Welcome back to Scott Anderson. Scott has been very busy traveling and having published a book on Butterflies of Sarasota County; his photographs of local butterflies have graced the cover of a national publication, Butterfly Gardener. While visiting Rome, Scott took the time to email pictures of Constantine’s Arch in Rome to our friend and cohost, Ernie Ovitz.
It must be time to travel for our group as Dennis Cathcart traveled to Cuba to catalog flora in the mountains of western Cuba. While there, he took time to visit Hemmingway’s Cuban home.
We are happy to welcome Cynthia Williamson. Cynthia is visiting with the group for the first time. She is an accomplished writer in the genre of Children’s Educational Material but is venturing into fiction writing. We hope she enjoys our group and comes back often.
Sue Haley gave a glowing recommendation of a book by a Native American author, Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Pressed for time at the last meeting, two of our members did not get time to read their work. They have the first two slots for this meeting.
A short story by Richard Cope entitled The Scheffield Report takes us into the wilds of Canada on a fishing trip. Two brothers set out on an adventure as a bush pilot drops them off at a remote lake, vowing to return to pick them up in a week. The fishing is excellent until a bear attacks brother Phil. Badly mauled with severe internal injuries, Phil fights for his life but succumbs to his wounds. At the appointed time, the plane does return but crashes as the pilot attempts to land on the lake. As brother Reed watches, the plane bursts into flames and sinks into the deepest reaches of the lake. How does Reed survive? Maybe at his next reading, we’ll learn more.
An epitaph, an ode to the after-life, came to us by Susan Haley as she read Soaring to Other Worlds. Above this mortal plain, soar free souls no longer bound to earth, taking on many forms.
As Don Westerfield made his way to the podium, he passed out copies of the two poems he was about to read. In his Fields of Stone, Don uses words to conjure images in the reader’s mind of a Veteran’s Cemetary resplendent with flags and simple white stones marking the final resting place of heroes. As I heard Don read Old Chum, I took a deep breath as it seemed my heart felt as if it wanted to swell. A lifelong friend lays in eternal sleep beneath a stone marker now dampened by the poet’s tears.
A murder in a parking lot leads Tish McAuley’s Angel down yet another path leading to confrontations with the police. Angel lives in a shadowy world of drugs, alcohol, and lies, using fake names to procure powerful pain medications. The cops wanted to know, “Where was Stan on the night of the murder?” Angle lies, “he was with me.” Do the cops believe her?
Do you know what a “CRYPTID” is? Cynthia Williamson does, and she explains. “A cryptid is an unexplained, unproven event or being, usually associated with a local area. Cynthia read her rendition of a sighting of White Thang, an eight-foot-tall ape-like creature from rural Alabama, as related by a local woman who shot from her bedroom window at the screaming creature. She must have missed it because only the carcass of her neighbor’s livestock remained in her yard.
At our last meeting, the group discussed pausing as we write so as not to keep too much tension on our readers. Bruce Haedrich took the discussion to heart and penned a short story entitled Too Many Lemmings. Giving personality to the lemming colonies, Bruce shows the parody of today’s overpopulation issue by humans on earth with the lemming method of thinning the population. Having used all available lands for colony expansion, the leaders of the worldwide lemming colonies ordered all older lemmings to trek southward to almost inevitable demise. The Supreme Leader received a standing ovation from the world leaders in the Great Hall as they were all older than the advanced age but exempt from the new orders.
People find out Rick Bailey is a writer and ask, “Who do you write like?” The answer. “I write like me. I am in control as I write.” Then, Rick asked the group, “How do you describe the number 14?” Think about that for a while.
Scott Anderson hadn’t prepared anything to read, but upon hearing me comment about butterflies by saying, “I read a description of a butterfly as a worm with wings.” Scott wrote a Haiku (a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world) refuting the statement. A Butterfly is NOT a worm with wings. I stand educated.
To close the readings, Ernie Ovitz read a piece paraphrasing Mark Twain, saying, “There are LIES, DAMN LIES, and STATISTICS. Be careful when citing statistics; maybe they fall into one of the former categories.
Well, that about does it for this week. Sorry to be so late in publishing this installment. I was actually writing. Until next time, KEEP ON WRITING!
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