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A CWP Dedication: Remembering Dallas Wiebe By Jeffrey Hillard Seven Cincinnati writers met in Dallas’ living room on McAlpin Ave. in Clifton in September, 1987, understanding that not one of us knew a writer outside of Clifton. Or, if we did, we did not always see that writer. Dallas, Jon Hughes, and I had discussed the need to connect with other writers – form a network – because we detected a chasm of inactivity among writers at that time. We knew better: we believed writers were seeking other writers, but did not exactly know how to connect. I had literally just been hired fulltime to replace poet Nikki Giovanni, who taught part time, at the College of Mount St. Joseph. I basically thought I was the only literary writer on the west side of town. I was also assistant editor of Cincinnati Poetry Review, which Dallas co-founded in 1973. Jon and I were collaborating on a couple of journalism pieces for then-Everybody’s News alternative paper. Yet, Dallas was front and center. He waved the banner: “Everyone, help yourself to cold beer in the refrigerator. Let’s get going on this.” Dallas’ living room was happening. I took notes. We had three follow-up meetings in five weeks. Most of the writers that evening stayed on. We were confident we could strategize ways to unite, fortify, nurture, showcase, and cheerlead for other writers – in all genres. We immediately agreed all genres were worth embracing; it was early inclusivity at its finest. Even sci fi: Imagine the blessing we felt when in the early 1990s, Ryck Neube showed up at the Carnegie Cultural Arts Center in Newport. Dallas, Ryck, and I may as well have forged blood ties by piercing our skin and bleeding into each other at the Carnegie, for all the big-hearted love and kindred spirit Ryck has since given CWP – and Dallas and me. Ryck, Karen George, and other stalwarts grew CWP in the late 1990s, when Dallas and I decided we did not want it to seem a “Dallas and Jeff” production. So, CWP was conceived in Dallas’ living room in 1987. It was outright birthed, umbilical cord and all, in October, 1998 at the Butterfield Center on Garfield Place in downtown Cincinnati. The occasion: CWP’s first and only major Small Press Bookfair. It was CWP’s official launch. It was Dallas’ effort to organize the fair that made it huge. Over 50 small press publishers and editors from the Midwest and East (Maryland) lined the all-purpose room displaying books and magazines. It was a beautiful event. We presented awards (money) to winners of a CWP-sponsored, high school writing contest. For the entire year it took to organize, I worked side by side with Dallas, who carried the load. On the day of the bookfair he was battling the flu. I had never seen him sick before. A community of writers had come together. It’s important for you to realize that, because of Dallas’ vision and commitment to CWP, you are reading this anthology. Community. Writers. Artists. Publishing. You must realize that Cincinnati in the 80s and early 90s was a vacuum. We did not know how to connect with a workshop or to adventurous publishing. There were only two or three community workshops. CWP vigorously formed a network for writers of all genres. This was key. Dallas was a truth-teller. He did not tolerate bad writing. If you were around him, you quickly understood this. Any workshop Dallas ever taught anywhere, CWP included, was packed. Even when he held court on the art of story at Arlin’s Bar, a literary conference, at a picnic or reception, his notions over the 29 years that I knew him never wavered. “Keep the writing simple and clear, and let it build. Work your ‘patterns’ or small details that should recur throughout the story,” he’d say. “Get your secondary patterns [below the plot or storyline] working. Pay attention to them. That’s what a reader sees.” Are you kidding? Dallas took CWP very seriously, and yet he was one of the great comic fiction writers in the country. Characters: Dallasandro Vibini, Gottlieb Liebgott (a palindrome, did you notice?), Abraham Nofziger, Grassgreen, Dirtbrown, William Weary, Peter Seltanzer a.k.a. Skyblue the Badass. The stories’ subject matter: a glass-eyed blond boy, a Vietnam vet who created his own fictional world in drawings, a child who could not forget anything, and a Holmesian loser who solved petty crimes. Just a few examples of so very many. He published a novel that invoked much of Russia. We rarely had a CWP meeting when someone didn’t come up to Dallas and say, “Jesus, I nearly choked laughing at that recent story you published.” He was a comic genius. His erudition was always tempered by the frequent homespun humor. In conversation, he’d have you howling. “I’m not going to read any more crap by that writer [like John Updike, for instance].” Or, he could have meant crap by a colleague at U.C. Dallas bragged about you in Cuba in 1993. I was there with him. Jon Hughes and Lew Moores were there, as well as several others. Dallas’ first of two trips was in 1985. He said to Cuban writers, artists, and professors at the University of Havana how proud he was of the writers in CWP. He talked about how the organization thrived on solidarity, and this truth incited the Cubans to buy another round and toast to CWP’s longevity. Even before CWP, there was Mount Adams. I’m vague on the particulars, but Dallas, in 1963 and 1964, wasted no time hooking up with the literary and artistic scene in Mount Adams. He befriended the late George Thompson, who published The Mount Adams Review. They collaborated on issues. George had a printing press in a small building. A linotype press. There was a thriving literary scene in that heyday, a precursor to what CWP would become. Dallas cared about a writer’s struggles. I never knew one moment when he didn’t speak to a writer, go out of his way to encourage a young writer, or get in the car and go have a drink with a writer, if there was time. Until he was 72, he rarely missed community readings. Regularly, he was the scene. Dallas is here; you could hear the echo. He cared about new writers, young writers, writers with a burning desire. He established the early CWP workshops, taught in them, solicited other writers in the city to help facilitate the teaching. He was a tireless advocate. I often wondered when he had time to write. But he was as disciplined a writer as anyone I have ever known. He taught me how not to fall into an undisciplined pace, a habit into which I confess I sometimes fall. Dallas left Skyblue for the generations in 2040 to latch onto. The way Fitzgerald left Gatsby for us. Flannery O’Connor and her Hazel Motes. Skyblue the Badass is Dallas’ penultimate creation – his epochal fictional character and alter-ego. When people asked, “How much of Skyblue is you, Dallas,” he would say, “We’re a lot alike, and we’re different.” I’ve pondered that remark for 28 years. One of the telltale similarities, though, I most see is that both Skyblue and Dallas view the world as irreversibly lunatic and still entirely needy. These divergent conditions drove Dallas to write. In his novels, stories, and poems, he maximized their outlandish visibility in our lives. He cared about people. Dallas cared enough about writers that he had some of us gather in his living room to make plans to remedy some writers’ needs. This is also why Skyblue the protagonist lives. Skyblue’s words cannot become extinct. Dallas needed that channeling. They remain fresh and they agitate. They drop the bombshells of irreverence and world-weary astonishment that never comply with what someone else expects. And that’s to say Skyblue’s words are a wake-up call to the world. (But the world will never get it.) Skyblue is about story. Ever story. Story is what bonds humanity, Dallas once reasoned. Because you cannot bury story. You cannot bury one’s imagination. Please read my 1999 CityBeat cover story on Dallas’ influence on American writing. At www.citybeat.com. The article commemorated the 30th anniversary of the publication of his first controversial novel, Skyblue the Badass. Lots of real interesting text will be filling up this space soon enough. Now don't get me off on a tangent with your juvenile "filling up spaces" inuendo. I'm trying to put a web site together here. Anywho, stop back in a few weeks, if we haven't gotten it done by then, email Mary or Ryck and complain. [Site Map] [Latest News] [History of CWP] [Writing Group Protocol] [Rough Draft] [Our Mission] [Officers] [Who's Published] [Join CWP] [Critique Groups] [Opportunities] [Writing Tips] [Links] Yep, we're under construction. But give us a break. We're writers not web monkeys. We hope to have this whole shebang revamped by the end of summer, 2008. Stop back, or shoot us an email if you're interested in learning more. Last updated by Tgroh, September 5, 2008 |
