HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE  A "REAL" WRITER?  This question has plagued me for a long time, and I saw it recently on a writing web site, so I am not the only one who has asked it. For a long time, I was unpublished and wrote in the “closet.” I was afraid if I admitted to doing it (writing, folks) I would have to face that dreaded question:

“Oh, what have you published?”

To which, I’d have to say, “Well, nothing… but my mother loves my stuff.”

And then go crawl under a rock.

I’m sure there are people out there for whom this would not be a problem, people who have lots of self-confidence and don’t care what anyone thinks of them. I tip my hat to you. For the rest of us, what to do? Should we go to the writer’s conference and expose ourselves as wanna-bes or should we just stay home?

Now that I have several novels and nonfiction books published, I have the perspective to return to this perplexing question. How do you know when you are a “real” writer? What is one? Does anyone who picks up a pen or taps on the computer qualify? Do you have to be published? How many times? Does self-publishing count? Does payment in art journal copies qualify or do you have to be paid for it? If you win an award or get an honorable mention, does that jump you to the “writer status?” According to the IRS, a professional is anyone who is paid for their work. My first publication to a magazine netted me $8.48. It was a great feeling to finally reach that milestone, but somehow it didn’t make the question go away.

Is the aspired distinction merely to be found in the eye of the beholder? If I like what you write, does that make you a “writer” in my eyes, but if I don’t care for it, you aren’t? Saying someone is a “good writer” or a “bad writer,” at least slaps the tag on them, but is he/she a “real” writer? If you keep a journal under the bed and scribe in it daily, are you one or not?

Okay, I’ve asked the question, now I’ll share my epiphany.

By college, I was quietly writing fiction, but I took a class in poetry because it was the only way to get my roommate to go to biology lab. It turned out to be the best move I could have made. Everyone brought their hearts and souls to class with their poems. And it was brutal. I learned that there was only one rule—Does it work?

Not: Does it express what you really want to say? does it use alliteration and rhyme correctly? Only: Does it work? You can break rules; you can follow rules; you can cry big crocodile tears onto your paper, but the only question is that one.

So, it doesn’t matter if you are published or not, have won awards or not. It doesn’t matter what you write or how often you write. It doesn’t matter. A writer wants it to work! If it doesn’t work, a writer is willing to produce it for critique, to listen to criticism, to cut, to add, to change, to ask questions, to learn, to rewrite, to stand his/her ground, to start over, to rewrite again—whatever it takes to make it work.

Of course, you can write without being “a writer.” And there is nothing wrong with writing for your own pleasure or self-discovery . . . or for your mother. Kudos to you and keep writing!

But if you have a passion to tell a story, to paint in words, to reach people, to move people, then you understand the question—Am I a “real writer?”

And if you have that passion and are willing to work to make your writing “work,” then in my book, you most definitely are one!

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T.K. Thorne is a retired police captain and award-winning writer of books and blogs that go wherever her curiosity and imagination take her. Visit her at TKThorne.com.

THINKING ABOUT POETRY: A CLOSE EXAMINATION OF ELEMENTS OF CRAFT

By: SUE WALKER

Take a look at poem you have written or that someone else has written with an ear and eye directed toward revision.

1.     MEANING:  Can you – as a reader – write a brief paraphrase of the poem? What is the poem saying? If you were to write a letter to the poet about her / his poem, what would you say is the general gist of the poem?

I want to mention a book that seem relevant to the above. The first is an older book published in 1959 entitled HOW DOES A POEM MEAN buy John Ciardi.  How who is John Anthony Ciardi (June 24, 1916 – March 30, 1986) was an American poet, translator known for his translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. He wrote several volumes of children’s poetry and was a columnist for the Saturday Review. He was a poetry editor and directed the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont. This is, I believe, an essential book for learning how the elements of a poem work.  Here is a quote from Chapter 1:  “The human-insight of the poem, and the technicalities of the poetic devices are inseparable. Each feeds the other. This interplay is the poem’s meaning, a matter not of WHAT IT MEANS (nobody can say entirely what a good poem means) but HOW IT MEANS.

An aside here:  Negative Capability Press in 1886 published a festschrift on Richard Eberhart. One of the contributors was John Ciardi who introduced Dick Eberhard at a reading he gave at Rutgers.  “I think I offended him,” Ciardi said. “Eberhart has never written a so-so poem. He’s either breath-takingly magnificent or he is lousy. Let me beg him as my dear friend and as an old admiration to fix or ‘breath-takingly magnificent.” 

2.     TITLE:  Ah yes – the title. Does it make you want to read on? Does the title intrigue you? Does the title indicate something of importance?  Does the title itself do any work?  I like what Ken Craft (born 1967), cartoonist-story teller said about the importance of a poem’s title: “When unlocking a poem’s meaning, titles are one of the first ‘must considers’ of your process.”  I like my title to be the last thing I attend to. I look back through possible lines that occurred in the poem and write several possible titles before choosing the one that ultimately heads the article, poem, or story.  

3.     HISTORY:  Is there any indication of something that has happened before the poem begins? Is there some history, some antecedent scenario?  Does the reader need to know this?  What does the writer reveal of what happened prior to the matter of the poem?  Emily Dickinson wrote a poem entitled: “Yesterday is History” in which she says:

            Yesterday is History,

            ‘Tis so far away—

            Yesterday is Poetry—

            ‘Tis Philosophy—

And Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “History” presents a past that if rife with the matter of men. She tells History from the woman’s perspective—the woman as witness.  One of my favorite quotes is that of T.S. Eliot (1888-1965): “Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future. And time future contained in time past.”  I am thinking of how the writer handles the yesterday, thinking of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. (Swann’s Way—the first book)   Ah, that madeleine moment when the scent of something brings back a moment. And how does the writer shape memory. A useful book is Sven Birkerts, The Art Of Time In Memoir: Then Again.  There might well be a reading list for each of these sections on KIND / GENRE:  What kind of poem are you reading / responding to? Sonnet (What kind? Shakespearean, Petrarchan? Spenserian? Miltonic?) Sestina? Villanelle? Ode? Free Verse? Prose poem? Hybrid?  My writing class at the Mobile Botanical Gardens in Mobile, Alabama have recently gone, alphabetically, through Forms from A-Z.

4.     MAKE-UP:  What is the poems design / make-up? Does it have stanzas, or does it exist as a whole? How many parts does the poem have? Where do the breaks come? Does one stanza link with another stanza or exist an entity in and of itself?  What change or changes exist because the poem is divided into specific parts? Look for single words that stand out. What about single words on a single line? Why is a single word emphasized? Are words set apart on a line? What about spaces? What use does space serve? As of January 12, 2023, the U.S. Poet Laureate is Ada Limón.  Take a look at her poem, “Power Lines” in the summer issue of the Paris Review:  https://theparisreview.org/poetry/7787/power-lines-ada-limon. The poem is written in couplets with an alternating single line: The poem begins thus:
             Three guys in fluorescent vests are taking down
             a tree along my neighbor’s fence line, which is of course,

             my fence line, with my two round-eyed snakes and my wandering  (and another couple follows with racoon. (period.)
Note the spacing, the enjambment, and the period after “racoon” at the beginning of stanza 3. (In addition to being U.S. Poet Laureate, Limón is the author of five books of poetry and the recipient of National Book Critics Circle Award for The Carrying.

5.     SHAPE: Is the shape of the poem relevant? Look at the line length. Is the poem written in long lines that extend almost the length of the page?  Is the poem composed of short lines? Does it matter that this is so?  I want to mention Concrete Poetry – poems that present a particular shape such as an Apple. Google, if you will, Lewis Carroll’s The Mouse’s Tale” in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and “Easter Wings” by George Herbert. 

6.     DICTION: What would you say about diction? Is the poem written with dialect?  Are certain parts of speech emphasized? What about tense – first, second, third tense? XYV – Examine your verbs. How many “to be” verbs exist in the poem? Could any of them be more dynamic / dramatic? What if the line read: “The child is going across the street.” Could “is” be replaced by a more telling verb such as: The child ambles / races / dashes / stumbles/ limps / etc.  I believe there are seven editions of On Writing Well by William Zinsser (Oct 7, 1922-May 12. 2015. The New York Times said this book belongs on any shelf of serious reference works for writers.” 

7.     PUNCTUATION: Take a look at your em dashes, at your semicolons, your capitalization, etc.  We are not Emily Dickinson, nor are we E.E. Cummings.

8.      AT THE END:  And now, look at your end words. The eye pauses there though briefly. Do you really want “a” at the end of the line? What about a conjunction there?  I recommend James Longenbach’s The Art Of the Poetic Line.  He examines metered lines, syllabic lines, and free verse lines.

9.      TONE: What emotion is revealed in the poem? Is there a change in the narrator’s voice? Who will tell what?

10.  SOUND:  The sound units of a poem are its syllables. The word “melodramatic” has five sounds.  Readers become aware of sounds when two end-words rhyme, but poets could also pay attention to the rhythm and sounds in their lines just as they are of the words that end the lines of a poem.  Please check out Robert Pinsky’s The Sounds Of Poetry: A Brief Guide.

11.  SYNTAX:  The arrangement of words and phrases.  What difference does it make if we say: “the mad woman in the attic” or the woman mad in the attic? And what about a series of prepositional phrases? Is it too much to say that in a poem every word matters – and the placement of that word matters – especially if it exists on a line by itself?   Ellen Bryant Voight has a book entitled The Art Of Syntax. Sound and syntax hold hands.

12.   AGENCY AND SPEECH ACTS:  Who is the main agent in the poem?  Does the main agent change as the poem progresses> Can you imagine the poem written in a different person?  What about the use of first person, “I”? What about the use of “you?” What about s/he and it? Just because the poem is written in first person, we should not assume that the “I” is the poet.

13.  WHAT IS MISSING?  Can you imagine the poem without a certain stanza or line? Could the parts of the poem be rearranged? Why do you think the poet would want certain lines and stanzas in the position in which they appear?  What if the last line of the poem were the first line of the poem? What if the last stanza were the first? 

14.  WHAT STANDS OUT?  With the poem no longer before you, what do you remember that stands out for you about the poem?  What stands out about how it is written?  What is striking? What is memorable – in content, in genre, in analogies, in rhythm, the speaker?

15.  WORD ROOTS:  Certain words from words in earlier / other languages – Greek, Anglo-Saxon, Latin.  Are there particular root words that occur in the poem? Are other languages featured in a striking way?

16.  CONNECTIONS  / RELATIONSHIPS:  Every word in a poem enters into a relationship with the words around it and with other words in the poem.  Is something going on that comes to mind because of the constellations of certain words. 

            Thematic relationship: For example – stars and sky may appear in a certain relationship.

            Gender relationship: Think about this:

                        I asked my uncle if it was okay to be melodramatic

                        And he said, “yes.”

            Phonemic relationship: What words are connected by their initial s’s or st’s – i.e. – stage and stars and stand, etc.  What is the use of anaphora?

            Syntactic relationship – as “When I consider”. And “When I perceive” may introduce dependent clauses.

17.   SENTENCES:   This is reflecting on some things have already been said.  Subjects and predicates as well tenses have their sway. Who is saying what to whom?

18.  IMPLICATIONS: Because a poem suggest, not expatiates, it requires the writer to supply the concrete instances for each of its suggestions.  Thus, a poet may peak abstractly, but reader is called upon to think concretely. Implications may be present in rhythm as well as in word

19.  SPEAKER:  For the writer, this is often an important choice. Examine the facts of identity in the poem and how these may offer varying views of the world of the poem.

20.  ATTITUDES, JUDGEMENTS, VALUES:  What values are suggested in the poem. Is a judgement being made?  Can you separate the personal from the author> Just because the poem affirms a person’s right to die doesn’t necessarily believe that this point of view is held by the poet.

21.  IMAGES: A word isn’t necessarily a picture.  Words refer. Images represent.

22.  THE SENSES:  What in your poem is related to Sight, to Scent (smell), Taste, Touch, and Sound (hearing).  When I was working on a book about the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, I would try to name the sounds I heard when walking along the E.O. Wilson Boardwalk.  I would google Swallow Tailed Kite – or Blackbird, etc.  and determine if I could write their particular sound.  I could google the bird – and my dog would come running; “Where is it?” she would look around. “It must be somewhere, I heard it!”  The late Pat Schneider would bring a collection of things to describe – a cotton ball, a pinecone, sandpaper, a piece of modeling clay, smooth stones.  And yes, I know, this goes under Sound. 

23.  PAT SCHNEIDER:  My favorite book on writing and teaching writing and on the Workshops is Writing Along and With Others.

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Sue Brannan Walker is Professor Emerita at the University of South Alabama and a former Poet Laureate of Alabama.  She is the Publisher and Editor of Negative Capability Press and has published 12 books as well as hundreds of poems and critical articles. Sue currently teaches a Poetry Workshop at the Mobile Botanical Gardens every Wednesday a well an online workshop via Zoom. She is on the Board of the Alabama Writers Cooperative, the Alabama Writers Forum and Blakeley State park. She is a recipient of the Eugene Garcia Award for Literary Scholarship. Her book on James Dickey was awarded the Adèle Mellen Prize for its distinguished contribution to scholarship. She is involved with various writing groups in Mobile and judges contests for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies and various state groups.

We are pleased to announced the publication of 2022 Awarded Writers’ Collection, which features award-winning work from the AWC’s 2022 Writing Contests. These pages feature a wide variety of work, across genres, and it’s a wonderful anthology to get lost inside.

This book would not have been possible without the help of T. K. Thorne and Jessica Temple. Both assisted in getting the book put together and in making the Contests possible.

Click here to purchase your paperback copy.

For all of the many poets in the AWC, the Alabama State Poetry Society’s Fall 2022 Workshop will be on October 14th and 15th in Columbiana, Alabama, at the 4-H Center. There are many activities planned for the weekend, including workshops with Dr. Jacqueline Trimble and our new Poet Laureate, Ashley M. Jones. The event is free for members, and lunch will be provided.

To register, please click here. And if you aren’t a member yet (but are interested in becoming one), here is more information.

It sounds like it’ll be a great weekend!

Randy Crew is the author of the new cozy murder mysteries series, The Four Seasons. It was a pleasure to be able to talk to him about, among other things, his inspiration, his writing life, and his relationship with his characters.

Bradley Sides: First of all, Randy, thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions for us over at the AWC. Before we discuss your The Four Seasons series, do you mind sharing your story of how you became a writer?  

Randy Crew:  Glad to, Bradley. Writing and history were the subjects I consistently did well in during my school years, and throughout my life, I usually kept diaries. In my experience teaching creative writing at a junior college in my later years and participating in many different writer groups over those later years, people who keep diaries are natural writers. Then at Auburn, besides the required physical education courses, I only got an A in a class called “Business and Professional Writing.”  Even that class was a challenge because, to this day, I am a terrible speller. So, it wasn’t until I was in my 50s and spell check was invented that I felt it was time to scratch that writing itch. And the itch was to write my first novel, A Killing Shadow. It was only during the four years it took me to write A Killing Shadow, and I was in my 50s then, that I felt like I had become a writer.

BS: You are the author of two previous military action-adventure novels. Your new series shifts into a different territory. What inspired you to turn your focus to this series?

RC:   With both A Killing Shadow and One-way Mission, I wanted to leave a written document behind that would belie the myths and untruths told by Hollywood and the media about those of us who were in Vietnam. In those two novels. I told the truth as I knew it—the good, bad, and the ugly—but I did it in a way that would be an engaging, fast-moving action-adventure story with a mystery line, a lot of humor, and drama. Once I got that out of my system, years went by, a granddaughter was born, the itch returned, and I decided it was the time to have fun and write something light and playful—such as cozy murder mysteries—something my son could enjoy now and, in time, my granddaughter could enjoy. She’s already an advanced reader like her daddy was, so it won’t be long.

BS: For you, how does your writing process differ from writing a standalone novel to shaping a series?

RC: Everything I’d read about being a creative writer of novels said a series was more attractive to agents and publishers than a standalone, so those first two novels were intended to be a series. A Killing Shadow is actually two books in one, and One-way Mission is the sequel, the third book in the series. So, I’ve always written with a series in mind.

BS: I’ve mentioned your new series, The Four Seasons. Do you mind sharing with our readers what it’s about—and what they can expect to uncover as they begin it?

RC:   Oh, sure, glad to. They are cozy murder mysteries, each one set in a different season of the year, from Halloween 1955 to the summer of 1956. Starting with book 1, the Trick-or-Treat Corpse, retired homicide detective Nathan B. Hawke, from Dallas, Texas, tells the story of his junior high school adventures with the occasional corpse. The reader will discover life in the small town of Southern Pines, North Carolina, a golfing Mecca today, along with Pinehurst, but a sleepy little town in 1955. They’ll also discover a much more civil and respectful time in our country’s history when good manners were important, and children respected their parents and elders. This was also a time when children were allowed to wander, have outdoor adventures without wearing helmets and kneepads, and exercise their imaginations. They could even make mistakes, fall down, get hurt, get back up and press on. I have a counseling background, so I also couldn’t avoid slipping in some life advice, usually administered by Nate’s grandfather, the WWI vet with the mustard-gas-damaged lungs. His advice is usually related to Nate’s relationship with his older sister, the teenager who thinks she’s ready for love, or the village bully who is on Nate’s path to school every morning.

BS: Let’s talk about “Nate,” your protagonist. What inspired him?

RC:   As “Nate” explains in the prologue, he had an unfortunate reputation in his junior high days that inhibited his crime-scene credibility, so when he and his dog Superman stumble into their first corpse in “Boris” Barrow’s woods—that’s the elderly recluse in the spooky Victorian mansion who looks like Boris Karloff—nobody believes him. Nate decides to clear his name and prove to the local police and others that he has matured since his days as a liar and prankster, so he sets out with a couple of school friends and his spunky mom to find the murderer. And keeping his promise to his mom, a Korean war widow, to never lie to her again is a constant challenge for him. But it doesn’t keep him from lying to others. For Nate, the truth is so boring when a clever lie here and there can get you out of a lot of trouble.

Also, Nate isn’t the only protagonist. These four books are called the Four Seasons series, but each is also referred to as “A Nate and Superman cozy murder mystery.”  Superman, Nate’s mutt with the bloodhound nose, is a key player. He’s the key player, according to him. He’s a detective dog with attitude.

BS: Is it emotionally different for you to be with a character for so long? With a story of a standalone novel, we get to know characters and then let them go. With your current work, though, you’ll be with Nate for multiple books. I imagine there’s a deep connection there, right?

RC:   Oh, yeah. I went to junior high school in Southern Pines, North Carolina. I lived and roamed the woods and town where Nate lives, so while I am not telling my story—I never found a corpse—I am showing life as a junior high school student in 1955 and 1956. Those were good years for me; lots of good memories of neighbors, community, baseball, boy scouts, and camping. And I had a troublesome sibling like Nate. I also remember a bully, a difficult paper route customer, and a few other unsavory characters, so while writing these books, at every page of the manuscript, I ask myself, Yeah, that’s what you remember, Randy, but what if…

BS: For many writers, place functions like a character. In establishing your setting, did you view it with this kind of depth?

RC:   I’d like to think so. Southern Pines was a unique place. There was the rich, country-club set, mostly people from the north who had a second home there so they could play golf. They generally lived on “the hill,” and then there were the textile mill workers who lived around the town. In the rural areas, you had the salt-of-the-earth farmers, but you also had the bootleggers and car-strippers. I had children from all walks of life in my class; several of them are key players in my books.

In these stories, Nate is in a single-parent family because his father was killed in Korea in 1952. Fortunately, my father returned from two tours of duty in Korea, so again Nate is not me, but a friend of mine in my Southern Pines class lost his father in Korea, so with Nate being in a single-parent family, in a way, I’m telling my friend’s story. Plus, with my father gone a lot, my mother was the head of our family several times in my life, so I’m familiar with the single-parent environment.

BS: Are you working on other writing projects as you finish your series? Or is your focus solely on Nate and the crew for the foreseeable future?

RC:   I’m locked in on Nate’s story right now. I’ve finished books one and two, The Trick-or-Treat Corpse and the Christmas Tree Corpse, and I’ve started book three, the Centerfield Corpse, but after book four, the Campfire Corpse, I have considered a new series that will be set in Hawaii.

After we lived in Southern Pines for two years, we moved to Oahu, Hawaii. One of my junior high friends there was John Chestly. We called him John “Moochly” because he was always mooching food off the rest of us on camping trips. One day, while we swam in a beautiful Hawaiian stream that ran through some grazing land, Moochly bumped into a dead horse. That was the kind of stuff that happened to him, so I’ve been wondering…what if Moochly had bumped into a dead man or woman?

BS: Before I let you go, what advice do you have for writers out there who might just be getting started on their own paths to publication?

RC:   Join a local writer’s group. Stay active in AWC, go to conferences, and study creative writing. Oh, and use active verbs in your writing. When I first decided to write my first novel—and my reasons for doing so go a lot deeper than what we’ve had time to cover here—the first thing I did was take a class in creative writing at the local junior college. After that first class, I knew I belonged in the writing community. Next, I went to the local library and checked out every book they had on creative writing. I was on fire; I’d found my calling, so to speak.

BS: Thank you again, Randy, for your time, and congratulations on your The Four Seasons series!

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Randolph Crew is a former Marine pilot with two published military action-adventure novels based on his 793 combat missions. He holds an MA degree in counseling from Webster University and a BS degree in Business from Auburn University. Now retired and mellowed (his words), he’s having fun writing cozy murder mysteries for ages 10-110. His mysteries take place in Southern Pines, NC, where he lived when he was a junior high student with a reputation. For recreation, he enjoys hiking the great outdoors in his home state of Alabama. You can find him there or connect with him on our contact page. He’d like to hear from you.

Please join us in congratulating the winners of the AWC’s 2022 Writing Contests! Winners will receive certificates and cash rewards, and they will also be published in our upcoming anthology. Congratulations again, writers! It was a pleasure to read your words.

Short Story

First Place: "When Worlds Collide" by Octavia Kuransky, Center Point, AL

Second Place: "Grimm’s School for the Morally and MeToo Challenged" by Tay Berryhill, Birmingham, AL

Flash Fiction

First Place: "Grandpa Versus the Giant Gorilla" by Vic Kerry, Oakman, AL

Second Place: "Lucky" by Kate Duthu, Mobile, AL

First Chapter of Novel

First Place: "Inescapable" by WB Henley, Indian Springs, AL

Second Place: "Blame it on the Moon" by Kathleen Thompson, Birmingham, AL

Memoir

First Place: "Saint Chris, Protect Me" by Doug Gray, Fayetteville, TN

Second Place: "The Reliquary" by Christopher Jay Jones, Anniston, AL

Formal Poetry

First Place: "Writer at Mill Creek" by Emma Fox, Birmingham, AL

Second Place: "Afternoon in the Old Harshaw Cemetery, Haiku One" by Anne P. Wheeler, Birmingham, AL

Free Verse Poetry

First Place: "A choreography of almost" by Miriam Calleja, Birmingham, AL

Second Place: "Salt on a Bird's Wing" by Catherine Hall Kiser, Fairhope, AL

Prose Poetry

First Place: "Forsythia" by Karen McAferty Morris, Pensacola, FL

Please join us on Saturday, August 27, for a slate of virtual activities in lieu of our in-person annual conference.

Admission is free for AWC members and contest winners, but registration is required. You can register via Eventbrite using this link. The Zoom link will be sent in a series of reminders starting on Saturday, August 21. 

Here’s the schedule of activities:

12 p.m. – Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones’s Keynote Address: “Poetry as a Path to Reparations: The Role of Art in the Justice Struggle”

1 p.m. – AWC Contest Winners Announced

2 p.m. – AWC Annual Business Meeting (all members encouraged to attend, as we’ll be electing new board officers)

Hope to see everyone there!

The AWC Board of Directors recently met to discuss the viability of this year's in-person conference as it is currently planned. For what are likely a variety of reasons, our registration numbers are down relative to pre-Covid conferences. Unfortunately, projected costs for the conference are the same or higher. In the interest of fiscal responsibility, the board voted to alter our plans for this year's conference with an eye toward positioning the organization to host a well-attended and dynamic in-person event in 2023, which is our 100th Anniversary year. 

Here are the changes we decided are necessary for this year:

• We will no longer meet in person at the O'Neal library later this month.

• We will promptly refund all conference registration fees already paid.

• The annual writing contest will proceed as planned (with winners announced virtually on August 27, as enumerated in the next bullet point).

• In lieu of an in-person event, we will instead host a smaller virtual event on Saturday, August 27. We'll kick off at 12 p.m. with Ashley Jones's keynote address, "Poetry as a Path to Reparations: The Role of Art in the Justice Struggle," followed by the announcement of the AWC contest winners at 1 p.m.. Then, at 2 p.m., we will hold our annual business meeting, at which time the membership will elect incoming board officers.

• Admission to the virtual events on August 27 will be free and exclusively available to current AWC members and contest winners (though registration will be required -- stay tuned for details on how to register). We will proceed with the free agent pitch sessions and manuscript consultations as planned for those registrants who have already signed up for them, still on a first come, first served basis.

• We are in the process of reaching out to all panelists and presenters to reschedule them, either for next year's in-person conference or as part of a series of virtual events to be scheduled in the coming months.

• We will use these virtual events as a way to "nurture and engage" our membership (for free or at low cost to them) and to promote the in-person conference next year, which will double as a celebration of the organization's centennial.

• We will announce the dates and location of the 2023 conference on August 27.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Our main goal is to offer value to our members while being good stewards of the organization's limited resources. We believe this is the best way to do that. While we will miss the opportunity to see everyone in person later this month, we're excited about what's in store for the coming year. 

We’re two weeks away from the start of our first in-person conference since 2019! We’ll be at the O’Neal Library in Mountain Brook, Alabama, from August 26 through August 28. If you haven’t registered already, here’s a link to our conference page where you can get the complete schedule and scroll to the bottom to register online. The deadline for Full Registration, Full Student Registration, and Saturday Specialty Admission Only is Monday, August 15 at 5:00 p.m. 

Here’s a link to a great feature article posted this morning in al.com, with all kinds of great quotes and information about the conference. Please read and share it!  

We’re really looking forward to seeing folks in person again. Our keynote speaker with be our very own Ashley M. Jones, and we’re excited for our panel celebrating the life and work of E.O. Wilson, along with other presentations from Sue Walker, Jennifer Horne, Jackie Trimble, Don Noble, Lee Rozelle, Tina Mozelle Braziel, Heidi Carroll, Karim Shamsi-Basha, Charlotte Pence, Brooke Champagne, and others! We’re also looking forward to announcing the winners of this year’s contest, including the brand new Roger Williams Peace Award for Writing, which goes to writing of any genre that best promotes peace among human beings and carries with it a prize of $1,000!  

Questions can be directed to conference chair, JJ Jones (jjsayspoetryplz.com).

Hope to see you in Mountain Brook in a couple of weeks!

Debra Goldstein is a short story writer and the author of the Sarah Blair mystery series. It was a treat to be able to talk with Debra about her journey to her writing career, her interest in mystery writing, and, of course, her latest release (Five Belles Too Many):

Bradley Sides: First of all, thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions for us over at the AWC. Before we get into your latest novel, Five Belles Too Many, do you mind talking about your journey to becoming a writer? When did you know you were going to write books?

Debra Goldstein: As a child, I enjoyed writing/telling stories and creating plays for my friends to act out. In college, I toyed with the idea of becoming a journalist or a writer, so one of my majors was English. I deliberately graduated a term early and two days later went to New York with two goals: obtain a job in publishing and get on Jeopardy. While I job hunted by day, I typed law school applications at night. I was lucky to achieve my goals but decided I didn’t want to be at the bottom of publishing so in the fall I went to law school. Throughout law school and during my career as a litigator and judge, I wrote boring briefs and decisions, any skit needed for a party or organizational project, and talked about writing. Finally, after being challenged to write or stop talking about it, I wrote Maze in Blue, a mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus in the 1970’s. It was published by a small press in 2011 and received a 2012 IPPY award.

For the next few years, I tried to keep my writing and judicial careers separate. Just before my second book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery, was set to be released, an attorney and his client appeared before me. At the end of each hearing, I’d ask, “Is there anything more?” and the well-trained lawyers would answer “No, your honor,” before I did a standard closing. On this particular day, the attorney did what he was supposed to do, but his client said, “Yes, your honor. There is one more thing.”

I glanced at the attorney to give him time to control his client, but he put his hands up in the air indicating that was an impossibility. So, I asked the client, “What is it, sir?”

When he replied, “No matter how you rule, I’m going to buy your book,” I knew it was time to decide between my passion for writing and my lifetime appointment. I chose passion. Oh, and he probably didn’t buy the book because I ruled against him.

BS: Reading is a big part of so many writers’ lives. Is this true for you?

DG: Yes, I have always been an avid reader. I don’t read quite as much since I began writing, but I try to take a month off between my books to catch up on my pleasure reading.

BS: Five Belles Too Many is the fifth novel of your Sarah Blair Mystery. For readers who aren’t familiar with the series, what’s it about?

DG: Sarah Blair was married at eighteen, divorced at twenty-eight. The only thing she got out of the marriage was her Siamese cat, RahRah. In One Taste Too Many, she is finding herself and wishing she were as goal oriented as her twin sister, Chef Emily. When Sarah’s ex-husband is murdered by what appears to be a taste of Emily’s award-winning rhubarb crisp, Sarah must find the true killer or take her sister’s place in a food exhibition. For a woman who is more afraid of the kitchen than murder, Sarah has incentive to clear her sister’s name. As the series evolves, so does the amateur sleuthing and the character of Sarah. The series is meant to be light – a beach, bedside, or airplane read – and fun, but with a whodunit that will always keep the reader guessing.

Woman’s World Magazine picked One Taste Too Many as a cozy book of the week. Two Bites Too Many, Three Treats Too Many, and Four Cuts Too Many were all Silver Falchion finalists. I am excited about newly released Five Belles Too Many because it is one of my favorite books in the series. In Five Belles, Sarah is forced to be her mother’s chaperone when her mother is one of five finalists in a reality TV competition to win the perfect Southern wedding. To make matters worse, the contestants and chaperones must stay at a bed and breakfast run by Sarah’s greatest nemesis, Jane. When the television show’s producer is found dead, with Jane crouched over the body, Sarah must either help her nemesis or chance more of the cast and crew being permanently eliminated.

BS: What draws you to mystery writing?

DG: I’m drawn to mystery writing by the challenge of crafting an enjoyable whodunit.

BS: I’m interested in the approach to writing when working with a series. Does the story tend to unfold as you get to each novel? Or do you already have most of the series planned out—and use that outline to shape each book?

DG: Although I have a one paragraph premise for each book, I’m a pantser so the story unfolds as I write. Usually, once I start a book, I have an idea where it will go, but I can’t force it. I need to listen to the characters to get each book right.

BS: I’m drawn to books that are set in and work around the culinary world. For you, is this a world you are already familiar with, or did you have to do a lot of research to make sure you were getting the feeling right?  

DG: I am as clueless in the kitchen as Sarah. Takeout and her recipes that include pre-made ingredients, like Jell-O in a Can and Spinach Pie made with Stouffers frozen spinach souffle, are the limits of my cooking ability. Because we eat out a lot and I have several friends who are chefs in Birmingham, Alabama (quite a foody town), I let them teach me about their kitchens, utensils, and the interaction of those who work in a restaurant. My lack of knowledge gave them a lot of laughs and their patience enabled me, I hope, to get the feeling of the culinary world right.

BS: Before I let you go, can you tell us what you are working on next? Another Sarah Blair Mystery novel?

DG: I write long and short. Consequently, I’m working on several short stories – three of which are scheduled for publication in 2022. My long work in progress is a suspense novel rather than a Sarah Blair cozy mystery.

BS: Thank you again, Debra, for your time, and congratulations on the release of Five Belles Too Many!

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Judge Debra H. Goldstein writes Kensington’s Sarah Blair mystery series (Five Belles Too Many, Four Cuts Too Many, Three Treats Too Many, Two Bites Too Many, and One Taste Too Many). Her short stories, which have been named Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer finalists, have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies including Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, Malice Domestic Murder Most Edible, Masthead, Murder by the Glass, and Jukes & Tonks. Debra served on the national boards of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and was president of the Guppy and SEMWA chapters. Find out more about Debra at https://www.DebraHGoldstein.com .