More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

Ahoy, Buccaneers!

            Busy on the high seas this summer? Ai, me, too.

            This past weekend I was shanghaied by the Oregon Writers Colony crew to work at our annual Founder’s Day Celebration in Rockaway Beach. Saturday morn we offered a class on publishing non-fiction. After the noon meal, we gathered for a reading at the library followed by the dedication of a poetry pole at Colonyhouse, our OWC home. Sunday, fifty-five writers took over City Hall for presentations, book sales, good eats, and round table discussions. Here be the highlights according to yours truly:

At the Rockaway Beach Library

            Library readin’s began wi’ Barbara Corrado Pope (Pirate Award here for her name). She talked about research she did for her new novel Blood of Lorraine. She’s a right fascinatin’ woman with a bounty of information, no bones about it. Here be an interview with Barbara, if ye be interested in anti-Semitism in 19^th Century France following the Dreyfus Affair—oh, and a murder mystery. The story, besides being a damned good yarn and set in France, examines how suspicion and prejudice can seep into even those who fight against it. Forsooth, I be gobsmacked with her detail of place, a writer’s jewel of “place as character.”

            Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen followed Barbara.

Photos  by Sandy Schmidt Wilson

            Ai, I be a pirate who loves poetry. As a writer, I chum me prose by reading poetry, lovin’ it for its musicality and imagery. Paulann be everything a PL could be—gracious, classy, great sense of humor, and a Buddhist stillness combined with a brilliant mind and creative blood. I bought her first collection. But before reading her poetry, she offered this quote from Meister Eckhart:

"When the soul wants to experience something, she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it."

Shiver! And not me timbers.

            Later, she dedicated our Colonyhouse poetry pole. Not familiar with poetry poles? They hold sheets of poetry for those hungry for a slice. Just drop by and take a page.

On Sunday

            Sunday at Rockaway Beach City Hall we opened the official Founder’s Day with author Bill Cameron. Blimey! What a funny bloke. A true pirate, that man! Readers can see his funny bones in the first few things he threw at us writers, includin’ this gem in the intro:

Writing is like religion; everyone has their own beliefs, so nay to right and wrong. Adopt what works for you. (I’m paraphrasing here, so correct me, Bill, if I’m a rogue and got it wrong.)

            Here be a few of titles of his “rules,” copyrighted, and small wonder:

• Misery begets plot
• Weakness is Your Plaything
• Loss is Character-Building

            If ye be a writer and interested in his two page pdf with all the “rules” and a few good writer’s tips, go to his website, contact him and ask for Whydunit_2p.

            Next, I sail the internet where I hear the latest on a few of me favorites.

            Chris Bohjalian as posted on Facebook August 18^th:

Today Lifetime is filming the "Secrets of Eden" Stephen Drew/Alice Hayward love scene.

             His latest novel The Night Strangers is a creepy ghost story.

            Alice Hoffman according to her page:

All the cover photographs on my new Kindle releases on Pisces Press are taken by me. I love making bookcovers!

Here be a few—

            Maties, what do you think of the covers?

            As a Francophile, I share Cara Black’s love of Paris. I gobble up her mysteries which are set there and have had the greatest fortune of spending time with her one afternoon and sharing our giddiness over the City of Light. The other day she posted this link on FB:

200-year-old Paris trouser ban for women may finally be repealed

Here at home …

… with me very own critique group. Huzza!

            One of our crew has boarded the agent ship of Donadio and Olson, a NY topnotch literary agency. They say her voice is one of the most original they’ve read. Our-member-who-remains-anonymous is waiting to hear about her first novel that’s out with editors as I write. Her agent is not only taken on her novel, but she’s looking at her short fiction and has offered to help her with social media. Here’s a treasure chest if I ever!! I can’t tell you her name—YET—as we writers tend to be superstitious about announcing anything until the check is in hand (and even then, we still are wary). So cross fingers and spit.

… with me best pal

            Jan Eliot, creator of the syndicated cartoon “Stone Soup,” will be traveling in November to Haiti with Jimmy and Roslyn Carter for Habitat’s Women Build. She’s been on a Women Build project in Thailand. Habitat uses her cartoon characters in their promotion. What a buccaneer! The question: does that mean Grandma in her strip with be travelin' to Haiti? Ah, me thinks she might.

… Your Captain’s News

            This week I be off to the fine port of Waldport, Oregon to seek privacy for four days with a writer pal. I be headin’ into the final chapters of me novel and will immerse in all things non pirate to bring to life my last climactic scenes.

For now, I tip me hat to ye all. Thanks for bein’ on board and sailin’ w’ me. You’re a mighty fine crew!

Yours through storm and smooth sailin’,

Captain Val

COMING UP!

Fashionable Writer-Pirates: What They're Wearing This Season

Readers Beware! What you need to know about reviews and recommendations

What it Takes to be a Writer

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup”

The Fountain of Youth, or What Does a Writer’s Resumé Really Look Like?

I’ll be Gobsmacked! The news comes pouring in and I bail it here (links listed below):

I continue to chase down Captain Jessica Maxwell, that slippery lass, and shiver me timbers, I’ve booked an interview with her on May 26^th. She’s sailing at top speed! She’s writing a Bhutan book proposal, a NW Palate assignment, and traveling to New Mexico and New York for research on her big AARP assignment, “Retreats.” For those who follow her Roll Around Heaven adventures and want to join her, she’ll be doing a RAH! Workshop in Sun Valley, Idaho May 19-23, followed by giving a RAH! talk in Portland, Oregon, on May 25.

I’m tired to me bones just writin’ this!

One of my long-time favorite authors, Alice Hoffman, turned me on to a guilty pleasure—the television show “Being Erica.” As she says on Facebook, “… therapy and time travel, what more can you ask from a TV series!”

Don’ sail past her latest work of fiction, The Red Garden, a collection of linked stories that, after readin’ the first four stories, seems to ha’ disappearing as a theme. In her magical way she takes ye through two-hundred years in the town of Blackwell, Massachusetts. Being from New England, I love the mysterious, the dark, the Gothic, so these stories makes me blood surge.

A hearty lift of the tankard to Jennifer Egan who just won the Pulitzer for her A Visit from the Goon Squad, a novel on me “best reads.” Attn: Time Magazine: it’s TIME! Put her on the cover.

The always adventurous Seattle7Writers have launched Hotel Angeline: a novel in 36 Voices. A fleet of writers collaborate on a novel? Aye!

Now, to Captain Val Adventures!

The Fountain of Creative Ideas, or

Why My Resume Wouldn't Land Me a Normal Job

The Fountain of Youth, or

What Does a Writer’s Resumé Really Look Like?

            Where to begin, me hearties? Why, at the end of me last Captain’s Log, that’s where!

            I still be thinkin’ on that chandelier. It’s me love of lights, of things that sparkle. Why? ‘Cause I write about the dark things in life, seekin’ the proverbial “light at the end of the passageway.” It’s a pirate’s life to seek treasure, to find it in dangerous places.

            Like the great, and sometimes despicable, captains of yore, who struck out for the land of milk and honey or spices or gold, or to find a continent in the name of a queen, it’s the adventure, the mystery, their curiosity that kept them going. O, aye, they set their hearts on bringing home booty, but as in any adventure, isn’t the pursuit the real treasure?

            And me point? Well, mateys, ‘tis the same for writers. Aye, our ultimate treasure is to hold a book in our hands, knowing others are reading our tale.

            But the real adventure, the treasure, is in the writing, setting forth the story that won’t be quiet. Aye, indeed, a few buccaneers need to publish for glory, but I haven’t met any of those scallywags yet. Settin’ out to write a New York Times bestseller is akin to sailin’ out to find the fountain of youth. We all desire recognition, to be knighted, but that’s external and elusive. What sets us on the writing journey is curiosity and longing, and that comes from within.

            And here’s me point (aye, I’m a long-winded bag o’ bones) for this Log:

A writer must always be searchin’, must always feel hungry, must always be dissatisfied.

Aye, it’s a sad truth. Under that beautiful calm sea is a sunken ship with barnacles and some weird strange creatures livin’ inside.

            Some writers don’t try to hide this. Some are sailin’ the seas with their freak flag wavin’ brilliantly for all to see. Hoorah!

            But most don’t. Most seem almost—dare I say it?—normal.

            Don’t be fooled, readers. Ya see, writer’s ha’ two resumes. One they use for job searches (aye, the majority of writers work another job) and one they hide. And for writers, it’s the latter they draw on for their work. Think of it this way: some writers openly sail those scary troubled waters with memoir. Every writer has a memoir in them, but many prefer the fiction world, an escape from those troubled waters.

            Here’s me advice for fishing those waters when attending a reading of one of your favorite authors. Don’ bother asking questions like “Have you ever had writer’s block?” “Where do your ideas come from?” or “Who’s your favorite author?” Yawn! They’ll just give ye the standard answer.

            Go for gold. Ask, “Ha’ ye ever been close to death?” “Ha’ ye ever taken a dark road and been lost?” “What terrifies you and why?” Tailor those questions to their work. I guarantee that will wake up the audience and the author.

            To keep ye hooked and for me to sail, in the next Captain’s Log I’ll show ye how those questions apply to me life. I’ll tell ye where I fish for my material, what me subterranean world looks like, what creepy little creatures live there and where they came from. I’ll actually answer those questions above.

            Ah, the deep is a scary place, but sunken treasure lies there.

Until then, Dear Faithful Buccaneers, I am yours,

Captain Val

Jessica Maxwell and Roll Around Heaven

"Being Erica" episodes

Alice Hoffman talking about ghosts, the past, and explaining the world

Jennifer Egan talking about the idea of time, music, and her novel

Hotel Angeline: a Novel in 36 Voices

Coming Up! (Keep laughin’, you scallywags!)

"The Deep: Captain Val's Answers to Last Week's Questions"

"Platform, Flatform"

"A View of My Writers Room Wall: What Inspires Me"

A Giveaway! Yes, something for you, maties

... and in June! an interview with Jessica Maxwell of Roll Around Heaven