August 18, 2012 Meeting 1:45-2:45 Joshua Corin, Whose Thriller
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Aug 15 David Fulmer’s Fiction Shop starts Aug 18 Speakers: Janell Walden Agyeman & Joshua Corin Aug 31 Creative Writing Competition deadline August/2012 August 18, 2012 meeting 1:45-2:45 Joshua Corin, whose thriller series protagonist is a woman, will speak about writing from the perspective of the opposite sex 3:15-4:14 Janell Agyeman, agent for Marie Brown Assoc., will speak about writ- ing from the perspective of a different race or culture The August meeting will be at the regular location: Georgia Perimeter College, NC-1100 auditorium ...founded in 1914 We are a social and educational club where local writers meet to discuss the craft and business of writing. We also sponsor contests for our members and host expert speakers from the worlds of writing, publishing, and entertainment. Inside this Edition Officers In Context 3 President: American Literately Merit Award 5 Clay Ramsey August Speakers 6 Officer Emeritus: Class for Fledgling Writers 7 George Weinstein Support Your Library 8 Membership VP: Atlanta Story Development Private Workshop 9 Ginny Bailey Authors’ Reception 10 Programs VP: Books for Heroes 11 Anjali Enjeti-Sydow Texas Review Press Breakthrough Poetry Prize 11 Soniah Kamal Prep Workshop for Manuscripts Critiques 12 Secretary: Loretta Hannon Presents 13 Bill Black Spring Contest Winners 14 Treasurer: Atlanta Writers Conference 15 Kimberly Ciamarra Book Your Success 16 Creative Writing Competition 17 Operations VP: Workshop Photos 18 Valerie Connors Seeking Manuscripts 19 Contests, Awards, Writing Contest 20 Scholarships VP: Moonlight & Magnolias 21 Nedra Roberts Fall AWC Contest Guidelines 23 Marketing/PR VP: Looking Ahead 26 Tara Lynne Groth Critique Groups 27 Social Director: Membership Information 28 Cindy Wiedenbeck Membership Form 29 Volunteers: Historian/By- Laws: Adrian Drost It's time again to call on our members for support, and ask for volunteers to help out with some of the many exciting programs heading our way in the coming months. Photographers: Jill Evans & We'll need check-in volunteers for each of our future monthly meetings. If you would Rona Simmons like to volunteer for a specific meeting, please let VP of Operations Valerie Connors know which month you prefer. Or, if you would like to volunteer but are unsure about Videographers: your availability until the time gets nearer, she will gladly include you in her list of Michael Stone & volunteers to contact at a later date. Please respond to: [email protected]. Jonathan Knott Critique Groups: Ron Aiken eQuill Publisher: http://www.facebook.com/people/Atlanta-WritersClub/100000367043383 Gene Bowen http://twitter.com/atlwritersclub Page 3 eQuill In Context, by Clay Ramsey, President New graduates are urged to claim this word in just about every commencement speech you are likely to hear. It is also whispered to children with a prayer for safekeeping and peaceful slumber as they drift off to sleep. Sometimes journalists will use the word to highlight the dazzling talent of a sports or legal defense team. But apart from these occasions, the word is seldom discussed by adults outside of a therapist’s office. And that’s a shame, because it is a beautiful word that repre- sents a beautiful experience. The word, of course, is dream. Lexicons I consulted tend to arrange definitions of this one word dream in four different categories: unawareness (I was dreaming of soaking in a hot bath when I got home and didn’t see the truck until it was too late), fantasy (I dream about winning the lottery), perfection (Being a travel writer would be my dream job) and ambition (My dream is to one day own my own company). While I won’t explore the implications of each meaning, it is clear there is some overlap in sense. In every case the word is used to de- scribe that flight of the imagination that soars above the mundane and rests in the paradise of what is just beyond our grasp. All of these related meanings emerged as metaphorical extensions of the common biochemical ex- perience we have every day when we drift into REM sleep. Not surprisingly, this widespread event is the primary definition of the word and the one we are most familiar with on a fundamental level. The vast majority of humans dream, even if they don’t remember the details the next day, and there is some indication that even many animals have some form of dream activity, as well. Theo- ries abound, of course, about why we dream. Some say it is the brain’s way of dealing with the mental and emotional problems encountered during our waking hours. Others suggest it is just the free play of unconscious urges and unspoken desires dancing across the brain, unhindered by con- scious controls. The ancients thought they were sent by gods to guide future decisions or warn of danger, or by demons to terrorize or deceive. But in an age that values neurophysiology over spiri- tualism, the actual reasons why we dream are still vigorously debated. It is precisely because we can’t explain the reasons for dreaming that there have been so many attempts to interpret them, from the efforts of shamans to reveal the mysteries of the spirit-world to the modern work of men like Freud and Jung and their intellectual descendents to tease out the nuances of the human psy- che projected in dreams. Of course authors have not left the exploration of this universal and profound experience to scien- tists and mystics. Literary history is full of writers who have used dreams in their work. Conven- tional wisdom says it is an unforgivable mistake to carry a reader through the length of an entire novel, only to reveal that the preceding four hundred pages of adventures, emotional engage- ments, and expectations are only the dream of the narrator. The mislead reader is rightly exasper- ated and the author is guilty of betraying a trust that says the world of the novel matters, that the story counts. The revelation it is only a dream and hence a purposeful deception undercuts the contract between writer and reader. However, this does not mean dreams cannot be an acknowl- edged frame for a story. Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls – all are what scholars classify as “dream vision” stories. The narrator is known by the reader to fall asleep, dream and then wake up. In this case there is no deception; in fact it was a popular device, especially in the Middle Ages, to relate stories with allegorical significance that might be difficult to explore fully in the rational world the narrator inhabits when awake. But I want to take this idea of the dream beyond a consideration of plot devices. The Argentine librarian and master storyteller Jorge Luis Borges said, “Writing is nothing more than a guided (Continued on page 4) Page 4 eQuill (Continued from page 3) dream.” (Preface to Dr. Brodie’s Report, 1970). In fact, even beyond specific pieces like “The Circular Ru- ins” and the collection of essays, stories and poems translated as Dreamtigers, he considered all his liter- ary work to be the “fiction of dreams.” Not surprisingly he influenced an entire generation of South Ameri- can authors, not the least of whom was Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and contributed to the emergence of what became known as “magical realism.” It is a style marked by the merger of fantastic, fabulous, often mythical elements with a conventionally objective narrative form. There is the sense that it can only be understood as one understands a dream, with all the ambiguity, fragmentary images, emotional surges, phantasmagoria, and alternate realities we have come to expect when we close our eyes and slip into the world of what J.W. Dunne called our “modest personal eternity” (An Experiment with Time). So what does all this have to do with you as a writer? I am not suggesting you write in the style of magi- cal realism, nor am I proposing you all become fantasy writers. What I am asking you to do is to cultivate your dreams. Cut loose periodically from the drudgery of everyday life and let your imagination roam. Daydream. Visualize what is possible. As a writer, work to strengthen that impulse that naturally wants to go beyond the pedestrian, beyond this world, to embrace the never-before-conceived. Having liberated your mind to dream, then pay attention to the movements your mind makes, to the flights of fantasy that your thoughts take. Get in the habit of writing down these thoughts, no matter how outlandish they may seem. It is just these ethereal, magical, labyrinthine, completely unrealistic dreams that are the raw mate- rial of your creative work. Keep a dream journal beside your bed. Get in touch with the numinous, with what lies just below the surface of your subconscious, with the thoughts, images and feelings that are constantly swirling in your brain both asleep and awake. Cling to that bright, shimmering vision on the horizon of your mind and don’t allow it to grow dull by the cares of life. But then take the next step. After you cultivate an awareness of the stuff of dreams in your life, do some- thing about it. In the Conclusion of Walden Thoreau said that after you have built your castles in the air, put foundations under them. Dr. King had a dream, but he realized the dream through marches and sit- ins and other demonstrations of non-violent resistance. If you dream of being a writer, then do something about it. Take that writer’s exercise of imagining What If? and apply it to your writing career and to your life.