Nominations for Chapter President will be accepted at both December meetings, with the election to be held at the January First Thursday meeting.

A few weeks ago, the SCWW Board sent out a link to a 5-minute on-line survey, the purpose of which is to allow the organization to be more responsive to the needs and desires of the membership. Survey results will influence plans for next year's conference and the Catfish Stew anthology, as well as general SCWW statewide policy.

So far, they have received 118 responses from the more than 400 requests that were mailed out. The board would like to hear from people who are not active as well, so that they know what needs to be fixed. If you received a request to fill out the survey and have not yet done so, please do. If you did not receive a request, you can e-mail Susan Boyer or give her a call.

Thanks for your input.

As of January 1^st, the members of the board will be...

• Dottie Boatwright (Columbia I) dboatwright@sc.rr.com
• Susan Boyer (Greenville) susan.boyer@charter. net
• Hope Clark (Columbia I) hope@fundsforwriters.com
• Kevin Coyle (Greenville) k.coyle@charter.net
• Sarah Cureton (Greenville) s.cureton@myscww.org
• Steve Heckman (Greenville) steve@heckmantube.com
• Sandra Johnson (Columbia I) sjohnson10079@sc.rr.com
• Amy Mercer (Charleston) amy.mercer@comcast.net
• Jim McFarlane (Greenville) jimmcfarlane@juno.com
• Terry Rouche (Rock Hill) terry@undertheorder.com
• Bob Strother (Greenville) bstrother4180@charter.net

Officers for 2007 will be elected at the first meeting of the new year.

Please contact any of these folks with questions or comments.

Aimee Caruso has recently landed a position as News Assistant at the Greenville News.

The Greenville News has an online element called YourUpstate.com, where individuals and organizations can post their news, calendar items and photos (this could include publicizing a book signing or advertising your publication.) Information goes up almost immediately. If anyone needs help posting to YourUpstate or has questions, Amy says she'd love to help.

You can contact Aimee at The Greenville News — alcaruso@greenvillenews.com.

Phil Arnold's Elvisblog climbs ever higher in the Google ratings by becoming a link on Scotty Moore The Official Website. Scotty spent 14 years as Elvis Presley's guitarist, was his first manager and Elvis' lifelong friend. As Scotty says, "Be sure to visit the sites of some of Scotty's friends, affiliates and supporters."

Way to go, Phil!

Kevin Coyle's tenth publishing credit "Cleburne's Choice" hits the stands in issue #20 of the hard-copy science fiction publication, NOVA Science Fiction Magazine. This alternate-history story is Kevin's first "genre" tale and the first one he's actually being paid for.

Congratulations Kevin!

Once again, Bob Strother's work has been published in moonShine review.

"The stories within this issue in large part center around relationships about mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives — and every combination thereof. And there's no holding back. Whether nostalgic, bittersweet, or downright demented, this issue sparks with a Southern voice that is at once proud and flagrant in its presentation."

moonShine review sells for just $6 (plus $1.50 shipping.) To purchase a copy, make checks payable to THRIFT Press and mail to: THRIFT Press, Book Orders, PO Box 5424, Charlotte, NC 28299 or go to www.thriftpoeticarts.com.

Congratulations again, Bob!

For a guy who just comes to eat, Mack Clarke writes some pretty funny stuff. In a continuation of last month's "A Week of Foolishness", we learn more about Uncle Juggzy (Dead Elvis) Baumgardner and his sense of values. Juggzy has a local hit song, "Alimony Prelude" that he might make a million from if he's lucky. On the other hand, suppose he became a one-hit-wonder and then lost his disability payments? Juggzy opts for holding onto his "sick check."

At that point, the story segues into our narrator's own misadventure with alcohol. His friends bet him he can't drink three cases of beer in under an hour. He wins the bet but ends up in the clutches of the local law and ultimately loses both his license and his job.

Mack has penned some very funny lines and shows a subtlety that I appreciate: "Of course I'd been drinking. I don't know why he even asked me 'cause I looked drunk, smelled drunk, and acted drunk." And, when thinking back on how he might have excused his actions: "My boss told me that the Chinese had bought our company and there's no room for me in Beijing."

The group liked Mack's "voice" and suggested he consider formatting this 40-page short story into a collection of vignettes for publication. Other suggestions included creating some new paragraphs, re-sequencing others, deleting a couple of repetitious words, and correcting a misplaced modifier.

I agree with Mack's wanting to clean and tighten up the piece, but not with his desire to "just be done with it." I believe it has real potential and hope he'll stick with it and keep bringing us more.

If the tables around which we gather for our bi-monthly Muse fest are a buffet of literature, we can count on Bob Strother to serve up a tempting appetizer. Though in the case of his latest work, "Hungry," delivered hot from the oven of his fevered imagination, it may be an appeteaser. Like his protagonist, Buchard "Boo" McConnell, we find ourselves bewildered, not sure where the road is going to lead.

Boo, a freelance journalist, wanders deep into the Appalachians in search of an isolated family "that still spoke the Old English language" and finds himself stranded in a place that may be "beyond the boundaries of civilization." His car disabled and ditched by the unpaved road, he walks ahead in hope of sustenance. Just short of his give up and go back point, he finds an oasis: E. F. Love's General Store. Boo sates his hunger and thirst with all-American junk food and learns that his gracious hosts will ferry him back to the real world. But that must wait until tomorrow. "'What about tonight?...' [Boo] could feel a new gnawing in his stomach." Aaarrrggg! Once again, Bob left us hungering for more.

As usual, we found little to improve Bob's polished prose, though "The right side of the car dropped off the shoulder" 'suddenly' lost an adverb. And Bouchard's haunting nickname didn't stand a ghost of a chance when it resurrected Boo Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird. "Shard" was suggested as a bit edgier, if not downright crackpot. It's for sure our eyes won't glaze over when Bob treats us to a second helping.

Obviously, Kevin Coyle has bewitched his readers into a Norse saga mood, because the crowd - in a show don't tell rebellion - demanded to hear the drunken poems celebrating the first Viking birth in the western lands, as mentioned but not recited in The Saga of Snorri the Priest.

On a technical note, several questions were raised concerning anachronisms. My dictionary states a paddle was a spade-like instrument in middle English, reaching its current meaning in the late 17^th century. Europeans rowed with oars and skraelings paddled canoes, yet the same dictionary says the round curragh of the ancient Irish and Scots was paddled. With what? Kevin carefully avoided moccasin, well known to be of skraeling origin. The objection to breechcloth is on shaky ground because in old English a "breech" was a cloth covering the loins and thighs.

I thought I had caught Kevin mis-using the three well-known fates of Greek mythology. Surprisingly, German and Norse mythology have the same: the Norns.

Historical fiction is fun, because modern-sounding words are not always modern and ancient-sounding words are not always ancient. Should the author "take a stab" at what sounds plausible to the reader or should he be accurate and thereby jar the reader out of his modern complacency? In my opinion, anything in Shakespeare or the King James Bible sounds old enough for Erik the Red's contemporaries. Therefore, I suggest a skraeling girded his loins with a "loin cloth."

This week, John Migacz lulled us into a sweet dream-state with Jolly's charming and surprisingly adolescent crush on his student and fellow time-traveler, Sara. The otherwise aloof, sharp as a brass tack Jolly has lost his mind. Though his stomach is filled with bashing butterflies, he manages to ask Sara out on a date. This week's installment made me laugh, sigh, and wonder.

Despite all of his martial arts training in self-control and self-discipline, Jolly finds himself susceptible to that human tendency to be stunned stupid when the object of his affection enters the room. What is that about? Is Jolly's self-assuredness and suave expertise in business, Japanese language, and international cultural affairs all just a slick cover-up for his shaky insides? Is he simply terrified of relinquishing control over his emotions? (First love?) If she has been giving him knowing looks, why is Jolly so afraid of how Sara might respond to his request for a date?

And while things are moving slowly but smoothly along in Jolly's love-life, who is this mysterious Becky? Has she sniffed out Jolly's disguise? Because Becky appears to be unrelated to his pursuit of Sara, the hyper-vigilant Jolly lets down his guard around her. What twists and turns will result from Becky's apparently casual access to the guarded main character?

Who is the teacher and who is the student? What is the lesson? Is Jolly about to be punished for not being as smart as he thinks he is? Will his weakened state of lovestruck-ness somehow result in dangerous consequences?

And when will we get to see Jolly pull out some fancy martial arts moves?

Elvis had a joke. He'd ride the Zippin Pippin, his favorite Libertyland roller coaster, and get the attendant to stop the car at the top, where he would get off and hide. When the car returned and Elvis was not there, everyone not in on the joke would freak out, thinking The King had fallen out.

Where does Phil Arnold find this stuff? Not content just to tell his loyal Elvisblog readers about the recent sale of the Zippin Pippin to the Carolina Crossroads music and entertainment project, Phil goes the extra mile and digs out fascinating anecdotes about the historic coaster that hosted Elvis' last public appearance.

In a second Elvisblog piece, Phil describes a true oxymoron, a positive 1957 New York Times review of the young Elvis. Despite the reviewer's opinion of rock 'n roll as "a grotesque extension of the blues," he describes Elvis as "tuned to his times with catalytic precision" and "a genuinely exciting performer." It's hard for an old fart like Temujin to think of a 1957 article as "nearly fifty years old," but Phil makes it all new again.

Former-school-teacher-turned-calendar-girl Aimee Caruso read "Commute", a poem about a bicycle ride to work through the morning fog. In three stanzas, she does what a poem is supposed to do: get across all of the feelings and sensory impressions of a particular experience in as tight a work as possible. My criticisms are therefore few.

First, I would cut the fourth stanza, which flashes back to the night before in bed with the poet's husband. Whatever its worth, it belongs in another poem. Second, I didn't like the use of the word "collapsed" in the first stanza—it evokes violent images at odds with the poem's otherwise serene feeling. Finally, I would replace the word "arrive" in the second stanza with either "fall" or "come" or some other one-syllable word that stays with the poem's "heavy and elegant" theme.

Keep riding your bicycle, Aimee.

Newcomer Pam Zollman came prepared with her novel for grades 3-6 called I Left My Underwear in San Francisco. The group received her story about twelve-year-old Jo and her family with enthusiasm. They felt that the piece was "age appropriate," right down to the "I'm crying grape juice" comment from Jo's brother, Wuzzy (not to be confused with twin brother "Fuzzy.")

Comments for improvement included: watch out for "showing" and "telling" the same points; let us know more clearly that Jo is female and how old the twins are; and be careful of reusing reactions (such as howling and sighing) too frequently.

Welcome to the group, Pam. We're looking forward to more.

Penelope is back and in better shape than when we left her. Jim has put the knowledge found in writing The Widow Dunn to good use. The reader is drawn into Penelope's problems and the sympathy evoked is immediate. Penelope is being interrogated by the Puritan Gestapo about her slatternly behavior — walking unescorted, wearing colored dresses and talking to men. It seems there isn't much in the way of women's lib in 1647.

Penelope endures the questioning well with the help of her betroths' grandfather, and that's where part of the confusion enters. With a Mr. Prince and a Reverend Prince involved in the chapter, the conversational section becomes perplexing. The table thought that while Penelope is an interesting character, this section might be too edgy for this time period. Also, the flashback scene takes more time than occurred in real time. There were a few other complaints — non-contiguous story line, difficulty following the story with skipped pages and a full house with an empty kitchen.

Jim's use of his family history for his historical fiction is clever and appealing. Bistro-Less is looking forward to Jim's next novel Ug — Cave Painter.

Bob Strother continued his short story, "Hungry." After wrecking his car on a remote country road, Buchard "Shard" McConnell asks for help at an isolated country store. The owner sends him up the side of a mountain to the Leatherbys's home with a note of introduction and a request to house Shard for the night. Shard is welcomed by Mr. Leatherby, his fourteen-year-old daughter Hannah, and twelve-year-old son, Warren. Shard washes up in a barrel of rain water as he considers the attractiveness of young Hannah.

Next came Russ Haddad reading the beginning of his novel, Parnassius Endures. Russ describes the action as three U.S. Marshals recapture three fugitives recently escaped from federal custody. In the end, all three fugitives are either dead or in custody, and one U.S. Marshal has suffered a serious leg injury. Seven years later, that same marshal, named Chapman, has retired. "In spite of his optimism, loneliness dogs him and part of his life seems empty." He decides to go fishing at his distant mountain hideaway.

Kevin Coyle was struck with inspiration while on a trip to Eastern Europe, and read the resulting story, called "Happy Ending." Traveling alone in Bulgaria, Wilson goes to get a massage at a spa. Communication is difficult, since a nod means "No" and a sideways shake of the head means "Yes" - backwards to Wilson's way of thinking. The massage ends badly, as crossed signals lead the masseuse to believe that Wilson desires more than just a massage. Later, he goes to dinner and ends up sitting alone at an outside table with two cats hungrily eyeing his dinner. He takes a bite and chokes to death on a piece of gristle. The two cats move in and finish his dinner.

Jim McFarlane's novel Penelope continued with Matthew Prince considering how God has sent an angel in the form of Penelope to help him find a new home for the congregation. Penelope and Matthew's father return home from the inquest, telling Matthew that the charges against Penelope have been dropped. His father advises Matthew to "Either marry her or forget her." Matthew and Penelope agree to marry on the twenty-first of December (because "only a true believer understands that days lengthen and the future brightens after the winter solstice") and they plan to sail to America the following spring.

First-time reader Marjorie Garrett gave us some "Hints from Marjorie" about "How to make use of rather useless Christmas gifts." She suggests numerous humorous uses for items such as bath oil, lotion, bath powder, shower gel and calendars. For bath oil: "Use it as a boss repellant. If your boss has allergies, and you have a strong scent that makes him sneeze, he will probably leave you alone all day long!"

In John Migacz's A Second Chance, Jolly's assistant Becky has come to see Jolly at his home. He serves her tea and they start joking. It gets a little out of hand, and Jolly apologizes and tells her how much he values her friendship. She indicates that she wouldn't mind dating him sometime in the future, so he tells her about his infatuation, and scheduled first date, with Sara Moirae. "When I see her, I melt," he tells Becky. Becky tells him that she thinks Sara is a twit. It's because "she buys into the role of a female being a second-class citizen." Jolly responds that "a woman's place is beside her mate. The perfect couple completes each other." Becky wishes Jolly well on his date.

The final reader was Mack Clarke with his novella, A Week of Foolishness. The narrator is talking to the officer who arrested him for drunken driving - "Why did you drink 18 beers in 50 minutes?" "'Cause I bet my friends I could drink eighteen if they'd give me twenty four." He gets fired from his job because he loses his license and can't get to work. He has to move to Cheap Motel so he can get to his crappy job at Grab A Lots Discount. When it comes time to renew his license, Dead Elvis (Uncle Juggzy) is the only one to help him car shop. On the way to the car lot, they stop at Aunt Bea's Diner, where Juggzy is given the royal treatment.

The next meetings of the Greenville Chapter of SCWW are as follows:

• Thursday, December 7 - First Thursday Meeting, 6:00 p.m. at The Open Book
• Tuesday, December 19 - Third Tuesday Meeting, 6:00 p.m. at The Open Book

All genres welcome at both meetings. Suggested limit for reading selections is five double-spaced, typed pages, although longer selections may be possible if time permits.

The Open Book, 110 S Pleasantburg Drive, Greenville, SC

Printed Matters is the newsletter of the Greenville Chapter of South Carolina Writers Workshop.

Thanks to our contributing writers and news reporters:
Bob Strother, Leland Beaudrot, Jim McFarlane, Aimee Caruso,
Steve Heckman, Kevin Coyle, Marcia Migacz, and John Migacz

Copyright 2006 by Marcia Migacz, Editor. Contributing writers retain all rights to their work.

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