woman on a Mission

Arc founder and director Nancy Stranahan taught our tree workshop. To my mind, she’s as much poet as naturalist and teacher; Nancy counts trees among her best friends, allowing a great many of them, including lots of tree “babies,” to inhabit her own nearby property. I met Nancy a couple of years ago at a Tecumseh Land Trust-sponsored event at Antioch University Midwest, when she presented her mesmerizing slide show on the once-great world forest biome, parts of which still exist in Europe and China . . . and the eastern United States! The latter includes something like 100,000 wildlife species and Nancy is absolutely dedicated to saving as many as possible from extinction. Immediately, she converted me to the Arc’s mission, since preserving land for future generations has also been my cause for a long time, too.

Into the Woods

For five glorious days in late August, we trekked through forest and field, meeting Nancy’s friends: towering, ropey-barked black locusts; carved-clay-sculptured chestnut oaks; shagbark, shellbark and bitternut hickories; tulips and leatherwoods; even a Kentucky coffeetree. But for me the workshop’s ultimate value lay in the complete package of being with the most like-minded, yet diverse (age, gender and race) bunch of folks I’ve ever had the pleasure to spend a week with. After our first day together, I decided I could easily spend a year with them in Beechcliff Lodge, even if we had to fix our own meals! Mastering the minutiae of tree identification mattered less to me than being in the woods INTERACTING with both trees and people simultaneously. I discovered that it’s the psychological and spiritual characteristics of trees which most interest me rather than leaf and bark structure.

Tree Talk

Returning to our circle on that first day and my colleague’s startling remark, I find myself pondering: what is “sentience” anyway? According to the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, it is “that which has sensation or feeling, a person or thing capable of perception by the senses; susceptibility to sensation, consciousness.” Trees? Consciousness? Preposterous! But if you hang out with them, really be still and listen, as empty as the wind, they will share the consciousness they possess: not human consciousness and not in sentences but in language that is composed more of silent witness than words.

Admittedly, I’m no expert at listening, much less hearing what trees have to say. However, some of our best writers have claimed to hear the subtle voice of trees. Herman Hesse, author of Steppenwolf, Siddhartha and one of my personal favorites, Narcissus and Goldmund, wrote in Wandering (the source of the quote with which I began): “When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: ‘Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from your mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.’”

These days, our endangered trees, under fire from human interference due to commercial development and globalization, are probably saying what my protagonist Maggie Absher thinks she hears them say (though of course she might be crazy): Save us.

P.S.—If you’d like to know more about the tree workshop or the Arc in general, don’t hesitate to ask. Maybe we could meet in the Sanctuary parking lot some Saturday morning and hike to the top of Barrier Ridge together—or walk the path from the Museum into the Valley of the Ancients to see some really old sycamores, hear what these wise elders have to say.

All photos by Roy Willman