Writing News for the Sunshine State
& the Solar System
http://web.fccj.org/~hdenson/writestuff.html
(Oct. 2002)
_____________________________________________________
DODSON TO TELL WRITERS
Harriett
Dodson, author of numerous papers on popular culture subjects, will speak
to the North Florida Writers at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12, about Harriet
Beecher Stowe's connection to Northeast Florida.
Ms.
Stowe, a native of Connecticut, frequently visited the area and kept a
house in what is now Mandarin.
President
Abraham Lincoln referred to her as "the little lady who started with great
big war," because of the popularity of her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.That
work was serialized in magazines from June 1851 to April 1852, without
making much of a stir.However,
when two hardback volumes appeared in March 1852, the book sold a half-million
copies within five years.Her work
was translated into more than 20 foreign languages.
The
work contributed to the popular culture such terms as "Uncle Tom" and "Simon
Legree."
The
speaker is a retired professor from FCCJ.
***
ZORA
NEALE HURSTON REINCARNATION SET OCT. 24
A
one-woman show on Oct. 24 will bring back to life the Florida writer Zora
Neale Hurston.The program will be
from noon to 1 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in Fernandina Beach.
Ms.
Hurston will be portrayed by Phyllis McEwen as the writer was in 1938.
Hurston,
who was born in 1891 in Eatonville, became a novelist, folklorist, essayist,
anthropologist, and autobiographer.After
her death in 1960, her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, became
popular.The movie rights have been
bought by Oprah Winfrey.
Brown
bags are welcome, but lunch will be $7.50 for those who prefer to purchase
their lunches.
Reservations
are required of all participants, and the lunch reservations need to be
prepaid by Oct. 21.Checks should
be made payable to FCCJ and mailed to the Betty P. Cook Nassau Center,
760 William Burgess Blvd., Yulee, FL 32097.
The
program is sponsored by the Nassau Women's Information Exchange (WIE),
the Women's Center of FCCJ, the FCCJ Nassau Center, and the Nassau County
Public Libraries.Ms. McEwen's performance
is sponsored by the Florida Humanities Council.
For
more information, call 904/548-4400.
***
GRENNAN TO READ POEMS
The
Irish scholar and poet, Eamon Grennan, will present a reading of his poems
on Monday, Nov. 18, in the Little Theater of the Robinson Student Center
at the University of North Florida.
More
than 40 of his poems have appeared in The New Yorker since 1985.He
has published ten books of his own poetry, a volume of his translations
of poems by the Italian Leopardi, along with a volume of criticism, Facing
the Music:Irish Poetry in the 20th
Century.
He
received his Ph.D. in English from Harvard in 1973. He
resides in the U.S., but visits Ireland regularly.He
has taught at Vassar College since 1974.He
has also taught at Columbia University, Villanova, New York U, and City
University of New York.
His
first book of poems, Wildly for Days, appeared in 1983, while his
most recent book, Still Life with Waterfall, came out in 2001 in
Ireland and in 2002 in the U.S.
The
poet has received awards from the American Council of Learned Societies,
the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the
Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.
He
also won the Pushcart Prizes in 1996, 2000, and 2001.
***
'NEWER' WAYS TO READ
By HOWARD DENSON
We're
often curious about the reading habits (if any) of our fellow bipeds, so
let me share with you the experiences and changes of someone who remembers
books and radio, books and television, and books and TV, videos, CDs, and
audio-tapes.
Old-fashioned,
page-turning books have been with us for centuries, and, despite the advanced
technologies that threaten to eradicate the book, the electronic marvels
have limitations and serious failings for a reader soaking in a tub or
relaxing in a hammock.
Experts
frequently announce the end of "books as we know them," only to see books
multiply at Books-A-Google.(You
know their jingle:"Books-A-Google
with their goo-goo-googly aisles.")
A
historian will speak at length about preliterate cultures, when hunter-gatherers
hunkered around the fire to hear Org tell how he single-handedly slew the
wooly mammoth.Org knew how to improve
a story, so he ended up killing five wooly mammoths, getting impaled on
a tusk, but surviving to kill five more.By
and by, Org's family put him in the ground at the advanced age of thirty-four
and then repeated, and elaborated on, the great man's feats.
One
day, a tribal elder of thirty-eight proclaimed, "Lo, we have invented the
oral tradition," and the tribe saw that it was good.
Eventually,
early folk came up with some whoppers about a warrior whose ship is blown
off course, causing him to encounter a sorceress who turned his crew into
pigs, and they told some other stretchers that you simply wouldn't believe.Since
merchants had developed a system of keeping up with livestock and merchandise,
and called it writing, some quill-dippers began to write down these tales.
One
day, a tribal elder proclaimed, "Lo, we have invented Greek literature,"
and the tribe saw that it was good because it irritated their eighteen-year-olds
and gave their pedagogues something to think about besides the quest for
the good, the true, and the beautiful.
As
the millennia unfolded, there were always people who did not know how to
read.Oftentimes these thoughtless
individuals had been born into poor families, who frequently lacked food,
clothing, and adequate housing, much less books or scrolls.
However,
even these individuals gravitated to taverns and such for a pint apiece,
where, in the 1700s and 1800s, some chap sat with, say, a history by Thomas
Carlyle--which he read aloud to the patrons.Again,
we have a variation of the oral tradition.
When
silent films came in, and then radio, the doom-sayers proclaimed, "Of course,
this portends the end of the book."It
didn't, of course.Tarzan fought
stuffed lions on film, gave his cry of victory on radio, and continued
to swing through the trees in book after book.Radio
turned Dickens' "The Christmas Carol" into programs featuring Lionel Barrymore
grousing at Bob Crachit. Hollywood
repeatedly filmed versions of "The Christmas Carol," and people continued
to read Dickens in the original.Some
radio stations simply had programs featuring someone reading, say, Mark
Twain or Thackeray.And books survived.
Television
repeated the history of radio, as Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Burns & Allen,
and others tried out, and thrived in, the new medium.The
new medium transformed into the new tedium as this great monster consumed
material.And books survived.Cable
came along and increased TV's appetite a hundred-fold, but, nonetheless,
books survived.
It
came to pass that I came along and became a first-hand observer of audio-books.However,
due to a broken tape-player in my car, I was slow to try out such tapes,
but, with a different car, found them very familiar--like "Lux Radio Theatre"
or at least like the handy reader in a pub.Although
I haven't deserted books, I find these tapes have changed my "reading"
habits (and caused me to desert radio sports and political talk shows with
their endless cycle of two minutes of talk, then two minutes of commercials).
Besides
checking to see the title and author of a book, I also check to see who
is reading it.John Le Carré,
for example, is an excellent reader and creates a world of different accents,
from posh to Welsh or Scottish, to Russian or Middle Eastern.Patrick
McNee ("John Steed" on "The Avengers"), Roger Rees ("Nicholas Nickleby"),
and other British thespians bring superlative acting skills to the readings.If
Donald Ogden Stiers (the pompous doctor on late "M.A.S.H."), Darren McGavin
("Night Stalker"), or Jean Smart ("Designing Women") is reading a novel,
that alone will prompt me to give a writer a chance.
Although
I'm a big fan of sea novels in the spirit of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower
series, I found Jack O'Brian's critically acclaimed sea novels about Captain
Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin irritating to read.However,
when they are read by Tim Piggott-Smith, they can speed a voyage from Birmingham
to Jacksonville.
However,
if novels have unlikely premises or illogical scenes, you can flip over
those flawed pages with a book, but, with an audio book, you may find it
excruciating to listen to something that's just stupid, stupid, stupid.Although
it's possible to fast-forward through a flawed section, it's easier to
pop out the tape altogether.
Often
abridged, audio-books may have problems of coherence.For
example, you may hear, "Jerome rode off on Jupiter that afternoon. . .
.After Jerome's funeral, they sent
Jupiter to the knackers."You grumble
about a major omission and growl even more if you discover the problem
existed in the book version.
The
audio-books reinforce the adage that established writers tell novices at
workshops:Read your work aloud (or
go to a writers' workshop where you listen to someone read your own work).If
a sentence has a problem, reading it aloud may enable you to pinpoint the
problem.
The
audio-books will cause you to waste some gas, as you reach home while almost,
but not quite, finished with the book on tape.Your
family may see you pass the house once, then twice, as you circle your
block to wrap up a tale.
No
problem.
Org
and Homer would understand.©
***
WRITERS
BORN IN OCTOBER
1--William
Beckford (1760?), Ernest Haycox (1899), Tim O'Brien (1946); 2--Wallace
Stevens (1870), Graham Greene (1904); 3--Fulke Greville Brooke (1554),
George Bancroft (1800), Alain-Fournier (Henri Alban Fournier) (1886), Thomas
Wolfe (1900), Gore Vidal (1925), James Herriot (1916), Judith Johnson Sherwin
(1936); 4--Jeremias Gotthelf (Albert Bitzius) (1797), Mary Elizabeth Braddon
(1837), Alvin Toffler (1928);
5--Louise
Fitzhugh (1928), Peter Ackroyd (1949); 6--Bo Hjalmar Bergman (1869), Thor
Heyerdahl (1914); 7--Helen McInnes (1907), Imamu Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)
(1934), Thomas Keneally (1935); 8--José de Cadalso y Vázquez
(1741), Philarète Chasles (1798); 9--Sir Richard Blackmore (1654),
Edward William Bok (1863), Bruce Catton (1899);
10--James
Clavell (1924), Harold Pinter (1930); 11--Steen Steensen Blicher (1782),
Elmore Leonard (1925); 13--Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797), Frank Gilroy (1925),
Chris Carter (1957); 14--Katherine Mansfield (1888), E. E. Cummings (1894);
15--Isabella
Lucy Bell Bishop (1831), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844), P. G. Wodehouse (1881),
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1917), Mario Puzo (1920), Italo Calvino (1923);
16--Oscar Wilde (1854), Eugene O'Neill (1888); 17--Sir John Bowring (1792),
Georg Büchner (1813), Yvor Winters (1900), Nathanael West (1903),
Arthur Miller (1915), Jimmy Breslin (1930); 18--Henri Bergson (1859), Barry
Gifford (1946), Ntozake Shange (1948), Terry McMillan (1951), Rick Moody
(1961); 19--Sir Thomas Browne (1605), John LeCarre (1931);
20--Karl
Theodorree (1808), Arthur Rimbaud (1854), Ellery Queen (1905), Art Buchwald
(1925), Michael McClure (1932); 21--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772), Ursula
K. Le Guin (1929); 22--Ivan Bunin (1870), Doris Lessing (1919), Max Apple
(1941); 23--Michael Crichton (1942); 24--Alban Butler (1710), Moss Hart
(1904), Denise Levertov (1923);
25--Benjamin
Constant (1767), John Berryman (1914), Harold Brodkey (1930), Anne Tyler
(1941); 26--Andrei Bely (Boris N. Bugary), (1880), Karin Maria Boye (1900),
Beryl Markham (1902), Pat Conroy (1945); 27--Hester Chapone (1727), Dylan
Thomas (1914), Sylvia Plath (1932), Fran Lebowitz (1950); 28--Nicholas
Brady (1659), Pío Baroja (1872), Evelyn Waugh (1903), John Hollander
(1929); 29--James Boswell (1740);
30--Fyodor
Dostoyevsky (1821), Ezra Pound (1885), Rudolfo Anaya (1937); 31--Christopher
Anstey (1724), John Keats (1795), Dick Francis (1920).
* * *
FROM
A WRITER'S QUILL -- Gene Fowler
"Writing
is easy. All you do is stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood
form on your forehead."
* * *
"WE
ASPIRE TO CREATE WITH WORDS."
The
Write Staff:
JoAnn
Harter Murray, President
(JoAnnHarter@aol.com)
Carrol
Wolverton, Vice President
(carrolwolve@hotmail.com)
Nate
Tolar, Secretary
Howard
Denson, Treasurer and newsletter editor (hd3nson@aol.com)
Jean
Mayo, Membership chair.(jmayo13497@aol.com)
Joyce
Davidson, Public Relations (JoyceWDavidson@aol.com)
Doris
Cass, Hospitality
Presidents
Emeritus:
Frank
Green, Dan Murphy (dmurphy@media-mayhem.com), Howard Denson, Nate Tolar,
Joyce Davidson, Margaret Gloag (haggisgal@juno.com), Richard Levine (richie@rocketmail.com),
Bob Alexander
NEWSLETTER
ADDRESS:THE WRITE STUFF, FCCJ Kent,
Box 109, 3939 Roosevelt Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32205.
HOMEPAGE
EDITOR:Brian Hale (Astrodor@aol.com)
Submissions
to the newsletter should generally be about writing or publishing.If
possible, please submit mss. on IBM diskette in either WordPerfect, Microsoft
Word, or RFT format.We pay in copies
to the contributors, with modest compensation for postage and copying.We
pay $5 for pieces of 500?599 words; $6, 600+; $7, 700+ words. For cartoons
or art (in our print-version), we pay $5 each.Writers
and graphic artists retain all property rights in their work(s).
ISSN
No. 1084?6875
* * *
CALENDAR
OF EVENTS
Meetings
of NFW are held on the second Saturday of the month at 2 p.m. on the Kent
Campus of Florida Community College of Jacksonville. We generally meet
in F128B (auditorium conference room).
Past
speakers have included novelists Jack Hunter, David Poyer, Page Edwards,
Ruth Coe Chambers, William Kerr, Tom Lashley; poets, William Slaughter,
Mary Baron, Mary Sue Koeppel, Dorothy Fletcher, George Gilpatrick; columnists
Vic Smith, Tom Ivines, and Robert Blade; editors Buford Brinlee and Nan
Ramey; agent Debbie Fine; plus many others.
You
may receive feedback from specific individuals by mailing the manuscript
and return postage to the above address. Be sure to allow time for the
manuscript to reach Kent.
You
may also simply bring your ms. to any of these meetings:
Some
dates to remember:
Sat.,
Oct. 12, 2 p.m., F128B: NFW Speaker: Harriet Dodson
Sat.,
Nov. 9, 2 p.m., F128B: NFW Speaker: Sohrab Fracis
Sat.,
Dec. 7, 2 p.m., F128B: NFW Speaker: Patti Levine Brown
Sat.,
Jan. 11, 2 p.m., F128B: NFW Speaker: Bill Reynolds
*
* *
MEMBERSHIP
IN THE NFW
If
you are writing a story or poem, you will need some expert feedback--the
sort that you will receive at a meeting of the North Florida Writers.
You
won't profit from automatic praise that a close friend or relative might
give or jealous criticism from others who may feel threatened by your writing.
The
NFW specializes in CONSTRUCTIVE feedback that will enable your manuscript
to stand on its own two feet and demand that it be accepted by an editor
or agent.Hence, you need the NFW.
The
North Florida Writers is a writer's best friend because we help members
to rid manuscripts of defects and to identify when a work is exciting and
captivating.
Membership
is $15 for students, $25 for individuals, and $40 for a family.(Make
out checks to WRITERS.)
Won’t
you join today?
The
following is an application. Mail your check to WRITERS, Box 109, FCCJ
Kent, 3939 Roosevelt Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32205.
Name___________________________________________
St.
address_______________________________________
Apt.
No. ________________________________________
City
________________State _____ Zip ______________
E-mail
address: __________________________________
*
* *
HOW
DOES CRITIQUING WORK?
When
you attend a meeting of the North Florida Writers, you eventually discover
that NO ONE has ever died while his or her manuscript was being read and
critiqued.You may be ready to face
the ordeal yourself. . .or, reading this, you may wonder what exactly takes
place during a critiquing.
First,
you pitch your manuscript into a stack with others' works-in-progress.Then
one of the NFW members hands out each piece to volunteer readers, taking
care NOT to give you back your own manuscript to read.
Second,
as the reading begins, each author is instructed NOT to identify himself
or herself and especially NOT to explain or defend the work.The
writer may never have heard the piece read aloud by another's voice, so
the writer needs to focus on the sound of his or her sentences.
Third,
at the finish of each selection, the NFW members try to offer constructive
advice about how to make the story better.If
a section was confusing or boring, that information may be helpful to the
author.
The
NFW will listen to 10 pages (double-spaced) of prose (usually a short story
or a chapter).
UNHELPFUL
FEEDBACK:As you listen to a manuscript,
you may be tempted to say, "That's the stupidest piece I've ever heard."Alas,
you aren't being CONSTRUCTIVE.If
you simply do NOT like any, say, science-fiction, then you may not
have anything helpful to say.That
is all right.On the other hand,
if you think that a piece was going along okay and then fell apart, you
can help the author by saying, "I accepted the opening page, but, when
the singing buffalo was introduced somewhere on page 2, the piece lost
it for me."
*
* *
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