Rough Draft - Summer 2008 The Official Propaganda Organ of the Cincinnati Writers Project Dedicated to Dallas Wiebe, 1930 – 2008, Founding Father, Cincinnati Writers Project Dallas Wiebe, 1930-2008 Dear CWP members, I may be failing rapidly now, but I’m still publishing. As I begin to leave you all, I give you the birth of my new book. No one can stop my words. Dallas (Announcing his latest book of poetry, On Aging and Dying.) 10 Reasons Why Skyblue Lives Dallas Wiebe by Ryck Neube The CWP celebrates its twenty-first birthday this year. Is that cool, or what? There is a major reason we exist today, a single name--Dallas. Back in the early 90's, the CWP was suffering a tempestuous childhood. Then as now, there were no end of tasks and a shortage of volunteers to accomplish them. We were broke. Often, this is the stage in an institution's life where it goes belly up. Tragedy time, Ophelia. Except the CWP had a secret weapon. A co-founder, Dallas Wiebe served in one board position or another from its birth. He stood as our rock. Instead of reducing the role of the CWP to match its empty coffers, Dallas kept Rough Draft alive, telling the world we were alive. (Remember back in the day when the newsletter arrived on paper in your mailbox?) Not satisfied treading water, he saw to it that the outfit sponsored workshops and brought in speakers for our monthly meetings. Perhaps his most critical role was Treasurer. As I mentioned our demimonde was broke. At times, Dallas operated the CWP out of his wallet. Think about that. It's easy to say you believe in our mission to create a community of writers and poets. It's even easy to create a non-profit organization. But when it comes to slapping down your own cash, could you commit like that? Dallas, like his legendary character SkyBlue, walked the walk. As a result, in 2008 the CWP grew old enough to buy booze. Dallas' literary legacy is legion. It resides within his works in libraries. It lingers in the craft he inculcated into his students. And it lives in the CWP. Let's hoist our glasses to toast the vision of one giant who slaved behind the scenes without credit. Thanks, Dallas. No one’s death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humaneness. Herman Broch Top Plain Words Marcia Eckstein, Editor-at-Home I’m loathe to admit it, but Neube is right again. Remember his rant about your online thesaurus and how you should use a real dictionary to find the right word? As it happens, I stumbled on a situation in which the online thesaurus took two similarly spelled words, stanch and staunch, and flipped their definitions. Go ahead, try it. Highlight the word stanch. The thesaurus feature on your computer (Windows package) will tell you it’s an adjective with “firm” and “resolute” as synonyms. Staunch, on the other hand, is listed as a verb meaning to stop, check or curtail. You’ve been twice warned now, no excuses. On another note, ever wonder why we give “Skyblue the Badass” awards to deserving members of CWP? Dallas. I have never met the man, yet his presence has been everywhere in the fifteen years I’ve been a member of CWP. I “gave” the group to myself as a birthday gift. Dallas gave it to me, bless him. A Chat with the Prez Mary Fitzpatrick We've lived in our house for 10 years, and finally have the time and funds to do the remodeling we've been planning since we bought it. We did all the work ourselves under the direction of my worthy-of-sainthood construction wise brother-in-law. If I never see joint compound again in my life it will be too soon. Mudding drywall is fun for the first six hours, but after that it loses its appeal. This week we finished Basement Re-do, Phase 1 - a man-cave/workshop for my husband and a walk-in closet for me. We’re taking a break for a cruise with my sibs and their families to celebrate my folks 50th anniversary. When we come back, it's on to laying new flooring in the whole first floor. Do we know how to have fun or what? Here's the kicker, and the reason I shared my home re-do story. Despite being crazy busy, and not naturally a short fiction writer, while I was waiting for joint compound to get dry enough to sand (another kind of Hell I won't go into here) I found time to pound out a short story for consideration in the anthology. If I can do it, you can too. Top Writers in Paradise Workshop by P. Andrew Miller It was my pleasure this past January to attend the Writers in Paradise Writing Workshop at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. St. Pete in January is hardly paradise, but by far a better place to spend a winter week than Cincinnati. The workshop is co-directed by mystery writer Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) and his former mentor, Sterling Watson (Weep No More My Brother; The Calling ). Both served as instructors for the Novel Writing Workshops. I went to attend the Non-fiction Writing Workshop, taught by Roland Merullo (Breakfast with Buddha) who has been a faculty member at the workshop for several years. There was one short fiction workshop, a poetry workshop, and several novel workshops. It was strange for me, a writing teacher for 17 years, to go back and be a student again, but I enjoyed the workshop and the experience. I was impressed with the way the week was organized. Each morning started with a lecture, usually delivered by one of the faculty or special guest on some aspect of craft. If the lecture wasn’t of interest, they had simultaneous group talks where the faculty sat in small circles and chatted informally with workshop participants and answered questions from the participants on a variety of topics. At the end of the week, they had one panel with guest editors and a final one with an attending agent, who was kind enough and brave enough to give out his personal email to the participants. After lunch, we met in our individual workshops for two and half hour sessions. Most groups were limited to fifteen, I believe. We spent an hour or more on each piece. I went to learn more about the genre of creative non-fiction, a genre of interest to me. I had a vague idea for a project, and a vague idea of what creative non-fiction was. The workshop taught me a lot. The majority of the class consisted of women writing memoirs, most over 40, and almost all the essays were biographical to some extent, including mine. Mr. Merullo ran an informative, supportive workshop, giving praise where due and offering constructive criticism where needed. After receiving my own M.F.A. in fiction writing and teaching creative writing workshops for eight years, I could appreciate his style and his advice. Likewise, the peer workshop method worked well. The writing varied of course, but every one had strength to their writing (you do have to submit a writing sample to apply) and feedback from the other participants stayed on course and I found it helpful. We were on our own for dinner but every evening, we had a reading from two of the faculty or one of the guests. A small wine and cheese reception preceded each reading and a signing followed. I attended all the readings and certainly had my favorites. I was impressed with the overall quality and grateful for the opportunity to hear the faculty that I didn’t have for class. The final night, besides the reading and a nice farewell party, each faculty announced the writer who received “best of section” for this year’s conference. The best of winners are published in the conference literary journal Sabal. This was the first workshop I have attended as a student since graduate school and I enjoyed the experience and learned from it. From what I heard from most of the rest of the participants, they agreed with me. Many of the faculty this year were mystery writers, so I know that mystery and mainstream fiction would be welcome at the conference. I am not so certain about other genres. Attendees are responsible for finding their own accommodations for the week. I stayed at a Travelodge on St. Petersburg Beach, just a few minutes from the college. The website is writersinparadise.eckerd.edu which has more information about tuition and upcoming workshops as well as past workshops. The site also contains scholarship information. Thanks to generous donors, many of the participants receive scholarship funds to help them attend the workshop. For he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise. S. Coleridge Top Two From Jim: What I Learned from CWP's Fiction Critique Group   and Two Years of Reading Rejects by James Montgomery Jackson Had I written this a couple of years ago I might have had a different take on it, but from the distance of five years since joining the group and two years since becoming actively involved, I offer the following. First, an admission: my writing sucked when I first submitted chapters for Actuarial Gains. My first draft was a bloated 149,000+ words and filled with every error known to mankind, including hyperbole. Draft 11—yes, one for each finger and my right foot’s big toe—came in at 88,000 words. The first critiques I received struggled to find positive things to say, but they were never nasty. Some critiques focused on the large picture: plot line, character development, inconsistencies. Others honed in on grammar problems, stage directions, POV wobbles. I was overwhelmed by the number of things I needed to change. A couple months into the process I started to receive a few guarded positives along the lines of “this is better than your previous work because…” Staying with the critique group began to pay real dividends when I began to comprehend why my writing was improving—and why it still needed improvement. What caused this transformation? My critiques of everyone else’s work. I discovered I learned more about writing from critiquing than being critiqued. The more energy I expended to understand what worked in each piece and what did not, the more my writing improved. It did not matter if the works of others were better, on par with, or inferior to my own. Stepping away from my work allowed me to better understand the mechanics of writing. After a time, I began to anticipate problems in my early drafts and correct them before exposing them to critique. This was a giant step in my education. When I revised work several times before submitting it for critique, the critiques I received were more helpful. Because I had made the effort to correct my mistakes, the new feedback reflected more meaningful critique. Not all critiques are equal. A good critique improves on my natural style; less useful ones try to convert my style to theirs. A good critique suggests alternatives—leaving me to determine which one works best for me. Some in CWP are first class grammarians, others great with dialogue, some have a sense for pacing and others intuit where a story should start or end. Listen carefully to other critiques of the stories/chapters you have also critiqued and learn from what they have to say. All this critiquing will take away from your writing time. Good, I say. When you do write you will incorporate all your acquired knowledge; your writing will improve and you’ll spend less time on the dreaded editing process. No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience. John Locke In 2006 and 2007 I was a reader for Poisoned Pen Press (PPP). It changed the way I write. PPP is an independent publisher of mysteries, with a niche in historical mysteries and those without significant sex, violence and “offensive” language. They accept most 30-page submissions and turn them over, along with a synopsis, to two readers. If either reader liked the submission sufficiently well, PPP requested a full manuscript which was given to two other readers. I read over fifty 30-pagers and eleven full manuscripts for PPP. None of the full manuscripts made my cut. One had plot problems that could be solved and the author was given the opportunity to do that. Nine of the remaining ten started well, but fell apart—mostly because of sagging middles, plots beyond salvage or prose that started well but petered out. It is still a mystery to me how anyone liked the first thirty pages of the eleventh well enough to request a full. Readers were asked to rate submissions on Originality, Setting, Characters, Dialogue, Plotting and Excellence in Writing. Because authors could request comments on rejected submissions, I tried to provide a full critique, but here is the truth: If the first page had a problem, I rejected the submission, and not because I was lazy or predisposed to reject an offering if I found an early issue. Authors are bombarded with advice to make our first sentence/paragraph/page compelling. When an author does not succeed on page one, he seemingly doesn’t have the chops to recover in the next twenty-nine pages with excellent writing. Usually, it goes downhill. You name it: passive writing, grammar errors, misspelling, lack of sensory information, flat dialogue, whatever—if it’s on page 1, it will continue in later pages. I kept my fingers crossed with each submission and read all the pages. Agents and editors don’t have time for that. If page one doesn’t positively gain their attention, they are on to the next offering in the ever-growing slush pile. The key is to get them to page 2. Here’s a little cheat to help you out: Do not end the first page with a completed sentence and give the reader a reason she can stop. Instead, make sure the sentence continues onto page 2, even if you have to start the story a line lower or higher on the page than “strict” standards might suggest. Top Who's Published? We salute the Few, the Proud Fred McGavran won the 2007 Writer's Digest short story contest in the horror category and the 2007 St. Lawrence Award from Black Lawrence Press for a collection of short stories entitled "The Butterfly Collector. Writer's Digest will publish the horror story on line in the fall, and Black Lawrence Press will publish the collection in about 18 months. Carol Feiser Laque has a new collection of poetry entitled Queen Anne’s Lace. Copies are free to anyone who sends me a few bucks to mail it to them. CLAQUE@FUSE.NET Molly Gaudry:Check it out! My first published story just hit cyberworld.  Magical Realism Ryck Neube’s “Cascading Violet Hair", a love story with a little radiation, will be in the ASIMOV'S on the mag racks this June. (Everything you’d expect a love story by Ryck to be, with food. Recommended reading. Ed.) Gary Walton's book of poems, FULL MOON: THE MELISSA MOON POEMS, the latest from the prolific NKU professor, got a rave review in The 23 April issue of City Beat. Karen George wins Art Across Kentucky prize. Or not. (“After they told me I won, I didn't really. Oh well, $250.00 is better than nothing.”) Robert Schofield made Runner Up in the Inktank City Beat Writing Contest, with his piece "Treefall". Sujata Naik was a finalist in same. Jeffrey Mark’s Anthony Boucher: A Biobibliography, McFarland Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7864-3320-9, is available now on Amazon.com for $35. “Recommended for the true mystery aficionado.” Top Conferences, Contests, Workshops, Gatherings In no particular order The Planning Committee of The Mad Anthony Writers Conference and Book Festival, April 25-26, 2008, is pleased to announce Conference Luncheon Keynote Speaker, New York Times, USA Today, Waldenbooks, and Publishers Weekly Best-selling Author Lori Foster.     · Saturday, April 26, 2008     · Sponsored by The Lane Libraries     · Details and registration forms at www.madanthonycbf.org SUPPORT LOCAL AUTHORS, shop at the BOOKBANK, Cincinnati’s only local author’s bookstore, located at InkTank. Books, CD’s, zines by roughly 100 local authors. Local history, novels, spiritualism, humor, true crime (in Cincy?! Ed.), essays, childrens, and more. Contact ann@inktank.org to share your published works. Central Ohio Fiction Writers (a chapter of Romance Writers of America) will host their 18th annual Reader and Writers Holiday Conference September 12th and 13th at the University Plaza Hotel in Columbus, Ohio. For details: www.cofw.org/conference Viable Paradise, A science fiction and fastasy writer’s workshop sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Science Fiction Association (MVSFA), is scheduled for September 21st through 26th, 2008 on Martha’s Vineyard. www.sff.net/paradise for details. And while we’re speaking of things future: AWP (The Association of Writers and Writing Program) Annual Conference & Bookfair, Chicago Hilton, Feb. 11th – 14th, 2009. www.awpwriter.org/conference for details. Very helpful website: www.agentquery.com for everything from a quick agent search, to formatting tips, to conferences and seminars all over the globe. Indiana University Writer’s Conference, June 8th – 13th in Bloomington, Indiana. (812)855-1877 or writecon.@indiana.edu for details. Write-On Writers of Coshocton Writers Conference, April 26th, 2008 at the Coshocton Senior Center. (740) 623-8348 orsfmooney@parakrisis.com WICE, The International Paris Writers Workshop celebrating the diverse voices in the Anglophone community of writers, July 1st – 11th, Paris, France. http://www.wiceparis.org/courses/creative/pww/pww2008.html Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris. T. G. Appleton Top Ether Tools: Links, Blogs, Websites and other good stuff Website for CWP http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CWP_Fiction/ Mary Fitzpatrick, President CWP http://maryfitz.typepad.com/my_weblog Bob Lewis, fiction writer http://iaintsorry.blogspot.com Jeffrey Marks. Check out my website for news about my books and marketing tips of the month. Atomic Renaissance: Women Mystery Writers of the 1940s/1950s, Who Was That Lady? Craig Rice: The Queen of the Screwball Mystery, etc.   www.jeffreymarks.com Amy Purcell, fiction, www.amypurcell.com/blog Kaza Kingsley, young adult, http://memorymogul.blogspot.com Chris Specht www.cspecht.com Madeline Izzo writers group website (group is in Pittsburgh) www.pittsburghwritersproject.org www.judytracy.net/latest_news.htm Top The Accidental Word Overheard murmurs and asides from fiction critique group: This is your opportunity to make it a real Hallmark moment. Then you can bring in the syphilis. What animal is that? Giraffe. Hey, you have a giraffe on your butt! If you want legal paper, it has to be 8.5” x 14”. If it’s 8.5” x 11”, it’s not legal. Then you’re going to have to have your characters play French trivia.

Check Us Out at Yahoo