Gene Feler shared some bad news at our last meeting. His new agent, who was to promote his pop-up book project had to cancel when her husband became severely ill. We welcomed two new visitors at our October meeting: Raymon Presson and Robert Stenhouse. Hope you guy gather with us again. Need copies on the cheep? Word has it Mail Boxes Etc. offers a 4¢ Thursday special. Just in time for our monthly meeting.

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent Rick Bragg plus novelists Lee Smith and Josephine Humphries are among dozens of authors, editors and agents on the program for the N.C. Writers' Network Fall Conference Nov. 15-17 at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel & Convention Center on Page Road just off I-40 in Research Triangle Park.

Gather up the fruits of your imagination and enjoy the cornicopia of goodies at out next meeting, 6:00 p.m., Thursday, November 7th at The Open Book. It you bring a turkey, we'll help you get it well done.

Carolyn Rice treated us to her story, "The City Fella and the Pineywood Rooter." Told in dialect, it follws the "city fella" through the woods to catch the hog as big as a tractor. Jude and Sam lured the guy taking pictures for a magazine into the piney woods to catch pictures of them catching that hog. Fun story with a surprise ending. Some found dialect distracting, I did. But others felt it gave the a story an authentic voice. Comments included that editors don't ususlly like dialect. Give us more details and action at the beginning. Start with the city fella. Consider putting it in first person. The end of the story seemed to change the focus from the city slicker. Entertaining and a little work would help clean it up.

Steve Coyle read us the first five pages of his novel, A Cool Dry Place. As a clueless reader of science fiction, I needed to know early on that the narrator was an earthling who would know the terrain of New York City as he arrived from Luna. Section 1 in the courtroom is a great hook to begin the story. Sections 3 and 4 were too long with too many descriptions. Section 5's character sounds like a different person from the person in Section 1. Section sounded like he was from New Jersey. Which is he? Clear that up for us. Give us more dialog. The details on gravity change in space were great. Good start for sci-fi readers.

Sue Renault read us a devotional from a workshop on leprosy she attended. Powerful reading with graphic descriptions of what leprosy does to a patient's body. It could serve as a wake-up call to remind us of our blessings and appreciate medical care we have available. Try using scripture sources to make a link for a spiritual connection.

Pat Stewart read another of the family reminiscences she does so well, "Ode to a Retiring General." Pat led us in the wrong direction, making the retiring general sound like a person, before making it clear that the it was really a GE electric range, which had served her family well for 27 years. Aside from a couple of minor repetitions, this is a typically inventive and well done piece for Pat.

John Migacz read an opening chapter for his fantasy novel The Dieya Chronicles. John has a good feel for the genre, and creates a world that is both otherworldly and familiar. Dialogue is clever and realistic, but Der Tubemeister counted thirteen smiles and grins in five pages. Balthus and Adriana are way too happy for people who just spent the winter in a cobwebbed stone room. More distressingly, nothing really happens in those five pages, and readers may be lost before the characters get on their horses. Give us some action, John, and save the scene-setting for later.

Baseball poet Gene Fehler brought two synopsises (synopsi?) for young adult novels. Gene refuses to be pigeonholed, and writes well in many genres. A synopsis is perhaps the most difficult writing of all, distilling an entire book down to one page, and making it sound interesting. The nature of that distillation brought most of the reviewers' comments -- should all be revealed, or just a teaser? Should Neil's life-altering event be described, or just alluded to? The consensus was that editors want the whole plot in a synopsis, so don't worry about ruining the story.

The murder of the Pope. How's that for an unusual murder mystery? Dianne Barr's novel, Conclave of Princes, has a great hook, realistic details of Catholic liturgy, and amazing insider knowledge of the workings of the Vatican. The investigator speaks with an authority that could be penned only by a canon lawyer, which he is. The only thing lacking is some action. At the risk of sounding repetitive (see Migacz above), five pages into the novel, nothing has really happened. Mystery writers ignore the "dead body in the first two pages" rule at their own peril.

The variety of our group never ceases to amaze me. We hear poetry, prayerful litanies, trips to the piney woods, Rome and other worlds in space. It's a trip to all sorts of universe settings right here at the Open Book on South Pleasantburg. I am always glad I came and heard these talented people.

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: Pat Stewart and Steve Heckman.

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