Wannabee's Words

Meeting Robert Michael Pyle

Twenty-five years ago, I discovered some beautiful hand-crafted stuffed sasquatches at a toy store in Gig Harbor, Washington. I promptly snatched up three of them to take home with me, and they have been with me ever since. In 1992 my very first Volkswalk was the “Bigfoot to Baker,” held in conjunction with a bigfoot festival and parade in Glacier, Washington, and I got a very nice patch shaped like a bigfoot, with a friendly, waving sasquatch on it, for finishing the Volkswalk.

Given my interest in these legendary creatures, it is no surprise that when I came across a book called Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide, I promptly snatched that up, too, and hungrily devoured it. Thus began my acquaintance with nature writer Robert Michael Pyle. Since then I have added many of his books to my bookshelves: Wintergreen: Rambles in a Ravaged Land, Chasing Monarchs: Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland, Sky Time in Gray's River, Walking the High Ridge: Life as Field Trip, and his latest, Mariposa Road: the First Butterfly Big Year.

But I had never met nor seen Pyle read until this fall at Wordstock in Oregon.

(See posting for February 6, 2011.) Pyle was there to read and discuss Mariposa Road. As it turned out, he was scheduled into the last slot on Sunday, and Wordstock itself closed immediately after the final readings, so there was really no time to talk to Pyle, though I would have liked to.

Imagine my delight when I discovered that he was going to be in Corvallis at the start of November, doing another reading from Mariposa Road.  Pyle is a very friendly, genuine, and fascinating person, with a wonderful sense of humor, not to mention being an incredible writer.  He has been nominated for and won numerous awards for his writing, yet he is amazingly accessible and down to earth. While everyone else was off buying his book at the sales table, I raced up to where he was sitting at another table - my pre-purchased copy of the book in hand-  and not only did I get it personally autographed, I got to talk with him for a good five minutes and got not one, but two big hugs, along with a sincere comment that he’d love to read some of my writing some time. Needless to say, I was walking on Cloud Nine when I left the reading.

And to top it all off, when I went back outside, there it was across the street – the famed Powdermilk, the 1982 Honda Civic hatchback that I have read about in his books and which has taken him on so many of his trips around the Northwest and the U.S.  Since I have always named my cars and kept them for a long time, as Pyle has done, I knew, from the first moment I “met” Powdermilk in Where Bigfoot Walks, that I had met something of a kindred spirit in Robert Michael Pyle. Meeting him in person only confirmed that.

William L. Sullivan

In mid-October I was fortunate to see author William Sullivan at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library in Corvallis. Sullivan is well known in the Pacific Northwest for a series of hiking guidebooks he has written, and he was there with a slide show to go along with his new book 100 Hikes in Southern Oregon, which I already had. Since I had just moved from southern Oregon to Corvallis, it was like being back home is southern Oregon again as he talked about and showed slides of places I was quite familiar with.

Sullivan is very down to earth and a good presenter. The standing room only crowd received him eagerly and rushed to the sales table afterward to buy books and maps. I already had Cabin Fever: Notes from a Part-Time Pioneer and Trips and Trails Oregon, and I had just purchased his other new book Trails of Crater Lake National Park & Oregon Caves National Monument when I had been at Crater Lake in August. But I purchased and had him autograph his classic Listening for Coyote: a Walk Across Oregon's Wilderness and Oregon's Greatest Natural Disasters, as well as his superb Oregon Topo-Travel-Reference Map with Travel Guide.

All of his guidebooks feature good maps and excellent, detailed descriptions of the routes. His latest two books, 100 Hikes in Southern Oregon and Trails of Crater Lake National Park & Oregon Caves National Monument have many beautiful  color photos shot by Sullivan, including identification guides to wildlife and wildflowers.

Sullivan’s website is www.oregonhiking.com.

Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen

Last November I was lucky enough to catch Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen doing a reading in Port Orford. It happened to be a weekend I had already planned on going to Port Orford, and I was very excited when I found out she’d be reading while I was there. I was even more excited when she called to book a room at the motel where I was then working as assistant manager, and I got to talk with her a little more.

The reading was quite well attended, as Port Orfordians, living in a rather remote location, but having a great love for the arts, are very enthusiastic about any arts events that find their way there. (They also generate a lot of their own arts events within the community.)

Paulann is possibly the best reader of poetry that I have ever seen read. She read a number of selections from her five books: The Wild Awake, Blood-silk, A Bride of Narrow Escape, Kindle. and The Voluptuary. Her poems are full of imagery, lush and sensual, grounded in the earth and yet soaring in the stars. I came away with all five of her books, individually autographed.

Paulann is coming to Corvallis, where I now live, in April to do a reading and give a short workshop, and I am excited to see her again and this time be able to take a workshop from her.

For anyone able to attend, the date is Wednesday, April 6^th. The reading will be from 12:00 to 12:50 pm, with the workshop from 1:00 to 1:50 pm in the Library Reading Room, Lane-Benton Community College’s Albany Campus.

Paulann Petersen was named to a two-year appointment as Oregon’s sixth Poet Laureate by Governor Ted Kulongoski on April 26, 2010. She has received several awards, including Stanford University’s Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, two Carolyn Kizer Poetry Awards, and Literary Art’s Stewart Holbrook Award for Outstanding Contributions to Oregon’s Literary Life.

You can find out more about her on her website www.paulann.net.
                                                                                                                                              

                                              

2010 South Coast Writers Conference

The South Coast Writers Conference just keeps getting better!

Although the bad economy seems to have affected attendance somewhat, and there appeared to be slightly fewer authors presenting workshops - again, due to economic concerns - the quality of the conference was very high.

I noticed at the Authors Night readings on Friday night that this was possibly the best group of readers ever. The Keynote Speaker was Naseem Rakha, author of The Crying Tree. Rahka is an award winning journalist whose stories have been heard on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” as well as other venues. Her keynote presentation was one of the best – if not the best – I have heard at the SCWC since I have been attending.

For me, the conference started on Friday when I ran into author Melissa Hart at my motel – most of the authors were staying there - after breakfast. Since I had finished reading – “devouring” would really be a better word - Melissa’s two autobiographies, The Assault of Laughter and Gringa: a Contradictory Childhood, just days before, I was very excited to meet Melissa. Her memoirs are riveting, and I felt like I knew her after reading them. She is very friendly and accessible, as well as being a marvelous writer and great teacher. I got to find out the latter when I took her well-attended six-hour workshop on “Writing Memoir that Sells” that same day. In fact, I ended up sitting next to her and had further opportunities to talk with her. She had great handouts and readings to illustrate points and shared her own experiences in getting published.

Prior to the Authors Night keynote and readings, I ran into Jessica Page Morrell, who had been a workshop presenter at the Write on the Sound conference in Edmonds last October. I had met her when I purchased one of her books, Writing Out the Storm, at that conference’s reception and book signing. I had been very impressed with the book when I recently read it, and when I found another of her books, Thanks, But This isn’t for Us: a (Sort of) Compassionate Guide to Why Your Writing is Being Rejected, at Gold Beach Books the night before the conference, I bought a copy. At the end of the conference on Saturday afternoon, I won a door prize, and my selection was her book Between the Lines: the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing, which she signed for me. I enjoyed meeting and talking with her again and am hoping to see her at WOTS this fall.

Saturday I took four 1-1/2 hour workshops: two with Melissa Hart, “Humorous Short Commentary about Serious Social Issues” and “The Art of the Short Essay,” as well as “It’s in the Cards” with David Lunde and “Harvest the Fruits of Your Life” by memoirist Sarahlee Lawrence. Lawrence is the author of River House: a Memoir. This was my year to explore memoir!

Lunde is a poet and translator; his workshop was challenging and fun. He gave every attendee four index cards, each with a set of five words on it, and gave us an hour to write a poem using four of the five words on whichever card we chose. Or you could pick an illustrated notecard and write a poem based on that instead. Many of the participants wrote several poems, and they were almost all very high quality. While it took me the whole hour to write just one poem, I was quite pleased with it and plan to polish it and send it off to a yet-to-be-determined publication. And since we got to keep the note cards with the words on them, I plan to write poems using them when I have time. I find this a good way to start a poem, more so than prompts. The next morning when I was checking out, I ran into Lunde in the motel parking lot, and we talked some more. It always amazes me just how down-to-earth most of the authors are.

In addition to my three poems and the poems, short stories, and photography by others in this year’s Rogue River Echoes, I noticed that both Dennis Powers and Keith Scales, presenters at the 2010 SCWC, had also had their submissions chosen for inclusion. What great company to be in!

The 17th Annual South Coast Writers Conference will be held on February 17th & 18th, 2012.

More Validation

Late Saturday night I received an e-mail from the South Coast Writers Conference announcing that three of the four poems I had submitted last summer for consideration for this year’s Rogue River Echoes are going to be published!

This was incredible news, especially when the e-mail included the comment that “we ordinarily do not select three entries from one writer, but the high quality of your writing merited it.”

This is a also a wonderful validation for someone who has her insecurities about how good her poetry really is and comes at a great time, when I am just beginning to submit to other publications and wondering if I will measure up, if I have a chance of getting published in them. It gives me a great deal of encouragement that that is possible.

One of my concerns has been whether my style of poetry is what editors are looking for these days, when so many of them seem to want “edgy” poems. I am definitely not into writing edgy things, nor do I particularly care to read them, either. I tend to judge myself against what is being published, even if I do not personally care for it. But I have decided that all I can really do is just write the way I do and hope there are enough other people – hopefully, some of them editors - who like my style.

I also struggle against the feeling that every poem I write must be wonderful. Looking back at the poems I posted on this site in 2009 when I was participating in the April Poem-a-Day Challenge, I find that the quality of my poems is all over the place: some are really good and some just are plain old bad, not even worthy of a rework. I have begun to realize that not every poem I write is going to be good. Some are going to be bad, and that’s okay. I don’t suppose there has ever been a poet whose every poem was brilliant, with the possible exception of the Bard himself. So maybe I should be a little gentler in judging myself.

I’ve also begun to see how very important it is to set aside a “finished” poem for a while before really considering it finished. Many of those 2009 poems that I was satisfied with at the time I wrote them now strike me as not finished at all. I have learned since then what I can do to improve the more deserving ones. And I am learning that some are just plain bad poems that I shouldn’t waste any more time on.

I am now thinking about doing a chapbook of my published poems, though it will be a while before I have enough of those to fill it! But it seems that taking the best of the best is a wise idea for a first publication.

At the moment, I am just reveling in the good news about my three poems, which I have posted below. One of them is “Paper Ephemera” which won me the Bob Simons Scholarship Award for last year’s SCWC.


Drift Away

As I approach the final stage
of my brief passage,
this is my wish: to drift away
down a finally peaceful river,
where no rapids disturb
my lazy progress toward the sunset;
where all is calm and beautiful,
if only for that short time;

where lush green riverbanks give way
to majestic mountains in the distance;
where birds warble their hellos,
and frogs croak out goodbyes
as I glide silently by on my way to the sea,
relishing my last moments
on this particular river
in the deepening twilight.

Lord knows the trip I’ve made so far
has often been a turbulent one,
and I have sometimes gone far out of my way,
paddling up creeks that joined into the river,
but did not go where I thought they would,
wasting precious time in backtracking.
Sometimes I’ve traveled with another,
most times it’s been alone and now and then lonely.

On more than one occasion I have found myself
in a swirling eddy, going round and round
in circles, making no forward progress;
or going over unexpected waterfalls
and miraculously surviving the drop;
or falling into holes in the churning rapids,
then suddenly rising again into the sunlight,
relieved to be alive to see another day.

Sometimes I’ve beached my boat
and pitched my tent on a sand bar,
staying in one place for a while,
listening to the wind in the trees,
gazing at starlit night skies with crescent moons,
wishing the river could go on forever.

But all rivers run to the sea eventually,
and mine runs into the sea of the eternal now,
where I will be absorbed back into all of life,
into all that is, into God, until once again,
in the never-ending cycle of the universe,
I find myself re-born on a new river
and begin the journey once more.

by Carol Berger


Putting Out Brush Fires

After all the years,
I am tired of putting out brush fires.
Let someone else throw water on them.
Or let them burn and consume
all within their range.
I care not.

I am re-claiming my life,
leaving the brush fires behind,
to deal with more important things:
the sound of angry waves
crashing on the rocky shore,
the autumn sun
angling across a field of fallen leaves,
the softness of a lush carpet
of deep green grass beneath my feet,
the scent of lavender fields
on a hot summer day,
the taste of ripe raspberries
melting on my tongue.

No longer will I waste my time
squelching minor conflagrations
that have nothing to do with who I am
and make no difference to anyone
in the long run.

Instead, I will find my freedom
on the rapids of a raging green river;
my peace, in wild pink rhododendrons
dwelling in quiet redwood forests;
my contentment, in sunset and twilight
and the evening stars in the vast, dark sky.

And not least, I will find my joy,
in knowing that for me,
there are no more brush fires.

by Carol Berger


Paper Ephemera

It is all there in the photo albums
and the postcard books:
the people, places, and things
that have made up my life.

If they could, each picture,
each card, would tell
its story in more depth,
but they cannot speak,
cannot reveal what lies behind
the surface of their silence.

No one but I
can tell those stories.

They will die with me,
taking with them the love,
the laughter, the beauty,
the excitement, discovery, and hope,
along with the all challenges,
changes, and choices of
one woman’s lifetime -
the quiet victories, the silent joys,
and moments of peace
that only I could recount.

Gone, too, will be the fears,
the failures, the heartbreaks,
the confusions, betrayals, and
disappointments – the quiet losses,
the silent sorrows of a life
that was not always so well-lived
as those photos and postcards
would suggest.

Though the artifacts remain,
the memories will be gone,
and these painstakingly
preserved records of my life
will become nothing more
than meaningless scraps
of glossy paper.

by Carol Berger

2010 Wordstock Festival

No sooner had I returned from a week-long trip to Edmonds, Washington to attend Write on the Sound than I received an e-mail from a friend telling me about the Wordstock Festival, which was being held in Portland, Oregon on Saturday and Sunday October 9^th and 10^th, 2010, just a couple of days away.

It wasn’t the best timing, as I was still unpacking from my trip, catching up on my sleep, and going through a week’s worth of mail, but I determined to go if I possibly could.

I had heard about the Wordstock Festival, commonly known as just Wordstock, although the larger Wordstock is a literary art and education organization that has many other programs in addition to the festival.

The festival started in 2005, the year I moved from Washington to Oregon, and I was only vaguely aware of it, living on the opposite end of the state from Portland. With my recent move to Corvallis, I was now much closer and excited about attending it for the first time rather than waiting another full year.

I really wanted to get up and go on Saturday, but my body just wouldn’t cooperate! I managed to make it on Sunday, however, and enjoyed it so much that this year I am definitely planning to go both days.

The 2010 Wordstock was held at the Oregon Convention Center. I had never been there before and didn’t know what to expect, but it was actually easy to find, and the underground parking garage was relatively inexpensive for a full day. Wordstock runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days. Admission is $7 for one day or $10 for both, which is a pretty good price when you see what you get for it.

Wordstock bills itself as “the northwest’s largest book and literary festival.” In its first five years, a total of 80,000 people attended it, and over 1,000 writers were involved in reading, discussing, and teaching at the festival.

Though I found out about it too late to sign up for any of the workshops – and, indeed, after nine workshops at Write on the Sound, I was a little workshopped out anyway– there were 1 hour and 15 minute workshops (at an extra cost) both days, beginning at 9:00, 10:30, noon, 1:30, 3:00, and 4:30 (ending at 5:45).

There were nine stages that ran all day long with readings and panel discussions every hour on the hour beginning at 11 a.m. with the last one being held at 5 p.m. As far as I could tell, these did not repeat, and there were over 200 writers participating, from brand new authors to well-established and very well-known and award-winning ones.

Powell’s Books from Portland had a huge book sales area that featured the books of participating writers, as well as others, and after each reading, there was a book signing time in a nearby area of the exhibition hall for the authors who had just read.

There were also over 100 booths, featuring individual writers, small presses, university presses, literary magazines, writing programs, writing organizations, and just about anyone with some connection to writing or publishing. Many were selling their books or publications, some at special Wordstock prices. Some were giving away small freebies. I made it a priority to visit the Washington State University Press, Oregon State University Press, Crab Creek Review, CALYX, Oregon Poetry Association, Oregon Historical Society, Willamette Writers, Copper Canyon Press, Mountain Writers Series, and the Sitka Center for Arts and Ecology booths.

I came across an acquaintance from the South Coast Writers Conference, James Boyle, selling his Ni’il series of books in his own booth. A Wordstock booth sold souvenirs with the 2010 Wordstock logo: canvas bags (which were sold out when I got to the booth), chino bags, posters, T-shirts, etc. and answered questions for festival attendees.

All attendees were given a festival guide when they entered, but there was so much to see and do that there was hardly time to read it once there. I had perused similar information on line before I came, so I had an idea of whom and what I wanted to see most. Even so, in belatedly reading the extraordinarily comprehensive festival guide, I find I missed a lot of things I would have liked to see that I wasn’t aware of. There were also so many things going on at once, and it was hard to keep track of the time, even though I did try. Just the booths took quite a bit of time to go through, and I wished I’d been able to convince my body to attend on Saturday to have had two days to go through the booths at a more leisurely pace and, of course, to see more authors.

I met one author, Barry Smith, in the parking garage, where he was digging in the back of his car for another belt for his pants, as his belt had just broken, and he was “about to do a reading.” If it seems unusual that he’d be able to find an extra belt in the back of his car, it was because he was on a long road trip around the country, reading his new – and first – book, Only Milo. Barry and I conversed in the elevator going up to the convention center level where Wordstock was taking place. He talked about writing his first book, about the one he’s working on now - which is “completely different” from Only Milo – and he invited me to come hear his reading at 11:00, which I did. I found the selection from Only Milo intriguing, bought a copy, and had Barry sign it. It turns out that this book I’d never heard of before meeting its author in the parking garage had won the Gold Medal in Popular Fiction in the 2010 Independent Publisher Book Awards and is an excellent read!

I was also able to attend a reading by Robin Cody, whom I had taken a workshop from at one of the South Coast Writers Conferences I have attended and whose Voyages of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River is one of my favorite books. This time he was reading from his newest book Another Way the River Has: True Tales from the Northwest.

I ended my day with a reading by one of my favorite writers, Robert Michael Pyle, whom I discovered with Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide about 15 years ago. As I have read almost all of his books, it was wonderful to finally see Pyle in person. He read from and discussed his latest book, Mariposa Road: the FIrst Butterfly Big Year.

I left the conference at 6:00 as they were turning out the lights, lugging a Wordstock chino bag and several other tote bags, all filled with books or literary magazines I’d bought at the festival.

Other things to know about Wordstock if you plan to attend are that there are several tables of free used books, and there is food available adjacent to the exhibit area. There are also a number of events at different venues in Portland in the days prior to the festival itself.

The 2011 Wordstock will be held on Saturday, October 8th & Sunday, October 9^th at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. Be there!!

2010 Write on the Sound Writers Conference

The 25th Write on the Sound Writers Conference was held in Edmonds, Washington on Oct. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 2010. Having recently relocated to Corvallis, Oregon and thus living much closer to the state of Washington than I had been before, I decided to make a road trip to Edmonds to attend the conference and see my long-distance boyfriend who lives not far away from Edmonds.

This was the first time I had attended any writers conference other than the South Coast Writers Conference, which I have attended for the past four years. WOTS is a much larger conference, with double the attendance as the SCWC. It has a maximum limit of 200 attendees and always sells out. This year since it was the 25th anniversary, attendees were given a free pen and tote bag with a 25th anniversary logo. Very nice!

WOTS also runs for three days rather than the two I was used to. I enjoyed the extra day, as it meant that many more workshops to attend! While there is no Author’s Night as at the SCWC, there is a Keynote Speaker Saturday afternoon, and there was an author’s book signing and reception on Saturday night, complete with refreshments and music, where you could meet many of the authors who were presenting workshops over the weekend. There was also a temporary bookstore open during the day for attendees to purchase books and other items.

Having enjoyed my first all-day intensive workshop at SCWC earlier that year, I decided to take a five-hour workshop on Friday on poetry with instructor Holly Hughes. Class size was limited to ten, and all of us were women. Hughes is a very good instructor as well as poet. In the weeks before the conference, she asked us all to e-mail some of our poetry to be critiqued during the workshop. Thus, we had had a chance to read and make notes on what we thought of the other attendees’ poetry in advance. During the workshop itself, the poems were discussed and critiqued by Hughes and the other attendees. This was a very valuable experience as well as being more enjoyable than being critiqued might seem at first.

Keynote Speaker was the famous Natalie Goldberg, who was honest, funny, and inspiring. I question the wisdom of having the Keynote Speaker scheduled in the middle of the day on Saturday, however. Lunch ran from 11:45 to 12:45 with Goldberg’s presentation from 1:00 to 2:30. This was at a separate venue and open to the public, with book sales afterward. I found it rather challenging to pick up my box lunch, walk to where my car was parked on the street, drive to the new venue, eat my boxed lunch in the car, and still find a seat. Afterwards, knowing I had to reverse the action and get back for my 2:45 workshop, I decided to forgo book sales and headed back, circling the block until I finally found a parking spot near the conference. It seemed to me that this event would be better scheduled in the evening as it is at the SCWC, so there wasn’t such a feeling of having to rush.

On Sunday, there was an on-site author reading from 1:00 to 1:30, overlapping the lunch break from 12:15 to 1:30, so attendees could eat lunch first and then stay for the reading. Craig English, an award-winning author who was a professional actor for 25 years, read from his book The Anvil of Navarre. This was a wonderfully interpretive reading as you might expect from a former actor, and the book is fascinating,

In two days on Saturday and Sunday, I was able to attend eight different workshops of from 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes. The presenters ranged from good to outstanding. I especially enjoyed workshops by David Laskin - with whom I was able to talk with more at the Saturday night authors book signing and reception - who spoke on writing creative non-fiction; David Williams who talked about how to launch a freelance career writing for magazines; and the incredible Roy Stevenson, whom I had just read an article by in The Writer Magazine describing how he had sold more than 450 articles in just 33 months! Stevenson discussed “Writing Irresistible Query Letters” and was a fascinating and enthusiastic speaker.

WOTS was very much a whirlwind experience, but a very good one. I am hoping that my schedule will permit me to attend this coming October, when WOTS will be held September 30th and October 1st and 2nd.

South Coast Writers Conference 2010

The 15th Annual South Coast Writers Conference was held on February 12th and 13th, 2010 in Gold Beach, Oregon. It was my intention to report on it immediately afterward, but life sometimes has other plans, and it has been a year since I wrote anything on this website.

During that time, I have attended a number of other book and literary events that I would like to report on, but I want to go back and cover the SCWC first.

If you have read my posting for February 1, 2010, you will know that I was very excited about the conference.

It turned out that it greatly exceeded even those expectations and was the most enjoyable SCWC I have attended to date.

It turned out that the motel I was staying at during the conference was where all the authors and presenters for the conference were staying, and Friday morning at the continental breakfast there, I met Keith Scales, who has been artistic director for Shakespeare-in-the-Parks and the Classic Greek Theatre of Oregon, as well as an actor and director, and who has presented Chautauqua programs, but is now focusing on writing. Keith is a fascinating person to talk to and gave an excellent reading of his work-in-progress at the Friday night Authors’ Night.

I also met Rebecca Olson at the same continental breakfast. She is an associate editor from CALYX Journal, which is based in Corvallis, Oregon, and which “has been publishing the work of women writers and artists since 1976.” I later took a workshop (“A Fierce Brightness” about CALYX Journal and women’s writing) from Rebecca, who encouraged me to submit to the magazine.

After the continental breakfast, I took an all-day workshop called “Finding Your Voice” with Kim Griswell, who spent six years as coordinating editor of Highlights for Children. I had been a little concerned that perhaps the workshop might focus on children’s writing, but it was it was a general discussion of voice in writing, with many opportunities to write during the six hours. This was really the first intensive workshop I had taken. It involved a lot of writing and was an interesting experience. As a side note, one of things I noticed was that of the large group of people taking this workshop, only three were men. This is something that I have noticed at other conferences: it seems that women far outnumber men.

As the winner of the Bob Simons Scholarship Award, I was invited to attend the dinner held on Friday evening for the authors who were presenting workshops at the conference the next day. I met one of my favorite authors, Dennis Powers, in the buffet line. When he discovered who I was, he was very excited to meet me. He had read my February 1st posting and was very impressed with my having won the Bob Simons Scholarship Award and with my winning poem and my two others published in Rogue River Echoes, all of which he had read. He encouraged me to continue writing and took my contact information so he could send me a copy of his forthcoming book, Tales of the Seven Seas: the Escapades of Captain Dynamite Johnny O'Brien. After the Author’s Night readings, I purchased a copy of his Taking the Sea: Perilous Waters, Sunken Ships, and the True Story of the Legendary Wrecker Captains, in which he most kindly wrote a personal inscription. On Saturday I took a very good workshop from him on “Living the Writer’s Life.” It was really a thrill to meet one of my favorite writers.

Another of my favorite writers, John Daniel, was the Keynote Speaker for the Author’s Night held shortly after the dinner at another location. After the keynote and the author readings, I approached John to ask how I could find a copy of All Things Touched by Wind, one of his books of poetry, which I had only been able to find on line at outrageous collectible prices. John was kind enough to offer that he had some copies at home and would be pleased to sell me a copy at the original price. (Shortly after the conference, he mailed the book with a personalized inscription.) I took John’s very well-attended workshop on “Finding and Shaping the Language of Memory” on Saturday.

This was a year when great snow storms blanketed the east coast and caused several cancellations by presenters, forcing me to choose some alternate workshops from what I had originally planned. One of the alternate workshops I attended was Linda Barnes’ “Famous Next Week,” about how to make a chapbook, which turned out to be extremely interesting, especially as my success with my poetry in relationship to the conference had gotten me thinking that perhaps I should focus more on writing poetry.

If you live near Gold Beach, Oregon or are willing to make a trip there, I highly recommend this conference. Its average attendance is about 100, and it is not only educational and inspiring, it is also a lot of fun and a chance to meet other writers, aspiring and published. The 2011 SCWC takes place in only two weeks, on February 18th & 19th.

Validation

I was already excited about attending the 2010 South Coast Writers Conference.

John Daniel, author of Rogue River Journal: a Winter Alone (which won a 2006 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award), Looking After: a Son’s Memoir (winner of the 1997 Oregon Book Award for Literary Nonfiction), and the new and highly-praised The Far Corner: Northwestern Views on Land, Life, and Literature, is going to be the keynote speaker at Friday night's Author's Night readings. In addition, I will be taking a workshop from him on Saturday.

Another Oregon writer (Daniel lives in Oregon's Coast Range), Dennis Powers, a resident of Ashland, who wrote the suspenseful, but factual account of the 1964 Crescent City tsunami The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of the Worst Tsunami in U.S. History, and has written a number of nautically-themed books including Sentinel of the Seas: Life and Death at the Most Dangerous Lighthouse Ever Built, about the building of St. George's Reef Lighthouse off the northern California Coast, is also going to be a presenter. I am signed up for his Saturday workshop as well. Being able to meet and take workshops from not one, but two authors whose work I already know and enjoy was exciting enough, or so I thought.

But things started getting even more exciting on Friday, when I received an e-mail that I was the winner of the 2010 Bob Simon Scholarship Award for my submission "Paper Ephemera," a poem I wrote in early January. Winning the scholarship pays for my Saturday workshops and a ticket to the Saturday fish fry. It's worth about $71, but what's really exciting is how validated I feel as a writer that my poem was chosen as the best of the submissions, particularly because I have not really looked at myself as a poet.

The poem was actually a quick write, but required a number of revisions until I was truly happy with it. The prompt given was “quiet victories, silent joys,” which I incorporated into the poem itself. The inspiration came from the fact that lately I have been working on two projects - my postcard collection and re-organizing all my 35 mm negatives from something like the last 30 years. (I've had a digital camera for the last couple of years.) The title was the last thing I chose. (See below to read “Paper Ephemera.”)

I was still excited about the win when I got another e-mail on Saturday from the conference organizers saying that two of the poems I had submitted last summer were going to be published in the 2009 Rogue River Echoes, the conference's journal.

While I had submitted essays to the scholarship award competition in the past – this was only my third try, however - I had never submitted anything  for publication in Rogue River Echoes, so I was especially pleased to have two of my poems published on my initial attempt.

Those two poems - "Longing" and "Cliff" - were written after the conference and during the Writer's Digest's "Poetic Asides" website during their 2009 April Poem-a-Day Challenge in celebration of National Poetry Month. And the only reason I was participating in that was because of having met and taken workshops from poet (also memoirist and novelist) Floyd Skloot at the 2009 South Coast Writers Workshop. (See my posting on the 2009 SCWW and Floyd Skloot. See below to read “Longing” and “Cliff.”)

Skloot, whose poetry is very accessible, and who describes himself as a lyric poet, made me feel that there was a place for the kind of poetry I wanted to write and that perhaps I should attempt the Poem-a-Day Challenge. I certainly can see the improvement I’ve made as a result of the practice of writing from prompts for 30 days straight.

This is the first validation I’ve received that my poetry has merit, and I am gratified, encouraged, and, yes – excited!

                                                                                                                    Paper Ephemera

It is all there in the photo albums
and the postcard books:
the people, places, and things
that have made up my life.

If they could, each picture,
each card, would tell
its story in more depth,
but they cannot speak,
cannot reveal what lies behind
the surface of their silence.

No one but I
can tell those stories.

They will die with me,
taking with them the love,
the laughter, the beauty,
the excitement, discovery, and hope,
along with the all challenges,
changes, and choices of
one woman’s lifetime -
the quiet victories, the silent joys,
and moments of peace
that only I could recount.

Gone, too, will be the fears,
the failures, the heartbreaks,
the confusions, betrayals, and
disappointments – the quiet losses,
the silent sorrows of a life
that was not always so well-lived
as those photos and postcards
would suggest.

Though the artifacts remain,
the memories will be gone,
and these painstakingly
preserved records of my life
will become nothing more
than meaningless scraps
of glossy paper.

by Carol Berger

 

 

                                               

Discovering May Sarton's Journals

It is often true for me that something on one website or in one book will lead to another website or book, and that one to another one, and so it was that I recently discovered May Sarton’s journals in a rather round-about way.

 

An English major, I had never heard of Sarton before, but I have been thoroughly enjoying reading her journals.

 

Her works, which include novels, books of poetry, and journals, were written and published between 1932 and 1995, when she died.

 

Checking out what was immediately available at the library, I necessarily ended up starting toward the end of her series of journals, with At Seventy (1984) and After the Stroke (1988), then read The House by the Sea (1977), and May Sarton: A Self-Portrait (1982), which is a transcript of the film World of Light: A Portrait of May Sarton and which also includes some of her poems and her commentary on them. I have just finished Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year (1992) and have started Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year (1993).

 

In the next few months, I plan to read all the rest of her non-fiction: I Knew a Phoenix: Sketches for an Autobiography (1959), Plant Dreaming Deep (1968), Journal of a Solitude (1973), A World of Light (1976), Recovering: A Journal (1980), and At Eighty-Two: A Journal (1995).

 

The idea of Sarton as a single woman living alone most of her life, loving her solitude, needing to write as much as she needed to breathe air appealed to me and still does. I find that she and I share some things – a love of flowers and nature, never being able to keep up on correspondence and other things that need to be done, a fierce independence, a strong love of home, the need for plenty of time alone.

 

One of the most valuable things for me is watching her age and become ill and dependent on others to help her, as I went through much of this when I had a serious surgery several years ago, and as I am getting to an age where I can expect to have more health problems. She paints a realistic portrait of old age and how she feels like a stranger in that land, feels she is not herself anymore, yet manages to adapt and go on. Her friendships sustain her as much as her cherished solitude does. At times she seems whiny and self-preoccupied, at others her open-heartedness comes clearly through, as well as her vulnerability. I watch her hope – even as she has cancer – that she will be well again, suffer through a solid year of at times debilitating pain, pull in the borders of her world to the home and small town she lives in after a life-time of traveling, and complain about not getting the recognition she feels she deserves, even while giving standing-room only readings of her works and receiving many honorary degrees and too many fan letters to answer them all.

 

What shines through her work is her total honesty, her ability to present herself as a complete person, flaws and all. She shows us the difficulties of aging and illness and the need to accept becoming dependent on others. Throughout it all, she strives to hold on to who she is and gives the reader much food for thought about how they will face old age and/or illness.

 

Sarton was certainly not one of the very best writers of her time, which may be why she didn’t receive the critical acclaim she felt so strongly that she deserved, but her journals are definitely a worthwhile read and worth a re-read as well.

 

 

Life changes

If there's something that will derail you from doing your own writing, it's getting a job as a journalist. During the ten and a half months that I worked for a newspaper, I did next to no personal writing, including on this website. The experience was good, but is now over, and one of the things I am looking forward to is doing my own writing again. That, and having lots of time to read! At the moment, I am reading LOTS of Floyd Skloot and will be reviewing his books in a later entry.

South Coast Writers Conference 2009

This weekend I went to the 14th Annual South Coast Writers Conference in Gold Beach, Oregon. It was the third time I had attended the conference since I moved to nearby Port Orford four years ago. And it turned out to be the best one, as far as I was concerned, despite my initial lack of excitement at the workshops being offered.

What made the difference was discovering Floyd Skloot!

As a journalist/essayist/non-fiction writer, I am always off-put by the emphasis that seems to be placed on fiction, science fiction, poetry, humor, and children’s books in the conference. So initially I had a hard time finding three workshops I had enthusiasm for, much less four, when I registered weeks ahead of the event.

In what would turn out to be a fortuitous choice, I chose two workshops by a writer I had never heard of, Skloot – “Working with Fragments of Memory” and “Formal and Free: cultivating flexibility in the approach to poetry ” – and “Writing in Nature” by Robin Cody, both Oregon writers. I didn’t even choose a workshop for the fourth session, and none of the all-day intensive Friday workshops interested me enough for me to justify the time and money involved.

About three weeks before the conference, I went on line at the conference website to see if there was any updated information. I found a recommended reading list of books for each presenter and decided I’d read some of Floyd Skloot’s books, seeing as I would have two workshops with him. I found four memoirs and a book of poetry at the library and checked them all out. It was in reading these books that I found out who Skloot is, that he has been widely published and received many awards and much critical acclaim, and that I began my addiction to Floyd Skloot’s writing. And I became very excited about going to a conference where I would be able to meet and listen to him in person.

On December 7th, 1988, Skloot, who had at that point written novels and poetry, contracted a brain virus that left him with almost no memory and with significant physical impairments. His memoirs (The Night Side: Chronic fatigue syndrome and the illness experience, In the Shadow of Memory, A World of Light, and The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer's Life) chronicle his now 20-year journey of learning to compensate for the damage done, to live with his limitations, and to amazingly successfully re-invent his life. He has painstakingly reconstructed the first 41 years of his life and turned it into a series of fascinating essays that are not only auto-biographical, but examine the concept of memory, the idea of family, the issue of self-identity, and most of all, how to live life to its fullest no matter what may befall one.

His poetry takes much of its inspiration from his experiences in life and is some of the most accessible yet critically acclaimed poetry I have ever read. Too often, critically acclaimed poetry is a labyrinth of inaccessibility for even a college graduate to make real sense of or to care about what’s being said. But Skloot’s poetry is full of feeling, as well as superb technique. I, who hadn’t read poetry in the more than forty years since I graduated from college (despite writing an occasional poem in response to an event in my life that I felt a need to record in some manner), found myself gobbling up poem after poem from The End of Dreams.

By the time I had finished three of the four memoirs – I am just now finishing the last – and read The End of Dreams, I felt I knew Floyd Skloot, though I had never met him. So it was no surprise when, at the Friday night author reading, I recognized him immediately as he walked by and set up a table of his books for sale just a few feet from me.

One would never know think that Skloot is anything other than normal, unless he tells you about his affliction. He is articulate, intelligent, and funny. His reading of three of his poems was one of the best of the evening, full of finesse and feeling. I found the next day in the two workshops I took from him that he is an excellent teacher as well. By the time the conference was over, I had purchased all four memoirs and The End of Dreams, plus his latest volumes of poetry, The Snow’s Music and Floyd Skloot: Selected Poems: 1970-2005, and the older Approximately Paradise.

Cody’s workshop was not about nature writing per se, but how to use nature in writing. He led the class through a number of exercises that used a place in nature as a starting point for the writing. Cody is also a very good teacher. Like Skloot, he resides in Oregon, although Cody is a native. His book Voyage of a Summer Sun - Canoeing the Columbia River, relating his experiences canoeing the length of the Columbia River solo, won the 1996 Oregon Book Award and is well worth reading.

I was having an excellent time at the conference, and although I had planned to leave early to be elsewhere, I decided to stay for the fourth and final workshop, choosing to attend Lori Ries’ “Come Play with Me,” on writing children’s picture books. I was feeling adventurous and figured I’d find out about an area of writing I had never even considered. Ries’s presentation was well-organized and thorough, and I left feeling as if I could write a children’s picture book. (Most publishing companies provide the illustrator, which lets me off the hook!)

It was amazing to see so many talented writers from Oregon and especially so many who had received awards and other recognition for their work. I felt particularly fortunate to have attended this conference. Wannabee is not sure she will still be residing close enough to attend next year’s conference, but if she is, she surely will.

See my category “Writer’s Conferences” in the left margin for a link to my posting on the 2008 conference. Also see my link to the South Coast Writers Conference website under “Helpful Links” for more information. The 15th Annual SCWC will be held February 12-13, 2010.

Where Wannabee has been

I am about to make my first post in almost four months.

It has taken me this long to find the time in what has become a very busy schedule.

Four months ago I was asked to write an article for a local newspaper. The editor was impressed enough with my writing that he made me a staff writer.

At the present time I am covering six beats, plus writing occasional features and reviews. This keeps me VERY busy, as I said above. I attend meetings and do interviews and then spend more than a little time writing articles about them. I almost always have a front page story, sometimes two, and this week, all the stories were mine. I have had as many as four major stories in the paper at once, and it's only an eight page paper!

I credit the on-line classes I took through Gotham Writers Workshop and my experience in writing this blog, albeit briefly prior to my writing for the paper, with giving me the skills and confidence to make the leap to my present position.

And it's true - the more I write, the better my writing becomes.

I would encourage anyone who wants to start writing to take one of Gotham's classes. Their classes get you writing and keep you writing. You also pick up critiquing skills that help you edit your own work. Gotham's website is www.writingclasses.com.  While I took Non-fiction Writing, Memoir, and Travel Writing, ironically I did not get around to taking a class in Article Writing!

Into Thin Air

Into Thin Air: a Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
Jon Krakauer
Villard Books, 1997

In May 1996, a rogue storm killed nine climbers on Mount Everest, several of them from an expedition led by Rob Hall of New Zealand, the others from an expedition led by American Scott Fischer. Hall and Fischer were themselves counted among the victims. One of the survivors from Hall’s expedition was John Krakauer, a writer from Outside Magazine, who had volunteered to go on the expedition to research and write a story on the commercialization of Everest.

Krakauer was no inexperienced novice, having been a climber for over 30 years at the time of the expedition, and that is part of what makes his telling of the story particularly compelling. He had the background and personal experience necessary to write the story in a way that someone who had never climbed a mountain could not. And he was there when the disaster happened, observing with a writer’s eye for details.

I have never had any desire to climb a mountain, nor any real knowledge of mountain climbing, despite living near some of the most-climbed peaks in the Pacific Northwest - Mount Rainier and Mount Hood. I didn’t pay much attention to the Everest disaster at the time, and all I remembered hearing before reading Krakauer’s book was that some guy was able to call his wife on the phone from the top of Everest right before he died. Perhaps it was my recent unexplained interest in disaster stories that led me to Into Thin Air a few weeks ago, twelve years after the Everest disaster.

In the author’s note at the end of the book, Krakauer writes, “My intent … was to tell what happened on the mountain as accurately and honestly as possible, and to do it in a sensitive and respectful manner.”  Krakauer succeeds in this admirably. There are no “bad guys” in this book, just real human beings who did the best they could in unexpected and calamitous circumstances. The book is not about blame, but about understanding what happened.

Albeit through Krakauer’s eyes, we get to know many of the climbers from Hall’s and Fischer’s expeditions as they prepare to ascend the mountain: a postal worker making his second attempt at Everest, an attorney who had climbed six of the Seven Summits, a pathologist, a publisher who had attempted Everest three times, an anesthesiologist, a cardiologist, a 47-year old Japanese woman, a female “millionaire socialite-cum-climber,” among others. Most of the climbers had had at least some high-altitude climbing experience. We also get to know the leaders and guides for both expeditions, most of whom were very experienced climbers. These were expeditions that should have succeeded.

The immediacy of Krakauer’s writing, as he relives every day, every hour, and sometimes every minute of the experience, conveys the hard work involved in climbing to the peak of Everest and the desire that drove the climbers on, until a sudden turn in the weather left them struggling to stay alive in a hostile environment where they only had themselves to depend upon.

No one seemed aware of the approaching storm. Some bad decisions were made. Mistakes and more bad decisions were made by men and women weakened both physically and mentally by the elements. In the end, some of the most experienced people failed to survive, while other less experienced people miraculously did.

This is a true and tragic story that’s not easily forgotten, especially by Krakauer, who ends his introduction to the book by confessing, “I was a party to the death of good people, which is something that is apt to remain on my conscience for a very long time.”  This is a story Krakauer had to tell in the way that only he could, and I for one am glad he shared it with us.

 

What's on Writer Wannabee's Bookshelf

I’m going to guess that every writer – especially beginners aspiring to be published some day - has a shelf full of books about writing, marketing, and related matters.

This is a list of what’s on mine at the moment, in no particular order. These are by no means all or even the best books out there. The list doesn’t include a number of books I have read in the past, but don’t presently own. Because I write nonfiction, you will find books focused on style, grammar, punctuation, and memoir, as well as books on freelancing and getting published.

Writing Freelance – Christine Adamec

The Associated Press Stylebook

Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art – Judith Barrington

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Artmaking – David Bayles and Ted Orland

Writing and Publishing Personal Essays – Sheila Bender

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Magazine Articles – Sheree Bykofsky, Jennifer Bayse Sander, and Lynne Rominger

Modern American Memoirs – edited by Cort Conley and Annie Dillard

101 Things Every Writer Needs to Know – Scott Edelstein

The Complete Writer’s Kit: Everything You Need to Get Inspired, Get Writing, and Get Published – Scott Edelstein

The No-Experience-Necessary Writer’s Course: a Unique Stress-free Approach for Anyone Who Has Ever Wanted to Write – Scott Edelstein

The Renegade Writer – Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell

The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters that Rock: The Freelance Writer’s Guide to Selling More Work Faster – Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell

Telling True Stories: a Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University – edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call

Freelancing for Newspapers: Writing for an Overlooked Market – Sue Fagalde Lick

A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation – Noah Lukeman

Damn! Why Didn’t I Write That?: How Ordinary People are Raking in $100,000 or More Writing Nonfiction Books and How You Can Too! – Marc McCutcheon

Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print, and Sell Your Own Book – Dan Poynter

Print-on-Demand Book Publishing – Morris Rosenthal

The Elements of Style – William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation – Lynne Truss

Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style – Virginia Tufte

Writer’s Market

Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir – edited by William Zinsser

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction – William Zinsser

Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past – William Zinsser

A Woman Who Writes about the Sea

I discovered Joan Druett a few years back, when I found her book Hen Frigates cited in a footnote of another book. It took me a while, but I found a copy of Hen Frigates and read it. Since then, if it's a non-fiction book by Joan Druett, I have to read it! A month or so ago, I came across another Druett book titled She Captains in a most unlikely place - a hardware store! - so of course, I bought it.

Druett is a maritime writer from New Zealand. Her husband is an artist and often does the illustrations for her books. Her latest effort, which I discovered on Amazon, is Island of the Lost. Having just recently seen Castaway with Tom Hanks, this story of two groups marooned on the same island simultaneously was an irresistable (and very satisfying) read for me.

Island of the Lost

Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World
Joan Druett
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007

On January 3, 1864, the schooner Grafton wrecked on the southern end of Auckland Island, 285 miles south of New Zealand. On May 10 of the same year, the square-rigger Invercauld wrecked on the northwestern promontory of the same island. The five survivors of the Grafton and the 19 survivors of the Invercauld co-habited the same island for an entire year without either group ever once being aware that the other group was there, the reason being the twenty miles of “impassable cliffs and chasms” between the north and south ends of the islands. In Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World, maritime historian Joan Druett tells the vastly different stories of the two groups of survivors.

From journals, letters, published books and other research documents, Druett has interwoven the stories of the two groups and shown how through cooperation, discipline, hard work, routine, ingenuity, and respect the survivors of the Grafton had a far different experience and outcome from the group of Invercauld survivors, whose leadership failed them, who splintered into groups, and who gave themselves over to the despair of their situation.

We come to know each of the men from the Grafton as they hunt for food, build shelter, make clothing and tools, and wait to be rescued for almost two years before deciding to try to build a boat and escape. We watch the men from the Invercauld succumb to apathy and lethargy, or else to cannibalism. Only one resourceful seaman had the ability to cope with their circumstances and helped keep the final few survivors alive.

Druett has very skillfully penned a fascinating tale of human nature, death, and survival in a hostile environment. It is a book that is hard to put down, with a story that is unbelievable - except that it is true. Amazingly, the few Invercauld survivors are rescued, and the Grafton castaways make an heroic journey back to safety. More than just history, this is a book about survival against all odds and how that survival depends at least in part on attitude. It is a good lesson for us all.

Washington Disasters

Washington Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival
Rob and Natalie McNair-Huff
Morris Book Publishing, 2006

What better follow-up could there be to Oregon Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival than Washington Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival? For a native of the Pacific Northwest, this was a chance to re-visit some of the significant disasters that have occurred during my lifetime in the area I call home. It was also an introduction to some I had not previously been aware of, because they happened prior to my birth. Some were natural disasters, others happened because of human error, but all make for fascinating reading.

Native Washingtonians Rob and Natalie McNair-Huff cover 22 disasters beginning with the “great Cascadia subduction zone earthquake” in 1700 and ending with the Thirtymile Fire in 2001. The McNair-Huffs have chosen to cover a variety of disasters that occurred during the 300 years between those two events: shipwrecks, floods, fires, several wind storms, a bridge collapse, a mine explosion, a trolley derailment, an airfield collision, a plane crash on Mt. Rainier, a train swept from the tracks by an avalanche, and of course the well-known eruption of Mount St. Helens. The authors provide the facts, but also show the human side of the disasters and in some cases, changes that were made to try to prevent such a disaster from happening again.

A map of the state of Washington at the front of the book shows where each disaster occurred. At the end of the book there is a bibliography of sources, many of which are newspaper articles from the times of the events. This is a good place to start for those wishing to dig deeper into this aspect of Washington State history.

Along with Oregon Disasters, Washington Disasters is part of Insiders’ Guide’s “Disaster Series.” Could California Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival be next? I can only hope so!

Double Disasters

I recently discovered that Morris Book Publishing's Insiders' Guide has a "Disaster Series." I stumbled across Oregon Disasters a while back and just recently found Washington Disasters. Each book is written by resident(s) of that particular state and is subtitled "True Stories of Tragedy and Survival." Each has a number of photos and follows the same format. Originally from Washington and now a resident of Oregon, I read these books to see what they had to say about disasters with which I was already familiar; in doing so, I discovered some that I was not aware of. For the disaster junkie I have become lately, it was sort of like an ice cream cone with two scoops! Here is my review of Oregon Disasters.

Oregon Disasters

Oregon Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival
Rachel Dresbeck
Morris Book Publishing, 2006

There is a fascination in reading about disasters, especially ones that are close to home. So when I came across Oregon Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival at a gift shop, I snatched it up to see what the book had to say about disasters that have occurred in the state where I live.

In Oregon Disasters Rachel Dresbeck covers 20 incidents that span the time period from 1903 to 2003 and include a number of different types of disasters: a shipwreck, a sinking, floods, fires, a wind storm, mountain climbing accidents, blizzards, a tsunami, a massive chain-reaction car accident, and an airplane crash. She even covers the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State because “many of the fifty-seven official dead were from Oregon.”

Like any good story-teller, particularly one telling stories of tragedies, Dresbeck emphasizes the impact of these events on the people involved and on their friends, families, and communities. Though the chapters are short – any one of them could easily be developed into a book of its own – Oregon Disasters is engrossing and well-written.

While the chapters can be read in any order, reading them in sequence (from oldest to most recent) gives more of a feel for the flow of history, which is an important element of the book. As important as the people in the stories are to the reader, Dresbeck herself writes that “the stories in this book were chosen for their scale and scope – not necessarily for how many people died, but whether the event had a deep or long-lasting influence, whether it wrought changes to landscapes, lives, practices, or policies.”

Whether you focus on the individuals whose lives were changed by these disasters or on the influences and aftermaths of these incidents, Oregon Disasters makes for a good read.

Wagons West

Writer Wannabee has developed a passion for history the past few years, primarily that of the Pacific Northwest and the western United States. The book I review next combined my recent passion for disaster stories with western history and kept me glued to the pages into the wee hours of the night.

Desperate Passage

Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West
Ethan Rarick
Oxford University Press, 2008

History was never my favorite subject. In fact, I managed to get a Master’s Degree without taking one history class in college. As I have grown older and visited historic sites while traveling in the western United States, I have become much more interested in history, particularly of the 1800’s in America and of this part of the country. Luckily there is no lack of good books on the subject to pick up where my junior high school history class left off. One of the best of these is Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West by Ethan Rarick, released early in 2008.

In the fall of 1846 the Donner party of wagons was the last to try to cross the Sierra Nevada on the way to California. 81 men, women, and children were trapped in the mountains for months by a snowfall that halted their progress west. Desperate Passage is the story of those who survived the ordeal and how they did it, and of those who did not and how they died. 

Rarick starts by introducing us to the members of the party, telling us of their lives up until May 12, 1846, when they left Independence, Missouri, and of their hopes and dreams for a new life in California. He chronicles their journey westward with its hard work and deprivations, and their apparently fateful decision to take the untried Hastings Cutoff. He details their winter in the snowy mountains without sufficient provisions; successful and unsuccessful attempts by some of the members to go for help; the death, desperation, and sacrifices of both the members of the party and some of their would-be rescuers; and the ultimate rescue early in 1847 of the last of the survivors.

Based on “fresh archaeological evidence” and recent research, Desperate Passage includes maps, pictures, and a list of “dramatis personae” to help the reader keep things straight. A rapid read, it is an engrossing, well-written, and thorough book, and a must-read for anyone interested in history – even us Johnny-come-latelys.

All Aboard!

Both my best friend and I come from train families, and despite the fact that we are women, we LOVE trains! We love to ride on them and to read about them. And to decorate Christmas trees with them and wear T-shirts with them on the front - you get the idea. We are both members of the California State Railroad Museum, and I belong to Railtown 1897 State Historic Park and have just joined the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation. So, I was thrilled to discover a new book on an old train disaster that happened in my home state of Washington. It's the first non-fiction book written by novelist Gary Krist, and compelling reading for everyone - not just train buffs!

The White Cascade

The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche
Gary Krist
Henry Holt, 2007

I grew up in the state of Washington, where I was part of a railroad family: my grandfather worked for the Milwaukee Railroad and my uncle for the Northern Pacific. I lived and traveled in Washington for over 50 years, going over Stevens Pass a number of times, though never on the train.

But not until the release of Gary Krist’s book The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche was I aware that the deadliest avalanche in American history and one of railroading’s great tragedies had taken place in my home state right on Stevens Pass almost 100 years ago.

Two trains headed west to Washington’s Puget Sound were caught in an unexpectedly powerful winter storm at the Wellington station, high up in the Cascade Mountains. The White Cascade tells the story of how and why the trains were caught in what turned out to be a fatal situation; of the attempts to rescue the passengers; and of the inquest afterward in regard to the Great Northern’s liability. The book is well-researched and documented and features a number of photographs as well as a list of those who died.

Krist focuses on the stranded passengers and on James H. O’Neill, who was responsible for railroad operations in that area. Drawing on letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper accounts, court records, corporate archives, and contact with family members of some of those involved with the accident, Krist reveals the reasons why some of the passengers were on the train, and the way they interacted during the long and ultimately futile attempt on the part of the railroad to rescue them. We meet and get to know a number of them: some who will live, some who will die. We see families ripped apart, survivors whose lives will never be the same again. We follow James H. O’Neill’s all-out attempt to save the doomed trains, the media treatment of the incident, and the Great Northern’s defense against those who held it responsible for what happened.

This is an engrossing book for anyone interested in railroads, disasters, history, or any combination of the three. Krist’s style is easy to read and puts you right there with the passengers, as their frustration with the inconvenience of what initially seemed a short delay turns into apprehension, fear, and foreboding; with the rescuers, as they work at clearing track in blizzard conditions, racing against time and ultimately losing the battle; with O’Neill, as he gives his all, only to see the Great Northern criticized for not giving enough.

This is a powerful story, all the more powerful for being real. Approximately 100 people were killed and dozens more injured: passengers, railroad workers, hired laborers. As a result of the tragedy, the town of Wellington was renamed Tye; ultimately a railroad tunnel was built that bypassed it, and it ceased to exist. In an interesting personal twist, after reading the book, I discovered that one of my best friends lost a relative in the disaster. The White Cascade is a fitting tribute to his memory, as well as those of the others who died at Wellington.

Wicked Waves

Tsunamis were the farthest thing from my mind when I moved to an oceanside community a few years ago. Sure, tucked somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind was the knowledge that in 1964 Crescent City, California had suffered a devastating tsunami, but it was not something I thought about in relation to my new home. Imagine my surprise when I got here and not only discovered tsunami warning signs everywhere, but experienced a tsunami alert within the first six months!

It was just about this time that a new book on the Crescent City Tsunami was released and caught my eye at a bookstore. Thus began my strange new obsession with reading about disasters. Today's post reviews the book that caught my eye.

The Raging Sea

The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of the Worst Tsunami in U.S. History
Dennis M. Powers
Citadel Press, 2005

In 1964 the town of Crescent City on the northern California coast was hit by a major tsunami created by an earthquake in Alaska. Scores of homes and businesses in the downtown area were destroyed, and 11 people died. Four children died on the Oregon coast at Beverly Beach State Park, as a result of the same tsunami. Dennis M. Powers’ recent book, The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of the Worst Tsunami in U.S. History, is a remarkable full-length, in-depth account of this disaster and its effects on the town and the lives of its residents.

Powers spent 15 years researching and writing The Raging Sea. The result is a book with substantial and clear information on the dynamics of tsunamis and the technology of tsunami warning systems. But the gripping and tragic personal stories of this particular disaster are the real focus of the book.

Powers follows dozens of people who were in Crescent City on the night the tsunami struck: those who escaped to higher ground immediately, who were caught by surprise and narrowly escaped the raging waters, and who fought for their lives but ultimately perished.

The most compelling parts of the book revolve around Gary Clawson, his family and friends, and their struggle to survive. Powers makes time stand still as they battle the elements. The suspense kept me turning page after page way into the night to find out who would live and who would die. The attention to detail made me feel as if I knew these people, and I were with them in the midst of the tsunami, surrounded by the damage, death, and destruction.

Powers goes on to describe the aftermath: the shattered lives, the devastation, the reconstruction of the town. He ends by discussing what the future may hold for those living in tsunami-prone areas. As haunting as the story he has just finished telling are the last lines of the book: “A ‘big one’ will happen again, and it unfortunately will be worse than Crescent City’s experience then. The only question is when – and who will suffer this time.” 

The Writing Diet

The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size
Julia Cameron
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2007

Julia Cameron is not someone I would have expected to write a book on dieting. Well-known for her books on writing, this subject seemed out of character for her. How did writing and dieting fit together I wondered when I came across The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size.

From reading the front inside flap, I discovered that Cameron had noticed that students in her writing classes would often lose weight during the course, leading her to believe that creativity can block overeating. Recently I, a compulsive overeater, had taken several on-line writing classes and discovered that when I got into the flow of writing an essay, I would often forget about food for hours at a time. That Cameron had written a book that connected with my own experience made it a must-read for me.

It quickly became clear that Cameron has wrestled – and is still wrestling – with weight problems herself. Her sympathy with and compassion for those struggling to achieve control over food is apparent in The Writing Diet. She very accurately and sometimes humorously describes the thoughts and feelings that are common to those of us with weight/eating concerns, almost as if she is reading our minds.

The tools she offers include writing morning pages and a journal, but she includes several excellent non-writing tools as well. The section on “Situations and Solutions” is very comprehensive, and most of us can relate all too well to what she writes about in each of the chapters. She encourages us to forgive ourselves when we DO slip up and eat too much or something we know we shouldn’t. Best of all are the “Tasks” that follow each chapter, most of which involve writing.

This is a diet book that does not include food lists, tables, charts, or menus. It is about using creativity (writing in particular) to discover why we overeat and to fill in the empty emotional spaces that many of us have been filling with too much or the wrong food. It turned out to be THE book for a writer wannabe and compulsive overeater like myself. I devoured it in just two sittings and plan on having seconds soon - of the book, that is!

Fearproof Your Life

Fearproof Your Life: How to Thrive in a World Addicted to Fear
Joseph Bailey
Conari Press, 2007

I met Joe Bailey in 1997 when he gave a workshop at Discover U in Seattle, based on a book he had recently co-authored with the now late Richard Carlson, called Slowing Down to the Speed of Life: How to Create a More Peaceful, Simpler Life from the Inside Out. The concepts presented in the book and workshop (that we all have innate mental health, and we can choose our attitudes) made a major positive impact on my life at the time, but after the passage of ten years and due to some recent unexpected and unwanted changes in my life, I found myself desperately in need of something like a Joe Bailey booster shot. I was delighted to discover his brand-new book Fearproof Your Life: How to Thrive in a World Addicted to Fear, which has put me back on the right track again.

Bailey believes that fear is the basis of all addictions, and that the world is suffering from an epidemic of fear, which is why addictions are so rampant. Even the fear itself is an addiction. He also believes that there is a Universal Intelligence, and that each of us has a “true Self,” which is “one with the Universal Intelligence,” making us divine in nature. What we need to be able to do is to access that true Self, in order to turn our fearful and negative thoughts into a state of peace, calm, hope, and happiness.

Bailey shows that our thoughts are not real in and of themselves, that we are the creator of our thoughts, and therefore the creator of our feelings, experiences, and reality; most importantly, we can choose our reactions. Fear and worry are the ego spinning its wheels over thoughts (the familiar “busy mind”), instead of dismissing them and trusting to the innate wisdom and mental health that our true Selves possess. When we let the ego take over, it brings with it judgment, analyzing, striving, expecting, guilt, stress, and fear. We can reclaim our true Selves by listening to our intuitions, trusting in ourselves, reflecting quietly, and choosing peace of mind, our natural state of being. Bailey also emphasizes that neither the past nor the future are real, that only the present is real, and that the present is what we need to live in, rather than regretting the past or worrying about the future.

This is an incredibly simple but powerful approach, something of a cross between psychology, spirituality, and quantum physics. It’s hard to explain, but it can transform your life if you follow it. Bailey’s explanation is easily understandable and practical, taking the reader step-by-step through the theory to the practical aspects. But it is also inspiring, as evidenced in the summation he makes at the end of the book, “Ultimately, we are all here on Earth to discover and express the essence of our Being. Through fear and our addiction to it, we lose our awareness of our true Selves and become prisoners of our ego-based thought systems. Now is the time for all of us to become free of the fear that has kept us from joy, from creativity, from peace, from the courage to be honest. It is time to do the inspired thing, which is to live our life’s purpose.” Joe Bailey can show you how.

South Coast Writers Conference 2008

This weekend I went to the 13th Annual South Coast Writers Conference in Gold Beach, Oregon. The conference, sponsored by Southwestern Oregon Community College, starts on Friday morning and runs through Saturday evening.

On Friday attendees can choose from several all-day workshops. The one I attended was on setting up your own website, and I am pleased to say that I am now writing this on the website I set up! There is a LOT to learn – I feel like we only covered the tip of the iceberg. Our instructor, Jim Coffee, who I consider to be a computer “guru,” gave us a fascinating history of communication, showing how things evolved very slowly at first, but now are changing at practically warp speed in comparison.

He helped us set up TypePad websites and purchase domain names from Go Daddy. His patience with our many interruptions and in answering our questions was amazing. He recommended Google as a resource to help us in completing our site set-up, as well as a book: Blogging for Dummies. Over the next few days or weeks, I will be working on setting up more sidebar information, so keep watching for that.

Friday night I went to Authors’ Night, where some of the conference presenters read from their own works. This event is open to the public, as well as conference attendees. There was a LOT more people there than I had expected, as it turned out that David Oliver Relin, the author of the New York Times best-seller Three Cups of Tea, was the keynote speaker and quite a draw. After a break, about ten other authors read.

Saturday I took four workshops, all excellent. Two different ones by Sally Harrold, were on writing memoir and focused on the elements of scenes, summary, and musing; Harrold teaches autobiography classes at Southwestern Oregon Community College and recommended a good book for beginning memoir writers to read: Modern American Memoirs by Annie Dillard and Cort Conley. One workshop was by Sue Fagalde Lick (author of Freelancing for Newspapers: Writing for an Overlooked Market, and Stories Grandma Never Told: Portuguese Women in California) on how to get started freelancing for newspapers and what you need to know as a beginner. Another was by Jayel Gibson, author of the Ancient Mirrors fantasy series, who discussed the universal set of elements in a good story.

Each workshop lasts an hour and a half, with 15-minute breaks between them and a longer break for lunch. Six workshops are scheduled for each time slot, and they usually don’t repeat, so it can be difficult to choose just one four! Other presenters this year included Larry Brooks, Ann Cameron, Se-ah-dom-Edmo, Phil Hahn, Jessica Bryan, Dan Frechette, Rory Miller, and Sylvia Tohill.

Not only did I have a great time and learn new things, I started two different short memoirs that I plan to continue. I was also fortunate to win a door prize of a bundle of Rogue River Echoes, a collection of writings from conference attendees that the conference publishes each year.

Anyone interested in the South Coast Writers Conference can contact Janet Pretti at scwc@socc.edu or call 541-247-2741. It is held every President’s Day weekend on Friday and Saturday.

About Writer Wannabee's Book Reviews

I am not a typical writer in terms of what I read. I almost never read fiction, and I seldom read non-fiction best-sellers. As far as books go, I read non-fiction in particular areas of interest to me. These are books that may be outstanding, but seldom make the best-seller lists.

Part of my reason for writing Wannabee's Words is to share these books with readers who may not know about them, but might find them of interest. These are book reviews, but I could easily call them book recommendations, since I do not plan to write reviews of books I did not like.

One area in which I used to read a lot was self help/inspirational. I don't read much in that category any more, but every now and then I will read something that looks particularly interesting to me.

My first review is of a book in that category that I first read some years ago. At the time the author was still alive; recently I discovered that he died about 7 years after writing the book. Not only did this explain to me why I'd never been able to find anything written by him after he wrote the book, but it also gave me a different perspective when I re-read the book a few weeks ago, knowing that at the time he wrote it, he probably didn't know how few years he had left.

This is a book that DID make the best-seller lists and most deservingly.

Beachcombing at Miramar

Beachcombing at Miramar: The Quest for an Authentic Life
Richard Bode
Warner Books, 1996

I first read Richard Bode’s Beachcombing at Miramar: The Quest for an Authentic Life 10 years ago. Since then, I have re-read it several times. If I had to make a list of books I’d want with me on a desert island, Beachcombing at Miramar would definitely be on my list.

When Richard Bode’s four children were grown, and his marriage of thirty years was at an end, he left a successful career on the east coast and moved to Miramar, California. All he took with him was “my van, my clothes, my typewriter, my record player, my unabridged dictionary, and a few favorite books” - and a “check, which if converted to cash, might have filled a shoe box with twenty-dollar bills.”

At the start of Beachcombing at Miramar, Bode is living in a beach house, walking the beach daily, and relishing his newly-chosen life of simplicity. But what he is looking for is not so much the flotsam and jetsam of the beach, as an understanding of his own past and the re-invention of himself as the sole creator of his life.

In seventeen essays, Bode uses objects he finds on the beach, conversations with people he meets while beachcombing, and overseen or overheard interactions between other people on the beach to reflect back on his life and how he came to live at Miramar to finally pursue “an authentic life.”

There are lessons here that apply to almost all of us, including “how to see with new eyes the choices we make” - choices that can either lead us toward an authentic life where we are in touch with nature and our hearts, or to a lifetime of living an eventually unsatisfying role; choices that can reaffirm our knowledge of ourselves as who we really are, or lead us later to regret decisions that took us away from our true selves; and choices that can lead us to real happiness, rather than resigned compromise.

This lyrically written book takes me not just inside Richard Bode and his life, but leads me to re-examine my own choices every time I read it, and to find more life lessons that I can apply to my own life. I am grateful to him for sharing his beachcombing “finds” with all of us and showing us that it’s never too late to lead a life of authenticity.

 

Wannabee's Words Gets Up and Running

When I was getting ready to set up this website, a good friend asked me, “Why?”

I think the best answer to her question is “Why NOT?”

It is something I have never done before, and I hope that it will be fun. At the very least it is another creative outlet and should be a great learning experience.

I have been doing some writing locally in a very small market, and I would like to take the next step to get some of my writing out to a larger audience. It is my hope at some point to write and self-publish a book of essays. A writer friend suggests that starting a blog a year ahead of time is a good idea, so here I am.

Reading and writing are two of my passions, and I plan to share both with my readers, initially through publishing a series of book reviews recommending some of the best books I have read recently, primarily non-fiction.

This site will also include some of the feature articles I have written from interviewing local artists.

I might even throw in a poem or two, discuss writing classes I have taken, and recap writers conferences I have attended. Anything to do with writing and reading could end up on these pages!

Including some whimsy – like the fact that Wannabee is pronounced wah-NAH-bee and is a Sasquatch word for “wonderful.”