Phil Arnold passed around samples of Elvis Magazine's latest publication: postcards based on past covers (Elvis stamps, extra). In a bold marketing move, Randy Crew sent a copy of his novel Killing Shadow to the U.S. Naval Academy. An English Literature professor liked it so much he made it required reading. All hands on book! Randy will be making a personal visit to the Academy in April.

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The long, cold February nights have given you all plenty of time to write by the fireside. Come out to our next meeting March 7 and bring us your heartwarming works!

As Judy Root began to read her poem "Cosmos" I felt my shoulders drop as I let out a relaxing sigh. Although it was presented as a poem, most agreed that the lines needed to be shortened or maybe rearranged. It contained factual information woven in with a flow of poetic observations. Each line was strong enough to stand alone. I feel Judy has enough information here to separate the facts from the poetic observation and construct an elaborate essay of facts and a short poem that would hold the reader captive in his or her own creative thoughts. All in all I enjoyed every word.

[Apologies for this late review. My fault entirely. - Ed.]
"Better late than never." :-D   0-:} "Better never late!"

Gabrielle Johansen intrigued everyone two meetings ago with an excerpt from her novel, Portals, and we looked forward to more of the same. This time, most of the pages she shared were just set-up for the good sci-fi stuff, so we'll have to wait one more meeting to find out what's on the other side of the mysterious light curtain. Steve questioned that Sara would walk so willingly into the curtain, even after consuming several glasses of wine. Other members suggested Gabrielle eliminate some adverbs and rewrite a few paragraphs to do more showing and less telling. Randy complimented her on the fine theatrical voice used in the reading. It should be fun to follow Sara's travels beyond the portal.

The inspirations for writers' stories come from infinite sources, but Steve Heckman may be the first to look out the window of a plane, see a circular area of green farmland below, and get the idea for a story. "Center Pivot" refers to a type of large sprinkler, one which sprays water in a 1200 foot radius. Steve's vivid imagination, however, turned it into the source of much discomfort and disappointment for farmer Hayes Osborne. Good research and Steve's usual rich writing style make his story seem so real. Russ offered a few farm pointers to increase the realism, and someone suggested Hayes would have shown more regret about having to tear down the old family homestead and barn to accommodate the center point. A few other comments were made, but the Professor feels like sometimes we just nit-pic stories to death just because we feel like we're supposed to critique. Hopefully, Steve will make minimal changes to this wonderful piece and submit it to the anthology competition.

Sue Renault read a nice section from her "Elecphonse" story. The group, of course, wasn't nice in its critique. Boys don't read fiction at this age, so the audience is girls. For this reason Lacey needs to be the hero not Cyrus. This piece sounds like a story being read by a grandfather to his granddaughter. That's the problem. It needs to sound like a story being read by an eleven year old girl to her grandfather. She cannot become an adult so the grandfather has to become an eleven-year-old before they can share a story as equals. This changed world view changes the vocabulary of the narrator to that of an eleven-year-old. The Children's Writer's Word Book is one of several thesaurus that can be used to convert an adult word into the vocabulary of a child of a specific age. This story can use the improbable as a plot device. To an eleven-year-old girl leaving a note for her parents early in the story that says "gone adventuring" is sufficient to eliminate worried parents from entering the story. The book could end with Elecphonse in her garage because, in an eleven-year-old's world view, she wants that robotic elephant. This is no more improbable then talking shoes. Sue, be eleven again, and tell us this really neat story.

Russ Burns read a personal essay titled "Precognition." It deals with the prediction of the future through dreams. The essay has two narrative voices. I'll call the first voice Farmer Russ and the second Professor Burns. The dreams and following events predicted by the dreams are told by Farmer Russ. The theory of Precognition is explained by Professor Burns. Farmer Russ has the folksy tone we are familiar with from Russ' other writing. Professor Burns sounds like a college professor who is much smarter than his students. What Professor Burns seems to be trying to explain is where these dreams of the future come from. During the discussion of his work Russ related Thomas Edison's assertion that there is knowledge and understanding floating out there in the air and was accessible by those who held a steel ball to prevent sleep while gathering this knowledge in a barely awake state. Inclusion of this illustration would clear up some confusion in the essay. Edison's "its just out there in nature" explanation does not match up with Russ' biblical reference to Joseph and his dreams. If you take an example from the Bible, even as an historical illustration, you raise the issues raised in the source: are the dreams from God? The reference to Joseph upsets the internal logic of the piece by raising this issue, the God as the source issue, which is not otherwise addressed in the essay or intended to be the source. Russ needs to decide this.

Finally at last, there came some people from the book-trade; in the provincial town of Lueneburg my books are displayed in my honor in the bookstores. There are only a few of them, for the earlier ones had disappeared from the market and new editions had only been published in three cases on account of the paper scarcity [in post WWII Germany]. The manuscript that I had written during the last three years was so steeped in wrath and criticism that I hesitated to publish it.

Among the spirits that accompanied me there was also a teaser who wanted to pull away from me the last shred of fame and glory and whispered, "How good the world would have been for you if you had never written anything." The right thing is never written, it beams forth unwritten and illuminates the world.

[From a private letter by Prof. Dr. Joseph Wittig, "The Forgotten Theologian", on the occasion of his 70th birthday, January 22, 1949.]

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 and news reporters: Sue Renault, Carol Jellen, Phil Arnold and John Kingsbury.

Copyright 2002 by Leland Beaudrot, Editor. Contributing writers retain all rights to their work.