Well, the things you learn waiting for the main course.... Gabrielle moderates an online poetry forum. She invited us to drop in some time: thecriticalpoet.tripod.com. Here's another opportunity to give and get critiques - and to enjoy chatting about your favorite poets. You can even vote for the poem of the month.

Kudos to Leland for his first place fiction, "Waking Zoe", in the September/October Quill, and to Gene who distributed flyers about his two current books: Dancing on the Basepaths and Tales from Baseball's Golden Age. Hooray, John K...if you've got the questions, he's got the answers. Best of success in your new job, John. Russ Burns made me jealous when he pulled out the beautiful memory book he compiled from his mother's favorite stories. What a treasure! And...in news-you-can-use category...a clipping of Randy circulated and we all said, "My, My, the man is a matchmaker if ever we saw one."

Don't be the weakest link! Come out to our next meeting November 1! We promise not to vote you off the island.

One of the topics of discussion at our recent readers retreat was Printed Matters itself. A number suggested that we broaden our scope beyond reviews to include features and helpful hints. How 'bout it, folks. This is your newsletter, your input and guidance are greatly appreciated. What can you offer to enlighten our fellow writers and shape the content of our publication?

John Kingsbury read the last chapter from his novel, Dying With Amanda about her funeral service. After the service, Johnny reminisces about the time he and Amanda went squirrel hunting. His description of Amanda's first squirrel kill was a chilling account. Page 66 contained the best part of his writing as he "lay there for a long time.... I just lay there like a snow angel, crying into the ground that would soon cradle Amanda." Some suggestions: show us more of the funeral service. Squirrels wouldn't be out at midnight. John's comments about Martin Luther amused me: "He'll be a Roman Catholic saint in a couple hundred years." Keep up the good writing John. We do care about your characters.

Gabrielle Johansen, a recent addition to the group, began her novel, Portals. Her beginning descriptions were very good. We want to hear more about Sara. Put her in first in the story. One reviewer felt there were too many viewpoint shifts. A question: Does the corridor play an important part in the story? Give more details about the encounter with the homeless man. The first part seemed more like a prologue, and, as a rule, editors don't like prologues. We liked Sara's fantasies about here customers' use of their money. Put more of that in. She's got us hooked on the shimmering she saw near the glass doors in the hallway. Keep the story going so we can hear what is really going on. Gabrielle is an excellent reader.

Stepfathers getting hit by speeding cars, living beings torn by terror, unfulfilled love, flashes that burned eyeballs like boiling tears... remember that nice fellow, Gene Fehler... the baseball guy? His team must have lost. His new collection contains images that whonk us over the head with death, drunkenness and destruction. Gene does exactly what poets are supposed to do: he leaves us with a single, dominant, emotional response every time he reaches the end of the poem. This month's poems left us breathlessness, uncomfortable, melancholy and reflective. They left us wishing we could write like Gene.

Pat Stewart read a nonfiction article about the 9-11 attack and her observations during a motor trip from Louisiana to Greenville. Her comment that President Bush's day started with a reading of one of his favorite books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, was a great example of Pat's ability to make even a powerful person like the President powerless. Powerlessness is the theme of 9-11. We all saw the planes crashing into the World Trade Center and we know we have no ability to change the outcome. We might as well all read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to a child.

"Osama Bin Laden" is a parody poem written by Russ Burn. The sentiment and tone of the poem moved the warrior heart in this old Pigg. It is based on "Abou Ben Adhem." Russ said the Abou Ben Adhem poem is memorized in school, but this Pigg is unfamiliar with the work. It would help if a copy of the Ben Adhem poem were reproduced along with Russ' work.

Major disaster. Listed among the missing. An opportunity to walk away, start a new life. Hmmm. Faye Tollison has been reading some of Der Tubemeister's old stuff. But the opening chapter of When the Walls Fall, Faye's new novel, is timely (based on the Trade Center attack), well written, and takes a fresh point of view (a woman who barely knows the missing man), so D.T. will make no snide remarks. The POV sets us up for a mystery (is he really dead, if not, where is he, what are his motivations, how did he pull it off?) and allows the woman to be drawn into the story and, presumably, solve the mystery as an unwilling non-professional, not as your typical hard-boiled detective. Suggestions from the critiquers included setting the scene with a wall of posters of the missing, and giving the desk cop a more human face. OK, Faye, now don't let this one fade away on us.

A mechanical Trojan elephant. Villains called Dank and Scruttle. A fiendish plot to capture zoo animals and sell them to a fur trader (a la Cruella DeVille). Resourceful young protagonists, one of them deaf. All the ingredients of a clever kids' story, and Sue Renault to tie them together -- it's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Actually, it is a barrel of monkeys, with a few bear cubs, a couple of penguins, and a dog thrown in. Sue gives us action, suspense, and humor in Chapter Six of Elecphonse, and cleverly uses a jar of peanut butter to provide continuity. Reviewers had questions about the timeline (how do all the captives fall asleep before Elecphonse is even out of the zoo?) and Dank's careless attitude about tying Lacey up, but praised the imagery and dialog, and loved the story.

It is said that truth is stranger than fiction. Tom Clancy's Executive Decision ends with a Japanese airliner crashing into the Capital Building during a joint session of Congress. This attack makes Clancy's hero, Jack Ryan, President of the United States. The reviewers had a heyday with this "fantastic" ending. Agents, editors, and book reviewers can be wrong about what is plausible in our work. Just consider a hole in the ground in the pastures of Pennsylvania and think about what could have been.

Still, would Tom Clancy write about a war where Fridays are stand down from offensive operations day so the enemy can pray and go to his or her mosque. Would he find fantastic a war that features a military effort to force Afghanistan to surrender by bombing it with food. Or that these food bombs, called Meals Ready To Eat, would resemble ready to eat airline food packets or box lunches. Or someone would use four aircraft carriers to attack a country with no coastline. Reality is stranger than fiction because fiction is logical while reality isn't. That is why people read novels, to escape into a world of logic.

Printed Matters is the newsletter of the Greenville Chapter, SCWW, which meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6:00 p.m. at The Open Book, 110 S Pleasantburg Drive, Greenville, SC.

Thanks to our contributing writers & news reporters: Sue Renault, Pat Stewart, John Kingsbury, and Steve Heckman.

Copyright 2001 by Leland Beaudrot, Editor. Contributing writers retain all rights to their work.