“Why doesn’t every writers group put together an anthology?”

The question took me by surprise. I was standing on the second floor of the Plaza Hotel in New York City the evening before the opening of Book Expo 2010, when literary agent Gareth Esersky inquired, shaking her head. I was there representing the Bethlehem Writers Group in accepting two Next Generation Indie Book Awards--Best Anthology and Best Short Fiction--for our anthology, A Christmas Sampler: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Holiday Tales (available from IndieBound, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble).

My flippant answer was that there are laws against homicide.

If I hadn’t been so surprised by the question, I might have given a more thoughtful response. After considering the matter a bit, I think the answer is that putting together an anthology requires a great deal of dedication and patience, a variety of talents, and hard work by every member of the group. It isn't easy.

Authors of A Christmas Sampler
Standing: Emily P. W. Murphy, Paul Weidknecht, Will Wright,
Cindy Kelly, Ralph Hieb, Carol L. Wright, Courtney Annicchiarico
Seated: Jeff Baird, Carol A. Hanzl Birkas, Jo Ann Schaffer,
Sally Wyman Paradysz

Our group had already beaten the odds by thriving for over three years. Many writers groups find it hard to sustain a compatible and dedicated membership for such a long period of time. Our group included writers of various genres and levels of experience--hazardous to a group’s long-term success according to conventional wisdom. We were at various stages of life--from recent college grad to retired--and our personalities didn't always mesh well, but we'd found ways to reach accommodation. Through our biweekly meetings and group challenges, we'd established a rapport, a friendship, and a group identity. We were a family of writers. Publishing an anthology didn’t look like such a big leap for us . . . until we got started.

We decided to go for it in the summer of 2008, setting a publication goal of September, 2009. We thought we had plenty of time. Our first task was selecting a theme. But how do you create an anthology that incorporates children’s stories, sardonic satire, paranormal, fantasy, literary fiction, mystery, memoir, light romance, and more? 

Ultimately our location in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, nicknamed “Christmas City, USA,” gave us the direction we needed. We would compile Christmas stories. With that decided, we went to work writing our stories, each following his or her own muse. 

We brought early drafts of our stories to group meetings. Some went for a sentimental approach.

“Too schmaltzy,” one member complained.  

“But it’s a Christmas book,” the author argued. “It’s supposed to be sweet.”

“That doesn’t mean it has to be saccharine,” the first lobbed back.

When another author brought a cynical Santa story, and a third offered a vampire tale, our children’s writers must have wondered whether their stories would make the cut.

Somehow, by early spring of 2009, we had twenty-three stories of various lengths that the group voted to include in the anthology—with every author represented.

Then came the task of finding a title for such an eclectic collection. After about a hundred suggestions, we finally settled on A Christmas Sampler: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Holiday Tales. (And we all knew which ones were strange.)

We celebrated our accomplishment, not realizing that the hardest work still laid ahead, requiring talents most writers don’t possess. These included copyediting, layout, cover design, bookkeeping, and the author’s least favorite: marketing. At times it seemed overwhelming.

We were lucky that two of our members had publishing experience. One did copyediting, while the other had the artistic talents, and the required software, to create our cover and do our layout. (She even made the quilt in the background on our cover.) Time was short, and there was more to do than we realized. Tempers frayed as we tried to learn new skills and create a professional-looking product. After a lot of hard work, trial and error, doing and re-doing, we sent our files to the printer in June. By the middle of August, we held the book in our hands.

We sent copies out for reviews, but learned that many places required a review copy three months ahead of the publication date or payment of a fee. We were too late and too broke by that point to get pre-publication reviews. Undaunted, we determined to create our own buzz.

With the help of friends in newspaper publishing we put together a marketing plan, press releases, and promotional materials. We started to see some interest through online retailers, but we had gone with print-on-demand, and found it next to impossible to get our book into the chain stores, even though our group then held its meetings at a Barnes and Noble.

Undeterred, our authors spread out, setting up dozens of book signings at libraries and independent bookstores. We became our own distributors, dealing with deliveries, invoices, and discounts, but we didn’t get any returns. With many authors we could be in several places at once. One indie bookstore had us back for three signings in our first holiday season. And we knew that a Christmas book was something we could continue to market year after year.

We entered two contests, the Indie Book Awards, where we won for best anthology and best short fiction, and the DIY book awards where we won honorable mention in the anthology category. It was a delight to update our cover to include our gold award seal.

Since then we have continued to come together for our regular meetings, and welcomed new members into our group.  For some of our members, publication in A Christmas Sampler satisfied their writing goals, and they have moved on to other pursuits. For others, however, the anthology was just a step in their writing careers. Will Wright, has a fantasy novel and short stories published on Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=will+wright). Carol Birkas has published a children’s book that her daughter illustrated. Several others have full-length manuscripts that they are ready to shop to agents. Still more have added short stories, articles, contest wins, and writing awards to their credits.

As a group we have expanded our endeavors to include publication of a literary magazine, BethlehemWriters Roundtable, to enhance our platform and offer members and nonmembers an opportunity to publish short stories. Continuing our goal of encouraging writers both locally and beyond, we are offering a Short Story Award with cash prizes and offers of publication for the winners. 

The publication process was stressful, but what might have torn some groups apart, drew us together. In 2010 we once again launched a group effort to promote our book at book signings and author events, and repeatedly heard another surprising question: “When is your next book coming out?”

At first the idea sounded more like a punishment than an opportunity, but time has passed. They say that parents have their children two or more years apart because it takes that long to forget the pains of sleepless nights and endless diaper changes. It has taken us three years to decide that our anthology needs a younger sibling. Having forgotten the pain and remembering most of the joys of the past, we are currently developing a new anthology—this one is for any time of year. It is tentatively entitled Seasonal Pursuits: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Tales, and has an anticipated publication in the fall of 2012.  Like many second-time parents, we’re doing things a little differently, and hopefully even better this time around.

Now in the 2011 holiday season, we’re again enjoying book signings while meeting deadlines for submissions for our new anthology. We’re very busy, but perhaps that’s part of why we’re still here. Our authors are continually engaged.

At this point, we don’t know how many “children” we’ll choose to have, but we expect to enjoy them all, and hope that readers will, too. 

(A version of this blog entry was originally published on savvyauthors.com)

A Writer's Thanksgiving Prayer

Thank you, Lord, for many blessings:
For a mother who gave me words and encouraged me to read,
For a father who supported my education and pushed me to reach for my dreams,
For a little brother who listened to my stories when we were young, and told me to write them when we grew up,
For a wealth of writer friends who will read my work and tell me when it's bad--or even when it's good,
For an actor-son who has shown me what it means to persevere against all odds--and by doing so to succeed,
For a writer-daughter who is my best editor and writing partner,
And for a wonderfully supportive husband who is and always will be my love and inspiration,
Amen.

Going Home Again

While I have lived in Pennsylvania most of my adult life, I grew up in Acton, Massachusetts.

Acton's not really a famous place, but it is right next door to a town that is rather well known: Concord. (By the way, the town's name is pronounced more like "conquered" than like "concorde.") Acton was once part of Concord, but became independent in 1735, so it's just a young whipper snapper by New England standards.

The Battle at the Old North Bridge

Not surprisingly, my childhood was fully steeped in local Revolutionary War history. We took field trips to the Old North Bridge where the battle of Concord was fought. Every April 19th we would re-enact the minutemen's march to Concord from the homestead of the captain of the Acton militia, Isaac Davis. Even as a nine-year-old, I made the several-mile march, and I have the scroll to prove it--signed by Isaac Davis's descendant, Marie Davis Hunt.

Minuteman at Old North Bridge

Captain Davis had a metal shop on his farm, and made bayonets for his men. Naturally, the Acton Minutemen were in the front lines in the stand against the British that fateful day. The Redcoats shot first, and Captain Davis was the first to fall. When the minutemen returned fire, many British soldiers were hit, and their ranks broke. This was the site of the first armed resistance to the British. We from Acton always think of Isaac Davis when we see the famous Minuteman statue at the Old North Bridge, and read its inscription from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard 'round the world.

Last weekend, my niece got married in Groton, Massachusetts, about a half hour west of Acton and Concord. I was happy when one of our party, who had never spent time in the area before, expressed an interest in visiting Concord. It had been a long time since I had played tour guide to the sites I once knew so well.

Alcott's Orchard House

A cold drizzle, that preceded a late-October snow, fell as we traveled east on Route 2, but it didn't dampen my enthusiasm as we approached my old stomping ground. We visited the bridge, and saw the Bullet Hole House and Old Manse. But Concord is known for so much more than a single battle.

Walden Pond in early 1900s

The rich cultural heritage of Concord still lives there. The buildings that were once the homes of authors Louisa May Alcott and her father Bronson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Sidney still stand and have become museums to their literary and philosophic accomplishments. Other authors also called Concord home, including Henry David Thoreau and poet Ellery Channing. Thoreau's former places of residence are not noted--except, of course, for Walden Pond (where I took swimming lessons). Thoreau famously spent two years in a cabin in the woods on its shores, and wrote about it in one of his most famous works. (I ought to know. We spent one quarter of my English class in my junior year of high school dissecting Walden.) Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne, Channing, and Emerson are all buried in Concord's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in what is known as "Author's Ridge."

Despite a wintry mix pelting us as we went from place to place, showing our friend these sites was strangely renewing for me. While so much has changed in the world since I was last a Bay Stater, much of Concord remains as I remember it.

With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, maybe you can go home again.

Writers' Rules

At our regular meeting of the Bethlehem Writers Group last night, one of our members quoted some advice she had heard from a well-known agent that one should not have any back story in the first 100 pages of a novel. The pronouncement was greeted with a general moan. 


Writers often hear such arbitrary rules. Good ideas offered one writer are passed on to others until they are nearly etched in stone. Some authors try to follow them all to the point of sacrificing storytelling for the sake of the "rules." 


One of the more mineralized bits of wisdom for fiction writing is "show, don't tell." In fact, we usually hear it quoted by one member or another at each of our meetings. It's sometimes hard to figure out exactly what this means. Looking at an example of the two ways of accomplishing the same thing might help. 


Suppose we have a man and a woman involved in a discussion. In the dialogue, we hear their words, but through the narrative we learn about the feelings behind those words. We can do that through showing (e.g. "She pursed her lips, shook her head, and looked away,") or through telling (e.g. "She did not agree with what he said, but didn't want to say so.")


With with the former, we, as readers, feel more like we're there in the scene, watching it unfold, and interpreting the woman's body language based on our own lives and experience. With telling, we might actually know a little more about what is going on inside the woman's head, but with showing we feel more connected. That connection is what can keep a reader involved and turning pages, which is why "show, don't tell" became a rule.

Still, there are times when telling is the best way to get through a section. If you want the reader to know something, but it's not worth half a page to show them, then telling is the more efficient means. The rule "show, don't tell," isn't unbreakable.

Such cases remind me of the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. In it, the fair maid, Elizabeth, is negotiating with the pirate Barbossa to exchange a piece of pirate gold for the safety of her town. 

Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Barbossa: Very well, you hand it over and we'll put your town to our rudder and ne'er return.
Elizabeth: [she hands it over] Our bargain?
[Barbossa walks away from her]
Bo'sun: Still the guns and stow 'em, Signal the men, set the flags and make good to clear port.
Elizabeth: Wait! You have to take me to shore. According to the Code of the Order of the Brethren...
Barbossa: First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner. 



For writers, I believe, like Barbossa, there are very few absolutes. (I've read that the one unbreakable rule is that one should never start a story with "And," but I'm sure there are stories that begin that way.) Tenets like "show, don't tell" and "no back story in the first 100 pages" became rules for a reason, but writers would be well advised to consider them "more what you'd call 'guidelines' . . ." They are often the best advice. But they're not right for every situation. Sometimes, breaking the rules helps a writer find a better way to tell the story. 


Some writing coaches agree with me, but advise writers to be sure to know all the rules before attempting to break any of them.


That's probably good advice . . . but it's not a rule.

A Dialogue on Dialogue

"What are the keys to writing good dialogue?" I asked a writer friend.

"Well, as you well know, I am an avid reader and the author of several yet-to-be-published books, and I know about such things from writing many manuscripts starting when I was only seven years old growing up in Saskatchewan. It makes sense that you would ask me, your Facebook friend, and a person who, while raising seventeen cats, still has time to write every day. One thing you should always do is put a character's back story into your dialogue. It tells the reader about your character and is much livelier than including it in narrative."

"So I see."

"And ending sentences with a preposition, once totally taboo, is something you can use dialogue for."

"I thought we used dialogue to relate what characters said."

"That reminds me. Never use 'said' for tagging your dialogue. The English language is full of much more interesting words to use for a dialogue tag. Try ranted, exclaimed, reposted, averred, proclaimed, and so on. 'Said' will just disappear so that the reader will only focus on what the characters are saying instead of on your creative way of expressing it."

"Okay. I can do that," I said. "How can I make my dialogue sound natural?"

"Well, uh, part of your, um, problem could be that when people are talking in, uh, real life, sometimes they . . . pause . . . or, uh, su-su-su-stammer, or, um, re-reach for just the right . . . turn of phrase . . . and, um, writers sometimes leave this out and make their dialogue, uh, unnatural. By putting it into your dialogue, you'll, uh, make the reader feel like . . . he or she . . . is reading what a real person is, um, saying."

"Isn't that a little hard to read?"

"Really, Sam? Isn't it clear, Sam? Which reminds me, Sam, that making your dialogue personal by mentioning the other character's name over and over again, lets you know who's talking. You understand don't you, Sam?"

"My name's Carol."

"And do not use contractions. I could not be clearer. I would like to think you will follow my advice. I cannot imagine that you are unable to understand why. This is not email, you know. It is formal writing."

"I'll try to remember that."

"Nother whay to mike somethin' sound jes' raht, is to use spellin' that'll tell the reedah the kinda accent yer kerkter haz."

"Hunh?"

"And always write in complete sentences. Never use a single word or two as a response. It shows a disrespect for the reader."

"How?"

"Trust me. Writing dialogue is easy. Why when I write dialogue I always try to make sure that the speaker, or in this case the character who is represented on the page by the author as having spoken, gives lengthy and thorough responses to all questions posed. Thereby, they can expound upon the important issues that surround the matter at hand, whatever that might be in the context of the story the author is attempting to tell. There is a reason that Shakespeare used the soliloquy. It was so that an individual character could command the stage, singularly and alone, for all to see, to talk, perchance to muse, upon a subject without interruption from anyone else. Being able to hold the floor with other characters on stage, or in the room, so to speak, or on the page, is even more important, for any character who is worth writing about should be able to go on and on and on and on and on and on. After all, that is the way people actually talk, never allowing for interruption until they have expressed a complete, well-designed, and gracefully executed barrage of language with or without meaning. Such is the way of the world, and it is in this manner that you should write your dialogue. Otherwise it lacks verisimilitude, which is a word, you, as a writer, should know means having a quality of realism, or of being true to reality."

"I don't think people really converse that way."

"Think not? My bad. But I'm just too sick to care. Because my dialogue is always surge, you, my reader peeps, no matter when you read my work, will know that I am awesome, because I always use the latest language fads to appear hep and up to date."

"Hep?"

"And don't forget to repeat yourself. You shouldn't forget to repeat yourself. People do it all the time. For emphasis, or to be sure they understand. To be sure they understand what's been said. People do it all the time. You should repeat yourself."

"Doesn't that make it a bit tedious?"

"Such palaver. You will also want your dialogue to limn a protagonist with whom your reader can colligate. Write dialogue that imbues the character with perspicacity and sagacity."

"I don't know what half those words mean. Should my readers have a dictionary close at hand, or should I just include a glossary?"

"If you follow all of these rules, you, too, might be able to write several unpublished manuscripts with dialogue as good as mine."

"Thanks," I said. I think I'm sorry I asked.

Lost Cat!

We've all seen posters and classified ads for lost pets. They always makes me a bit sad. I have had one or more pets nearly all my life, and feel for the loss and worry these people are suffering. We know how they love their pets--each with its own special place in their hearts.

Like many writers, I have a hard time using "it" to describe a pet, but in our gender-neutral language, only homo sapiens are granted the personal pronouns of "he" or "she" in formal writing. This, however, is not formal writing, because I am writing about my missing cat. She is a three-year-old calico, indoor-only cat. She slipped out last Sunday, and we've seen no sign of her since. We've searched everywhere she might have gone, talked to neighbors, called local shelters, left out food, distributed flyers, and put ads in the classifieds, but after four days, she is still missing.

She was part of a litter of five that was born in our garage. We had successive generations of feral cats in and around our yard during the preceding years, but when the new litter was born right in our garage, we decided to collect the kittens and hand raise them so that they could become someone's pets. It turned out that they became our pets. We've had them since they were three weeks old, and they have always been indoor cats.


Our missing kitty is a bit shy and is not much of a cuddle-cat. She doesn't like to be picked up, and only tolerates stroking when necessary to get a treat, so she would be very hard for a stranger to catch. But she is lively and funny and vocal, and is very much missed.

People are kind. A neighbor called upon seeing a cat who, it must be said, despite the photos we put on our flyer bore no resemblance to ours. It's the thought that counts. Another person responded to our Craig's List ad that we shouldn't lose hope. Her cat came back after 10 days with no sign of him. That helped quite a bit.

But what will help the most is an actual sighting of her--or her return. While she is out in the world, where she has no experience fending for herself, there is not much more we can do--except worry.

Can You Find Independence Day on a Calendar?

If so, you're among the 94% of Americans who can. Unfortunately, that means 6% of us cannot.

Ignorance of our past is nothing new. Jay Leno has poked a lot of fun at Americans who think the first flag was sewn by Betty Ford, the first president was Benjamin Franklin, and Louis Armstrong was the first man on the moon. These are some of the same people who can't name the vice president or tell you in which country you would find the Panama Canal. We laugh and assume such ignorance is rare, and that Leno had to ask a lot of questions before getting the answers he put on the air. 

Now, however, we have more cause for concern. The Department of Education reported in May that only 20% of 6th graders, 17% of 8th graders, and 12% of high school seniors scored at the "proficient" level for history on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Only 1% of seniors scored as "advanced."

If high school seniors enter college knowing very little about history, the colleges must spend time teaching things that their students should already know. In turn, this means that colleges do not have the time to give students a higher level of education on the subject, leaving college-educated adults with minimal knowledge and understanding of history.

And it's not just history. Knowledge of all social studies is lacking. Facebook has revealed Americans' ignorance of geography, ranking 117th among 193 countries. Knowledge of civics is similarly poor. In 2009, when Oklahoma high school students were given the U.S. citizenship test--the test given to those who hope to become naturalized U.S. citizens--only 2.8% passed.  Compare that to the 92% pass rate for those from other countries who are seeking U.S. citizenship. In addition, only 23% of the Oklahoma students tested correctly identified the first president of the United States. Subsequently, Newsweek found that 38% of their sample of 1000 Americans also failed the citizenship test. See the test questions Newsweek used here. 

This is embarrassing, but so what? Is this really such a problem?

Putting aside the often-quoted maxim that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it, in a democracy, this is very important. The majority of recent high school graduates meet the age requirement for voting. Citizens can run for office. But can a democracy thrive if its voters are ignorant, or if they put ignorant people into office? 

I'm not talking about the slips of the tongue to which all politicians fall victim. There is no doubt that President Obama knows that there are 50 states in the U.S.--not 57 as he once said in an off-hand comment at a campaign stop. Michele Bachmann, if she had thought about it, probably would not have said that Concord, New Hampshire was where the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired. Campaigning is exhausting; people make mistakes. Just ask Joe Biden. (He's the vice president, you know.)

But when they refuse to acknowledge their own ignorance, we have a problem. We saw this when Michele Bachmann refused to admit her error in saying, "But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents [e.g. Declaration of Independence] worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." Bachmann's statement sounded good, but the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, died in 1832, decades before the end of slavery. She then referred to the abolitionist efforts of John Quincy Adams, who was not quite nine years old when we declared our independence, and who died in 1848, nearly fifteen years before the Emmancipation Proclamation. This rhetorical error was not nearly as important as the content of the rest of her speech, but because she refused to admit that she misspoke, it has become the only thing people know about her talk.

Sarah Palin staunchly defended her description of Paul Revere's famous ride to secretly warn colonists of the movements by the British regulars as, ". . . he who warned, uh, the, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and, and, um, making sure as he's ridin' his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free." It was a forgivable blunder if she owned up to it, but instead she stood by it saying she knew her history. What is even worse, some of her supporters tried to change the Wikipedia page on Paul Revere to coincide with her erroneous statement.  Fortunately, Wikipedia closed the page to revision when it discovered the effort.

Ignorance can be cured, but a dogged persistence in, and defense of it cannot. Nor can the willful distortion of "facts" so often engaged in by politicians and pundits.

I am fortunate to occasionally co-teach a day-long seminar on civics for high school students. These students are hand selected by civic organizations for this special program, and they give up some of their free time to attend. They are usually well informed and enthusiastic about the subject. And they always pass the U.S. citizenship test. These young people give me hope for the leaders of tomorrow, but they are few. What about the rest of our young people?

President Obama has called for reform of No Child Left Behind which focuses on achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics. Knowing that we're doing so poorly in teaching our children history, geography, and civics, perhaps we can take this opportunity to refocus our energies in that direction. Our schools are not just there to generate test scores. They help create informed and involved citizens.

What do you think? Are social studies as important as reading, writing, and math? And on this Independence Day weekend, are you willing to take a challenge?

Take the sample test questions on the NAEP History assessment here. There are five questions each at three different levels: 4th grade, 8th grade, and 12th grade. Let us know how you did.