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Volume: 17.03 • The South Carolina Writers Workshop Newsletter • March 2006 |
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NEWS |
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Board BulletinsSCWW Board of Directors' ReportFebruary 4, 2006
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| SCWW Board of Directors | |||
| Betty Beamguard | Dottie Boatwright | Susan Boyer | Sarah Cureton |
| Mary Eaddy | Pat Graney | Sandra Johnson | Brenda McClain |
| Terry Roueche | Linda Shaffer | Bob Strother | Steve Vassey |
| Jason Zwiker | |||
| Elected Executive Officers for 2006 | ||||
| President: | Sandra Johnson | Vice President: | Susan Boyer | |
| Secretary: | Linda Shaffer | Treasurer: | (not yet filled) | |
| SCWW Positions | |
| Chapter Liaison: | Bob Strother |
| Advisory Council Liaison: | Brenda McClain |
| Quill Editor: | Leland Beaudrot |
| Membership Chairperson: | Jason Zwiker |
| 2006 Anthology Editor: | Pat Graney, Betty Beamguard co-editor |
| Contest Chairperson: | Betty Beamguard |
| 2006 Conference Chairpersons: | Dottie Boatwright, Craig Faris |
| 2006 Conference Auction Committee: | Sarah Cureton, Susan Boyer, and Bob Strother |
2006 Fall Conference
Membership Brochures
2006 Anthology: Catfish Stew – Volume 4
Important Facts
Uncoming Board of Directors meetings
Upcoming regional writing workshops
Questions? Observations? Concerns?
You may contact the Chapter Liaison: Bob Strother at strother@scacog.org
Interest has been expressed in forming new chapters in the Florence and Lake City areas. If you are in the area and are willing to help these new chapters get started, even if you are already a member of an active chapter, please let Chapter Liaison Bob Strother know. Together, we do the write thing better.
Meets 2nd Tuesday at Eden Gardens on Silver Bluff Road, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Contact: Charles Reeve cpreeve@bellsouth.net
Meets 2nd & 4th Sunday at the Merritt Building Parlor of Anderson College from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. Contact: Jo Buckner (864) 261-7739.
Meets first Tuesday from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, West Ashley. Contact Jason A. Zwiker at (843) 573-9291.
Meets 1st & 3rd Wednesday at Lexington County Public Library, Cayce-West Columbia Branch, 1500 Augusta Road, 6:30 - 9:00 p.m. Contact: Steve Vassey vasseyws@hotmail.com
Meets 1st & 3rd Monday at Richland County Public Library, 1431 Assembly Street, 6:30 - 9:00 p.m. Contact: Larry Hamilton docham@earthlink.net
by Bonnie Stanard
Bonnie Stanard's short story "Uncertain Accident" was accepted for publication by Primavera of Chicago and will appear in Volume 30. We continue to count as "good" any rejection with comments, especially those with suggestions and an invitation to re-submit. David Westeren is working on revisions to resubmit.
The web site www.thefirstline.com has been an inspiration to Mickey Burriss, who wrote a story in response to the most recent assignment. The First Line provides the first sentence writers must use to create a story. It's an open competition and winning submissions are published in their quarterlies. Using this sentence, "Tessa sent up a hasty prayer for forgiveness as she slipped on the dress Mama had bought her in exchange for a promise not to marry Al," Mickey wrote an outrageous "Garry Springer" story. It was a winner with our group.
Some of our beginning writers are interested in putting down the story their life. Where to start? At birth? The present? At a crisis? One place to start is with a photo album; write what you see in the pictures. Lists might help: dates, people, events, locations. Mickey Burriss suggests, "Write from the heart." Consider emotionally charged moments (remember the tears, outrage, joy, loneliness) and write them down. Sometimes this means writing what you're hurt or embarrassed to think. Don't get hung-up on accuracy or "the truth." Forget about grammar, time sequence, or what relatives will think. Getting started on your story might mean moments when you're crying over your sentences.
Some of us plan to attend the Sandhills Writers Conference in Augusta, Georgia the weekend of March 16-18. The basics are on the web site, www.sandhills.aug.edu.
Our next meeting is Monday, March 6. By then, the SC Book Festival will have come and gone. It's a terrific event and one we're proud to have in Columbia.
Meets 2nd Tuesday at St. Eugene Hospital dining room 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Contact: Kati Paul (843) 774–4561.
Meets 1st Thursday & 3rd Tuesday at The Open Book, 110 South Pleasantburg Drive, 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. Contact: John Migacz migaczmarjon@prtcnet.com
Meets 2nd & 4th Wednesday at Lexington County Library, Irmo Branch, 6251 St. Andrews Road, 6:30 p.m. Contact: Charlotte Blackstone CHEETAH5@aol.com
Lexington 1st Chapter Writers meets in the Lexington Library at 5440 Augusta Road every other Tuesday from 6-8. Contact: Lynn Stidom lstidom@aol.com
Meeting places and times vary. Contact: Cynthia Hodell Dyer chodelldyer@aol.com
Meets in Winthrop University’s Dacus Library on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday from 7-9 p.m. Contact Betty Beamguard at bbeamguard@earthlink.net or 803-222-4208.
Meets 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. every 2nd and 4th Monday at the Richland County Library, Sandhills Branch, 1 Summit Parkway, Columbia, SC. Contact Sonia Hayes Pleasant sonia_hayes@msn.com
Meets 4th Tuesday at Spartanburg Westside Library, 525 Oak Grove Road, 7:00 p.m. Contact: Roger Meadows RDM730@aol.com
The new year is upon us, time for every member of SCWW to polish their prose, perfect their poetry and prepare their plays for our upcoming annual anthology. This is an excellent opportunity to see your work in print in a bound volume containing the best of SCWW. Every member of SCWW may submit one entry free of charge, aditional entries are only $3. This is an opportunity too good to miss! Let's all do the write thing and make this edition the best yet.
SCWW Anthology Guidelines
The South Carolina Writers Workshop will publish an anthology of the best works of its members for 2006. Catfish Stew, Volume 4 will feature writings in four categories: short fiction, essays, poetry, and plays. Winners in the anthology competition may have a maximum of three works published, regardless of category.
The anthology competition is open only to paid members of SCWW for 2006.
Members may submit one piece of writing at no cost. Additional manuscripts may be submitted for $3.00 each, regardless of category. Please make checks payable to SCWW.
Only unpublished work is eligible (except work previously published in The Quill). All fiction and essay submissions must be typed and double-spaced. Poems must be typed, either double- or single-spaced. Plays must be single-spaced in a standard publishing format.
The author's name must not appear on the manuscript(s). With each manuscript, please include a cover sheet (not a letter, please) containing the following information. Include one cover sheet for each set of four copies.
Please pay close attention to length requirements. Any manuscripts exceeding the maximum length will not be accepted. Maximum lengths:
Submit four copies of each manuscript. To facilitate production, manuscript(s) must also be submitted in Rich Text or Microsoft Word format, either by e-mail to patgraney@patgraney.com or on a 3.5 inch IBM-formatted diskette. We cannot accept Mac-formatted diskettes.
Do not enclose SASE. Manuscripts and diskettes will not be returned.
Submissions must be postmarked by April 30, 2006 and mailed to
SCWW Anthology,
c/o P.A. Graney
4452 Mandi Ave
Little River SC 29566
Manuscripts not meeting the above guidelines will be disqualified from competition. SCWW retains first-time publication rights until the anthology is published. At that time, publication rights revert to the author.
Got news from your local chapter? Got a helpful writers web site to share? Got a caution about a bogus publishing opportunity or contest? Let's network our knowledge to build a better newsletter.
Deadline for submissions is the 21st of each month. Please send submissions to quilleditor@bellsouth.net either in the body of an e-mail or as an attached file in MS Word (DOC), Rich Text (RTF) or plain text (TXT) format. Articles accepted for publication will appear in The Quill and archived on the web. Writers retain all rights to their works.
Submissions may also be made on floppy disk and mailed to:
Leland Beaudrot
1 Cleveland St Ste 110
Greenville SC 29601-3646
Write on!
Leland Beaudrot, Editor
The Quill
Free writing workshops Saturdays in March at the Main Library, Meeting Room B, 68 Calhoun Street, Charleston, South Carolina. Limited number of seats, please call (843) 805-6930. Ages 16 and up.
Saturday, March 4 - Poetry Writing Workshop with Richard Garcia
Spend the morning reading poetry and generating new poems of your own through writing exercises led by Richard Garcia.
Richard Garcia has a received a Pushcart Prize, and has had his poetry published in Best American Poetry 2005. His next book of poetry, The Persistence of Objects, is forthcoming from BOA Editions in 2006, and he has a chapbook of prose poems, Chickenhead, forthcoming from Foothills Press.
Saturday, March 11 - Fiction Writing with Sean Scapellato
This two-hour fiction workshop is designed for the beginner to intermediate fiction writer. Learn about basic manuscript submission, querying an agent, the roles of agent and editor, resources for fiction writing, daily writing routines, and how to network. We will try several short exercises by journaling and discussing how to incorporate our smaller gems into larger stories. Bring a journal and a good pen; leave with something useful.
Sean Scapellato has had his fiction published in regional literary magazines, such as The Echo and The Tower, with short creative pieces anthologized in the collections Hungry For Home (Novello Festival Press) and My South (Rutledge Hill Press). He presently has a novel under representation with The Choate Agency in New York.
Saturday, March 18 - A Crash Course in Writing Song Lyrics with Paul Allen
This friendly, non-threatening workshop will serve as an introduction to improving your song-lyrics. Lessons and handouts will be given on the following topics: “Show, Don’t Tell: The Language of Imagery;” “What Goes Where: Understanding Song Structure;” “Beyond Moon / June: Making Rhymes Interesting;” “Making Lines Memorable: Playing with Words.” Everybody will compose examples of each lesson so that at the end of the session, each person will have a new song lyric to work on.
Paul Allen teaches poetry writing and writing song lyrics at The College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. Allen gives numerous readings and performances, most recently on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. His CD of poems and songs, The Man with the Hardest Belly, is available on Napster.
Saturday, March 25 - Playwriting with Darryl Lorenzo Wellington
I will give an introductory lecture on techniques of theater writing drawn from my past experience as a playwright. Then we will do a writing exercise and/or read from scripts. Please bring pen and paper/ laptop, and material you are interested in having read (no more than ten pages, please, and bring your own copies) I would love for anyone interested in playwriting, acting, or any other aspect of theater to attend.
Darryl Lorenzo Wellington received the 2004 South Carolina Arts Commission Fellowship in Playwriting and has studied playwriting under Arthur Kopit and Paula Vogel.
Friday March 10, 2006, at 7 p.m.
Second Presbyterian Church
342 Meeting Street, Charleston, South Carolina
Reading & Talk on "Literary Figures I Have Known"
Free and open to the public - light refreshments served after the reading.
Carrie Allen McCray, who lives in Columbia, is the author of Piece of Time (Blue Chicory Press), poems that draw on her heritage and experiences as an African-American woman. She says that she began to take her writing seriously at the age of 73. Since then, she has published poems in Ms. Magazine, The River Styx, The South Carolina Collection, The Squaw Review, Crimson Edge: Older Women Writing and others. McCray's first-person memoir, Freedom's Child: The Life of a Confederate General's Black Daughter, was published in 1998. She is currently working on a long narrative poem depicting the life of a man, a Pygmy, who was exhibited as a caged spectacle. She will read her poetry and has generously agreed to talk briefly about some of the fascinating literary figures she has met through the years; both James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes were guests in her parents' home.
Whether poetry is your passion, interest, or art, this school is for you! The school is open to beginning and experienced writers, for it's about language. It's about facing issues of struggle and social rights. It's about poetry. From the time humans sought ways for artistic expression, there has been for the poet the need to address new ideas based on social rights. The forum for this session of Poetry 101 will also encompass the role of poetry as a vehicle through which writers speak out against, support, give voice to, and heal from incidents of social injustice. The series of workshops presented in this three day school will invite you to wear the costume of the poet in its truest and most powerful sense, as that of the social artist. Workshop leaders will include sessions focusing on the Museum's featured exhibit: My America: Art from The Jewish Museum Collection, 1900-1955. Participants will be inspired to chart through the art of writing poetry new and old agendas in exciting ways that will allow you to reach higher grounds in your work. Workshop leaders will feature poets Kwame Dawes, Susan Ludvigson, Michele Reese, Ed Madden, and Charlene Spearen.
For further information and the reserving space contact:
Charlene Spearen, Assistant Director
USC's South Carolina Poetry Initiative
University of South Carolina
Email: Cmspeare@wm.sc.edu
Tel: (803) 777-2230
Sunday, March 26 - Friday, March 31, 2006
Whether you are an emerging or accomplished writer, retreat time at the beach will enhance your writing life and sharpen your craft. Group work, individualized to meet the needs of writers present, includes writing exercises directly related to developing a writing project, reading, and discussion of craft. Afternoons you have time to write, consult with Peggy, and enjoy the maritime forest and beach with its pod of a hundred dolphins. For details, please see www.clarityworksonline.com or call Peggy Tabor Millin, MA, at 828/298-3863. Mention you saw this in The Quill and recieve a $100 discount on registration.
ClarityWorks, Inc., P O Box 9803, Asheville NC 28815
Voice 828.298.3863 - Fax 828.298.3863
Writing Contest Rules
Rules:
Send manuscript entries and entry fee to:
Cindy Thomas
C/O AuthorMania.com Writing Contest
1210 County Rd 707
Buna TX 77612
Please make checks and money orders payable to Cindy Thomas.
As stated on AuthorMania.com: The contest must draw at least 50 paid entries in order to award the $1000 prize. In the event that the contest does not draw enough entries to award the $1000 prize, the amount it does draw will be awarded to the winner. Once enough entries are received to award the $1000 prize, this notice will be removed from AuthorMania.com.
Poetry Contest Rules
Rules:
Send manuscript entries and entry fee to:
Cindy Thomas
C/O AuthorMania.com Poetry Contest
1210 County Rd 707
Buna, Tx 77612
Please make checks and money orders payable to Cindy Thomas.
As stated on AuthorMania.com: The contest must draw at least 20 paid entries in order to award the $400 prize. In the event that the contest does not draw enough entries to award the $400 prize, the amount it does draw will be awarded to the winner. Once enough entries are received to award the $400 prize, this notice will be removed from AuthorMania.com. If we get enough entries over the $400 prize amount, we will award a second place prize. A second place prize will only be awarded if enough paid entries are received to cover another prize amount, and we have no idea what, if any, amount that will be until we receive or do not receive said entries.
The Writers Workshop of Asheville, NC, will be offering a number of workshop in Asheville and Charlotte. Two sessions of particular interest feature novelist and SCWW Board member Brenda McClain:
April 1: Intro To Fiction Writing
Participants will learn about point of view, building tension, finding an agent, and getting published. Ten pages of work may be submitted for critique, if mailed to our office by March 10 (or bring to the class with an SASE). McClain is the author of two novels, and won the California Fiction Writer's Award.
Meets Saturday, 10:30-4:30. $75/$65 TWWOA members.
May 13: Writing Your First Novel
Participants will learn about point of view, building tension, finding an agent, and getting published. Ten pages of work may be submitted for critique, if mailed to our office by April 15 (or bring to the class with an SASE). McClain is the author of two novels, and won the California Fiction Writer's Award.
Meets Saturday, 12:30-5:30. $75/$65 TWWOA members.
Ashville classes meet at 387 Beaucatcher Road; Charlotte classes meet at Shalom Park, 5007 Providence Road. Advance registration is required. You can register online at our website using paypal, or mail check to:
The Writers' Workshop
387 Beaucatcher Rd
Asheville NC 28805
For details on many other workshops, please see the Writers Workshop of Asheville website.
The Piccolo Fiction Open is looking for your best short story, your craftiest paragraphs, your most concise day dreams. This year the theme is:
sight, seeing, hallucinations, and premonitions
The theme can be interpreted anyway you like, and can figure as minimally or as dominantly as you prefer. The word limit is 1100.
Please submit 4 copies of your original, unpublished work by April 15, 2006.
Include one separate cover page with your contact information and title of the work, a $5 submission fee (made out to the city, as follows) and a self-addressed stamped envelope. The $5 entry fee is waved for military personnel and veterans. At the top of your work, include the title of the story and your telephone number. Send to PFO2006/City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs, 133 Church St., Charleston, SC 29401.
The Piccolo Fiction Open is a literary component of the Piccolo Spoleto Arts Festival. The PFO is sponsored by the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs. In past six years, the winning stories have been read by the authors during the festival, broadcast by SC Public Radio's Your Day, and published in the Charleston City Paper.
Are you ready to trade you pen for penne? Are you ready to go from editing your prose to editing your menu? Are you ready to wax eloquent over wax bean salad? If so, this may be the contest for you.
On May 15 Chef Robert Bechard will proudly bestow the valuable grand prize in The Great Café Giveaway essay contest—ownership of his restaurant, Claude’s Café in Greenville, South Carolina—upon the lucky winner, as well as a portion of the contest entry fees to the American Red Cross (ARC) for aid in disaster relief. “Everybody knows it takes a lot of capital to get a restaurant started,” said Bechard. "That’s why I love this idea of someone taking over an already-established restaurant with no debt. It’s an unbelievable advantage and opportunity.”
Essay Submissions
Must be 200 words or less and describe why you want to own your own restaurant, and therefore should be chosen as the contest’s winner of the grand prize: ownership of Claude’s Café. All essays must include complete contact information to be considered for the grand prize and postmarked no later than April 28, 2006. All entries received later and without full name, physical and mailing address, daytime and evening telephone numbers (and mobile phone and e-mail if possible) will be disqualified.
Entry Fees
Then send your essay in with a $100 entry fee to The Great Café Giveaway essay contest… and, if chosen, your dream will come true! All entries MUST be accompanied by the entry fee to be considered for the grand prize. If mailed through the postal services, no personal checks will be accepted; only cashier’s checks and money orders for the full amount of the entry fee. Any essays received without the fee or with incorrect payment method will be disqualified.
All entries and fees become contest property and will not be returned.
How to Enter
You can write your essay and submit it along with your entry fee online here. Or you can type your essay and submit it with the correct information and your entry fee to: The Great Cafe Give Away, 2131 Woodruff Road, Suite 2100, Box 360, Greenville, SC 29607. All entries must be received by April 28, 2006.
For more information contact Byron Jones at 864-363-6229. You must be at least 18 years of age to participate. All employees and their families are ineligible. Minimum contest entries 1,000. Owner may elect to accept less than minimum. A portion of all proceeds go to the American Red Cross. Winner must meet lease requirements or runner-up will be selected. Lease to transfer June, 2006. Decision of judges is final. Announcement of winner to be made on May 15, 2006.
Contacts:
Eddie Churchwell: 864-787-3619 or eddiechurchwell@yahoo.com
First Place: $2,000 and Publication
Second Place: $1,000 and Publication
No previously published works or works accepted for publication elsewhere. Author's name must not appear on the manuscript. Include a cover sheet containing major title and subtitles, author's name, full address, phone & fax numbers. "Contest Entry" should be clearly indicated on both the outer envelope and the cover sheet. Manuscripts will not be returned. Nimrod retains the right to publish any submission. Include SASE for results only. If no SASE is sent, no contest results will be sent; however, the results will be posted on Nimrod's Web site.
Entry/Subscription Fee: $20 includes both entry fee & a one-year subscription (two issues). Each entry must each be accompanied by a $20 fee. Make checks payable to:
NIMROD Literary Contest (Fiction or Poetry)
The University of Tulsa
600 S College
Tulsa OK 74104
The Darknight Gallery playwriting contest is an annual event in which we produce an evening of new (previously unproduced) scripts reminiscent of Rod Serling's Night Gallery and The Twilight Zone.
Each of the three winning playwrights will receive a $100 cash prize and the opportunity to see their play performed in Darknight Gallery III!
THE GENRE
Rod Serling's former television programs, Night Gallery and The Twilight Zone often told stories of characters struggling with mankind's most primal emotions: fear, greed, pride, or their own mortality. The stories were told in a setting that resembled our world in almost every way, yet in every episode the characters encountered something unfamiliar and had to learn how to face it using their limited (and often terrified) human understanding. It is our intention to excavate the inner mind and explore such emotions and such experiences as paranoia, isolation, insanity, and horror from the safety and comfort of our theatre.
What we want!
Submitting your Play
Before you submit, PLEASE check to make sure that your script:
If your script fits the above criteria then please submit the completed script along with a COVER PAGE THAT INCLUDES YOUR NAME, PHONE NUMBER, HOME ADDRESS, AND EMAIL ADDRESS so that we can keep in touch with you. This cover page is crucial as it not only helps us to get in touch with you, but it also assists us in our anonymous judging of the scripts. PLEASE DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON ANY PAGE OTHER THAN THE COVER PAGE.
We would love to know how you heard about us! Please include a comment on your cover page telling us how you were informed of the Darknight Gallery III playwriting contest. Thanks!
Please EMAIL your submission to darknight_theatrical_productions@yahoo.com
Once we receive your completed submission, we will email you a confirmation that your play is with the committee for review. The playwrights selected to participate in the Darknight Gallery III - One Day Finalists Event will be notified by email.
THE DEADLINE FOR RECEIVING SUBMISSIONS IS APRIL 30, 2006.
Dear Friends and Writers,
Sadness.
Jack Wolford, hotmetalpoet’s co-editor and selfless poetry enabler for the kingdom of Pittsburgh, has died. All death is impossible but Jack’s was so sudden that it is difficult for his friends to take in.
I want to ask all of you who know Jack to send a short memorial about him to www.hotmetalpoets.com. As soon as we get some word together we will publish an issue to honor Jack. Also I want to announce that I am establishing The Jack Wolford Poetry Prize. $500.00 will be given for the best poem submitted in 2005-2006.
Guidelines for Jack Wolford Memorial Prize and submissions to Memorial Issue for Jack Wolford
We welcome all submissions for the Jack Wolford Memorial Prize. The prize of $500 will be awarded for the BEST POEM submitted to the website for 2005 and 2006. Submissions will be accepted February 2006 through October 2006. Please send from three to seven poems to sea7@comcast.net. They may also be sent through the website. www.hotmetalpoets.com (letters to the editor).
Acknowledgement will be made upon receipt. Poems will be published during the submission time and the winner's name will be announced via email to all who submit work.
Memorials honoring Jack must be submitted by February 21. and will be published soon thereafter. Again submissions of memorials will be published according to appropriateness for www.hotmetalpoets.com. Please consider your memorial in the form of poetry as well as prose. If you have questions please send to sea7@comcast.net.
Thank you,
Carolinasea
I would like to begin by making a pithy and incisive statement that crystallizes the relationship between literary tradition and the contemporary theatrical marketplace, but I can't think of what that might be. It's going to take the whole next paragraph just to explain my topic.
Each spring semester at Francis Marion University, I typically wear two hats. In the morning, I teach Modern Drama. In the afternoon, I teach a Playwriting Workshop-frequently to many of the same students. And I sometimes feel that by wearing these two hats, I'm serving two masters, that these roles are in conflict with one another. In the morning, I force Ibsen, Brecht and Pinter on my students because these are giants of western drama. In the afternoon, I read my students' plays and discover that they have been afflicted by an overexposure to the giants of western drama.
Now, I love my job and I truly enjoy my students. Some of them write very fine plays, but most of them--let's just say it--do not. The foremost reason for this, obviously, is that they are new to the craft and think that good writing is 1% inspiration and 99% procrastination. But when finally they sit down to commit an act of literature, they will for inspiration plunge their heads into the literary canon-and blow their heads clean off. And I will have supplied the artillery.
Full many an English major, for instance, I have forced to love Chekhov. "Seminal to the development of literary realism," "pioneer of indirect action," I tell them all that stuff. But to push The Cherry Orchard on apprentice playwrights is to risk imparting some dangerous lessons. Chekhov's tectonic conflicts and fixation on the banalities of ordinary life have inspired some very limp and windy plays. Indeed, students hearing that their own plays are "boring" or "empty" will learn to hate Chekhov even more than they did before I talked them out of it.
Full many a theatre major, for further instance, has turned in a bizarre and nonsensical mishmash and tried to defend it by crying, "It's Ionesco! It's Beckett!" Usually such students are full of baloney and they know it. But sometimes they mean it.
Earnestness, I'm saying, can make a young playwright a perfect engine. Put Shaw in one end, and out of the other will come euphuistic diatribes with encyclopedic stage directions. Give her O'Neill, and she'll give you dolorous jeremiad. Teach Pirandello, and expect Tedious Disquisition in Search of a Plot. And you don't even have to assign Tennessee Williams: almost every college student, on his very first try, will automatically write Tennessee Williams.
And usually, that's fine. Most students don't want a career in the theatre; they just want to take a crack at playwriting. Good for them. And if mimicking Hellman or Hansberry or Whoever helps them write their play, well then okay. The problem is those students who take the craft and themselves more seriously-who want to write a play for production, and who want me to help them. And that's when I put on my third hat.
In the evening, I am literary manager for Trustus Theatre. In this capacity, I read published, established plays, but also over-the-transom submissions from all over the country. When I've got this third hat on, I hate Chekhov too. Indeed, I submit that if it were written today, The Cherry Orchard would tank. According to my post-millennial sensibilities, its middle act is overstuffed, the monologues are wooden, and I don't why the hell Gayev and Charlotte are even in the play. Yes, it represents an important mile-marker in the blah-blah-blah, but how many non-academics truly-I mean truly--relish the opportunity to sit through it?
When I've got my third hat on, I'm looking for plays that defy the now shopworn conventions embodied by such classics, that violate the fundamentals enforced in workshops. I'm looking for a New Play: that synthetic, slippery Paula Vogely thing for which an -ism has yet to be coined. Typically, it has structure but not story, at least not in the traditional sense. It burns a different kind of gas. It is a tone poem, a visceral journey that replaces conflict with what Luis Valdez has called "a deepening condition." I can think of several good, recent examples, but my favorite is Adam Rapp's Nocturne--because it ought not to work.
It ought not to work because it is not, by rights, a play. It's a full-length monologue-that term alone can create an aneurysm in a literary manager. Worse, it's about a former piano prodigy who has plunged himself and his family into a spiral of debilitating grief by accidentally beheading his little sister. Sounds like the perfect recipe for an embarrassing melodrama, doesn't it? But Nocturne is utterly, completely and exquisitely devastating. I'd say that it's sui generis or refreshingly ignorant of theatrical history, but really it reaches back a long, long way. It's primal.
Nocturne is a monody in the original Greek sense-an ode or elegy meant to exorcise sorrow by speaking it. The conflict occurs not on the stage, not in the speaker, but in our being drawn further and increasingly against our will into his unspeakable grief. And the ending is not climactic, but ecstatic, in the original Latin sense: it lets us out-of-this-place, frees us from it. Indeed, Nocturne, like a good poem, takes place almost entirely within us. And it stays there. For weeks, so far.
And that's not craft. That's beyond craft. I can't teach that. I'd be happy just to do it once.
So, with my third hat on, I would hand Nocturne or another such play to my students and say, "read this. Forget all that stuff I told you this morning. Forget everything I told you this afternoon. Read this and figure out how it works, because I don't think I can explain it.
"Oh, and whatever you do, don't try to replicate it."
Jon Tuttle is on the SCWW Advisory Board and is Professor of English at FMU and Literary Manager at Trustus Theatre. His plays include Holy Ghost, Drift and The Hammerstone.
Yes, Editors Use Editors, and I Couldn't Care Less
Q: I read through your book Write In Style, and you make good points. I'm just curious, considering that you edit for a living, whether you had your book edited or did it yourself.
A: I edited as much as I could myself, but even an editor cannot edit herself. The publisher assigned me an editor who edited about half the book then left the company. Unfortunately the rest went unedited, because the company had a release date to meet and did not hire another editor right away. Since publication I've found errors that should have been caught, but I was too close to the work to see the mistakes at the time. To err is human, and for some odd reason, writers cannot see their own mistakes--until after publication.
Q: In your article for the South Carolina Writers Workshop newsletter, The Quill, you say, "We who have the editing gene must live with well-documented errors that continue to creep into our language until some people find it acceptable. 'I could care less,' instead of 'I couldn't care less' is one formation that makes me cringe when I see it and hear it, but it crosses my path (and makes me cross) at least once a month."
I agree with most or your points, but in this case (usually) when someone says "I could not care less" they're being honest. When they say, "I could care less," they're being ironic or sarcastic.
A: I beg to differ, and I'm not alone. When people say "I could care less," it means they do care, but could care a little less if they wanted. It is not sarcasm; rather it is misuse of the language and does not say what the person really means. The intent is to say that they do not care at all; therefore, the correct term is "I could not (or couldn't) care less."
A cartoon that appeared in the November-December 2005 edition of SPELL/Binder, the official newsletter of the Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature, backs me up. It shows a woman dressed in hat and coat, her bags packed, speaking to her husband, who sits in an easy chair watching TV. The woman is saying, "You could care less? Don't you mean you couldn't care less? That kind of crummy English is why I'm leaving."
Sarcasm is the intent of "I couldn't care less." I have no idea how the misuse, "I could care less," crept into our language, but the earnestness with which people defend it proves that it has been used incorrectly so long that people think it is right. The "mistaking the incorrect for the correct" problem is what we sticklers fight against. Hey, some people still defend the use of "irregardless," when they actually mean "regardless" or "irrespective."
As an interesting addition, when I tried to send my answer by e-mail, my automatic AOL spell check highlighted the section that said "I could care less" and remarked, "Misspelled expression. Consider 'couldn't' instead." It continued: "The real meaning of a sentence like 'I could care less about their priorities' is more logically phrased with 'I couldn't care less about their priorities.' Even clearer is the paraphrase 'Their priorities don't concern me.'"
Thank you, AOL and SPELL for backing me up.
Bobbie Christmas is a book editor, freelance writer and author of Write In Style: Using Your Word Processor and Other Techniques to Improve Your Writing, published by Union Square Publishing and distributed by Simon & Schuster. Send your questions to the book doctor at Bobbie@zebraeditor.com
Hunched over my laptop, I heard the familiar voice of my Muse. "It's time."
"I know, Thaleia. I'm already at work on the March issue of The Quill. Say, how come you never show up when it's time to fold these things?"
"This is not about your issue, but mine. It's time!" Her swollen belly, shrouded in a yellow T-shirt with the logo 'Baby On Board', eclipsed my keyboard.
"Thaleia! You're... you're... PREGNANT!"
"Oooh.... Oooh...." She moaned and grabbed my hand. "Not for much longer!"
"But... but.... How!?"
"Oooh! No... time to... explain." She gasped with panting breath. "Here... it comes!"
She reached beneath the hem of her shirt and pulled forth her offspring: the black binder containing the draft of my novel. Two sofa pillows followed. She lifted the cover for a peek. "It's a boy!"
"If I recall, it's a boy and two girls, with a supporting cast of a family and friends." I received the unrefined manuscript from her hands. "What's with the drama?"
"Spring is almost here! It's my season. My name means 'blossoming,' you know."
"Almost Spring? It's still February. We're supposed to get ice and snow this weekend."
"That's exactly your problem." She pushed aside a stack of papers and sat on the corner of my desk. "You're too tied up in the reality of 'here and now.' You need to liberate your imagination to dream of what could be. And, if you can't come up with anything new, there's plenty of work to be done on our baby."
"OUR baby?"
"Surely you don't think you could have managed that all by yourself." She cast me a dreamy look. "For a month you couldn't get enough of my company–mornings and evenings you spent in my thrall."
"And this then." I leafed through the pages. "Is our honeymoon baby?"
"Yes! And like all babies." She giggled. "It needs changing."
I read a few lines and sighed. "I guess if this is not to be a stillborn child, I need to get back to work."
"WE need to get back to work," she affirmed. "And don't just think of it as labor...."
"I believe you've taken care of that part already."
"I'm glad you recognize my contribution. Remember me when you write the dedication page. I mean, think of it as raising up a child, prepare it to meet the world head on. Impart your wisdom, share your joy and sorrow, make it a part of the family. Breath into it the emotion of real life."
"Bend the facts of my life to fit my fiction?"
"That's the idea exactly! And, speaking of the facts of life." She bent closer and spoke in confidential tones. "If you really don't understand 'how' at your age, we need to talk."
The Quill is the newsletter of the South Carolina Writers Workshop www.scwriters.com.
Copyright 2006 by Leland Beaudrot, Editor. Contributing writers retain all rights to their work.