FROM THE EDITOR

Mallory McNeill, Virgil Dickson

Harvey Forester, Keever Czlapinski

And our own Wizards:

David Rosenberg, Marilyn Meredith

Susan Haley, Caryn Bruer

Claudette Milner, Rebecca Buckley

We've a Young Writers' Seminar headed up by Claudette Milner and her associates. 

We've a storytelling segment for children presented by:

              by Susan Haley    

       Where does it come from? What innermost rumblings feed the mind and guide the words to fruition? What inspires, or drives us to become one who pours our soul onto paper? To say, "I am a writer?"

       The written word has been my choice of communication as far back as the halls of memory will grapple. As a child, I proudly hung little poems on the refrigerator door for my mother. Only my own valentines with personal verse would do, and the daily journal in my diary was a secret treasure where truths were told and imagination carried me to magical places. Speaking, I tend to get emotional and babble. Writing, I don't worry about being shy, tongue-tied, or worthy; my very soul sings the music; I just write it down.  

         Widowed at fifty-five, with two grown on-their-own sons, I started writing with a vengeance. Every thought, every fear, every resentment, started spilling out on papers and scratch pads. Many lonely nights were spent on the deck in the moonlight. The night sky was my blank page, the stars my inspiration, my heart songs the words, and then I'd sing them on the keyboard until dawn. Still, I do my best writing in the pre-dawn hours.

       I didn't really have a genre; never even thought about genre. I simply poured out my passions, my Spirit, my slow and agonizing healing, my love of Nature, and the animals we share it with. A website of my ramblings constructed as a dedication to my late husband became a published work much to my own surprise as I didn't seek out publication. A small press sought me out upon happening across the site.  But, with a published nonfiction work and promising reviews under my belt, I was fortunate enough to meet an award-winning writer, Robert Delany. A friendship and writing bond formed out of what was, initially, a mentoring. "Rainy Day People, A Novel" is the heartwarming result. Rainy Day is autobiographical truth masked in fiction for the purpose of story telling.

       There's work on a second novel now, also truth wrapped in fiction, as well as networking and publishing articles. Poems are scribbled down almost daily for my own therapy. A staunch proponent of networking for writers, I see myself more in a helpful role than as a multi-book author. I don't really 'create' my writing as do most novelists or prose writers. It's either in there or it isn't . . . those soul musings. And that would be my advice to any fledgling, or practiced, writer. Write what's 'in there'. Write from your inner being; what ever song it sings to you. You'll only please your readers by pleasing yourself first. It's kind of like love.

   Writing Should Be Fun

              by Melie M. Bacon