VIEWS JUNE 2009 by Excellence Enterprises

VIEWS

NATIONAL WRITERS ASSOCIATION LOS ANGELES

New Voices, New Work At our last breakfast meeting of the season on June 20, 2009, we celebrate new writing of three recent NWALA joiners, Barri Clark, Charlotte Hoyt and Ray Rappa. BARRI CLARK Writer and painter, Barri Clark, was born in Tampa, Florida, grew up in New York City and has lived a good part of her adult life in California. Her family oozed creativity: her father painted murals and watercolors and designed furniture; her mom was a commercial artist; her grandmother quoted poetry and her sister still teaches art and designs “fabulous” garments. Barri attended Pasadena City College and California State LA. She was married twice, both times to writers (don’t try this at home!) and raised her daughter as a single mom, working for 27 years in the office of the Screen Actors’ Guild. Barri has recently emerged as a prolific, exploratory painter and has also been pursuing a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing for several years, again at Cal State. While she finds writing is still somewhat of a left-brained struggle, she has a knack for detail and images that makes both her writing and paintings sizzle. Barri plans to read several current works to us, and also will be sharing a few of her latest paintings, created in what she refers to as a “relaxed, patient state.” CHARLOTTE HOYT New NWALA member, Charlotte Hoyt, is a fourth generation Californian; she was born in Los Gatos and raised in Ventura and Long Beach. Her mom taught English for 40 years and her Dad was a foreman for Shell Oil. Charlotte graduated from

UCLA in 1947 and took off for New York City, where she worked as a photo model, appearing on the cover of Ladies Home Journal and in ads for Ivory Soap and Mission Oranges, for example. She traveled with Art Linkletter’s home show, hiring people and also worked in TV with Jack Benny and Ed Wynn, appearing in all of their first coast-to-coast color broadcasts. You may have even seen Charlotte promoting Lucky Strike cigarettes, “the smoke drooling out of my ruby red lips,” as she puts it so well. In addition, Charlotte was also in a few films at MGM with Lana Turner, but her “best part with lines” was playing a gorilla in the TV show, Your Old Buddy, about a secretary and her boss. This was at KTLA where she met her first husband, which subsequently led to raising a great family of three daughters. Charlotte also wrote a weekly column about the entertainment industry called “Center Stage,” for a local Studio City newspaper and was editor-in-chief of a textbook about mammals for youth programs at the Los Angeles Zoo. In addition to gardening and traveling, she loves to make jewelry. Charlotte also paints in oils and watercolor and draws with pastels and pencil. In the last year, Charlotte has been bitten again by some type of wonderful writing bug and has written and self-published two stories, ) Shoshone Gold and a sequel, Irish Gold, based on her home away from home, Bitterroot Valley, Montana. See her pencil drawing on page five, of the west fork of the Bitterroot River as seen from her log cabin. It is our good fortune that she will be sharing examples of her unique writing and artistry with us on June 20.

By Tom Howard

RAY RAPPA Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Ray Rappa has been singing since early childhood. He admired his father’s beautiful operatic tenor voice but was mainly attracted to the sounds of the big bands and their vocalists. He joined the US Air Force in 1953 and became the vocalist for the 753rd Air Force band, which played in the Glen Miller tradition. He was the malevocalist winner of the worldwide TopsIn -Blue talent contest put on each year by the Air Force with finals being held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Upon discharge, Ray set out for New York City and began his professional singing career, soon appearing in the lounge of the then world famous Copacabana Night club. He has shared the bill with many top entertainers playing the resort circuit of New York and clubs in Canada and Reno, Nevada. A famous deejay once referred to Ray as “a cross between Frank Sinatra and Dick Haymes.” Another aspect of his career was being a much-in-demand singer of demonstration records for the top writers and recording artists including Continued on page six

MEET THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK ON JUNE 20, 2009 AT MO’S RESTAURANT 4301 RIVERSIDE DR. BURBANK 10:00 A.M. www.nwalablog.org www.nwala.org

Redux

Katie Moran - Woman of Luck and Pluck By Tom Howard Since the gritting of teeth often goes undetected, the true response to our May speaker, Katie Moran, may remain a mystery. All in attendance seemed to agree however that she was accomplished as a television producer and she held her own as a dynamic speaker. She told us, “Any short story I wrote, I saved for a chapter in my book. If you take a small idea and do enough research and interviews, you can turn it into a much larger topic.” She mentioned also that Peter Melman, who wrote scripts for Seinfeld, always carried a notebook. Later his jotted notes ended up on TV. I must admit a tinge of jealousy Photo: Courtesy Katie Moran clouded my writer’s heart as the I guess it is true that blonds have attractive Ms. Moran shared that she sold a story to Playboy magazine for more fun, and in Ms. Moran’s case, three thousand dollars. This jealousy more boyfriends and more gossip about seemed to spread westward to beautifully- failed affairs and one-night stands. True, attired Japanese magician/ performer/ she worked hard on her book proposal, writer Sami Saito, who in her signature isolated herself in mountain cabins and bluntness referred to Ms. Moran as a canyon mansions to finish writing her pop-culture book, The On Position. True, “blond Caucasian with no problems.” Next came another eye-raising she repeatedly combed her manuscript revelation from our speaker. Katie, as a for typos and assertively told one mere twenty-something personal assistant reluctant publisher, “There’s no one like at a local talent agency, with the classic me!” When she was finally published, creepy cocaine-snorting boss (who told she wandered the aisles, alongside Bill her that all she could write were shopping Clinton, at a huge Book Expo of America lists) was approached by a publisher (in Chicago, complete with a fantastic (cousin of a friend) of a new outfit called free hotel room) to push her nonfiction Venture Literary, who encouraged her to book on the subject of sex. write an entire book. Were his pupils too To promote her book, she made wide from “reading” Playboy? Was he too postcards and did some local book signings, but admitted she did not feel in a drug-induced stupor? She emphasized the importance of she was good at that part of it. Katie said writing a strong book proposal. Her she realizes now that she should have agent sent her other proposals to read as sent her book out more for reviews and examples and helped her to rewrite hers public relations. several times. She said, “The proposal is a Katie described working her way up in giant commercial for your book. You want the world of reality TV. She now is a wellit to be flashy enough to be interesting, but paid senior producer for The Girls Next you also want it to read like the book and Door. The show is about Hugh Hefner’s have the publisher get really engrossed spoiled girlfriends who nevertheless have in it and get attached to it and give him lots of rules and curfews to follow. Katie outlines a story, tells people in the field reasons why it’s going to be a success.”

May speaker, Katie Moran (right), displaying Speaker of the Month award, with NWALA prez, Tom Howard. Photo by A. Ruiz

what to shoot, reviews the footage with assistants, then creates and writes a story. “Forty hours of footage,” she said, “is boiled down to seven scenes, three acts and twentytwo minutes. We look for funny moments to make the show colorful and joyful.” She said, “In writing and producing, you’re meeting people. You have to put your best foot forward. Your boss is going to want his best representative with him, not the girl in the ripped-up jeans, no matter how smart she is.” She said she respects everyone at work and says “Thank You” often. She respects her talented boss and says she has learned a lot from him and also from her many assistants that work with her. She admitted that at some point she would like to take her talents and make documentary films. “I don’t know if three bleached blonds with fake boobs are really going to change the world,” she joked. One dream of hers is to make a documentary on adoption to educate people on that serious subject. While Ms. Moran was lovely, even in her tales of her strident feminism, the truth of the matter is that once we got home with our copies of her book, many of us discovered that it was not that well-written. But it was inspiring to meet a hardworking young woman making her mark in the world.

President’s Corner

Joys and Sorrows As a former group therapist and frustrated stage performer who also worked many jobs, earlier in life, waiting on tables, the past two years serving as president of NWALA have been fun and flattering. Once a month I can play the role of “big man on campus.” I even have, thanks to LaVonne’s handiwork, a chance to be published each month and a modest web presence. Plus I get to collect money and clear away dirty dishes. What a deal! It was fun to call Barri, Charlotte, and Ray and learn more about their lives and write the cover story. I think we will all benefit by having them mount our modest “stage” on June 20. Member Marion Rosen, has just published, with Infinity Publishing of Philadelphia: A Kid From Pittsburgh, based on her husband’s teen years and World War II experiences, including translating from Yiddish at Dauchau. It was a sad shock to learn that our beloved member, Mary Blei Vandever, passed away on Friday, May 29, 2009. She had survived heart surgery but evidently was knocked down by a recently diagnosed stomach cancer. Mary chose all the music herself and also wrote a clever eulogy for her own funeral service on June 3 at the American Martyr Church

in Manhattan Beach, addressing it to “friends, relatives, in-laws and out-laws who might be present.” I’m not sure which category we were in, but Mary Ports, Arturo Ruiz, Don Peyer and I were present to pay our respects. I always enjoyed Mary and her wry sense of humor. Her background as a truck driver was certainly unique and I thoroughly enjoyed reading her mystery called Inventions of an Enigmatic Kind. She wrote a very poignant poem, about the loss of her child, that was in an anthology called The Manuscripter, which she helped to edit. A few months ago, I had the pleasure of reading chapter one of her sequel, which she had mailed to me. Rumor has it that Arturo Ruiz (standing), Mary L. Ports and Don Mary just finished the first draft of this Peyer (seated, left to right) in front of American new novelette before her death. I would Martyr Church. Photo by Tom Howard & his cell phone love to read that one too, if I can find out where it is, although another rumor agreed to move. Now all of us will be going around was that no-one knew the adjusting to the sad fact that Mary will password to her computer. Any good never again be sitting with us, in the guesses? She was referred to by fellow corner or elsewhere. truckers as Dragon Lady. What about enigmatic? Perhaps that is the ultimate We close up shop for July and August, in privacy, to pass away without telling and will not meet until September 19. anyone your computer password. I hope everyone can make it to our last I remember just a few months ago meeting of the season on June 20. During asking Mary to sit in a different location our hiatus, have a good summer! other than her favorite far corner at Mo’s. — Tom Howard She said she was not big on change, but

Why Potentially Good Beginnings Go Bad Perhaps the primary reason we begin our stories in the wrong place is that a great many of us haven’t learned yet to trust the reader’s intelligence. This is the real key to understanding just about all of the problems that lead to the wrong beginnings, not to mention many of the other problems with creating sound, quality stories. Stories that, among other things, involve the reader in a true reading experience — a participatory exercise that’s much more enjoyable than a story in which everything is laid out for the reader and the reader isn’t required to bring anything to the table (i.e., one brain, armed with a decent IQ). Once you understand the concept of trusting the reader’s intelligence, then poor beginnings, as well as many other problems that prevent stories from getting published, will begin to disappear. Of course, it is important to note here that the opening scene is the only one developed within a vacuum. By that, I mean hat later scenes benefit from the knowledge conveyed in previous

scenes, knowledge that helps orient the reader in the scene and helps the reader understand whats going on with the characters. Not so the first scene. Unless the novel is part of an already-established series, the reader knows nothing about the situation or the characters. Thus, the writer’s temptation to furnish a lot of back story and setup to bring the reader up to date is valid, but nonetheless incorrect. Readers don’t need to know everything about your characters in order to understand what’s going on when the stuff hits the fan (during the inciting incident), and they don’t need to understand what led to the situation in order to fully realize the significance of what’s happened when the trouble begins. Intelligent readers understand a lot from a tiny bit of information. Give them credit for having functional brains. — Excerpted from Hooked: Write Fiction that Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Them Go, by Les Edgerton, Writer’s Digest Books, ©2007

VIEWS SHOWCASE

The Closest I Came to ... Booth Bay Harbor, Maine is a series of dappled hills wrapped around a bay of boats. How I ended up there in the summer of 1970 as a bright-eyed 21 year old in a beat-up red Volkswagon is a matter of numerous small, strange stories that spill one into the other. To summarize, a year off from college in Boston, living on an island off Portland for a spell, meeting a girl named Sara Doherty in an art gallery, starting a young romance and buying a tent and moving from Peaks Island to near where Sara lived with her friendly, story-telling widowed father and younger brother, Scott and getting a crazy job working in a fish factory. Scott and I would be dropped off at 5:00 p.m. outside the plant and go in to don large black rubber boots, huge yellow slickers and plastic gloves. All the workers went in and took their stations. The crusty old fishing boats pulled up and dumped the teeming fish down a wooden plank that deposited them into a large wooden bin at the corner of the plant. Strong, white faced women, most of them sturdy, experienced mothers and hardy grandmothers, stood at square wooden tables swinging enormous hacket-type blades and knives

By Tom Howard

through the air. Hack, the head of the fish. Hack, the tail of the fish. Slit, the guts thrown haphazardly into a pile. Slice, slit, hack, hack, bam, boom, bam, Next! In an endless all-night percussive rhythm of slicing and gutting, grabbing and tossing fish, this went on and on. Up a set of wooden stairs, above the water and boots and guts and hoses and conveyer belts was the office, where Sara’s father (who had gotten me this job) worked as an accountant crunching numbers. My job was to grab slippery white fish fillets off a swiftly moving conveyer belt and slap a dozen or so into a Styrofoam box. One night after work, we went for a midnight swim in a nearby pond where Scotty and I soaped and swam, to wash off the smell and stress of the night’s work. Sara sat on the shore. Scotty went under a raft and got stuck. I heard the weirdest gurgling sound from down below. I dove under and pulled him out from under the raft. This was the closest I came in my life to being a hero. (Written in Andrea Beard’s Tuesday writing class on the subject “The Closest I Came to X.”)

Word Challenges as Inspiration You can never tell which way a poem will go when you are given a Word Challenge with twenty words. If you have never tried this technique of writing poetry, when you first study the words, you may wonder how you will ever work all of the words into a poem that flows, rhymes and/or makes any sense. There may be only one or two words that just won’t fit — but that is the Challenge. The more of these you try, the more fun it becomes. In the following poem, the last and hardest word I struggled with was Sassafras, but, oddly enough, that was the word that gave the final touch. — Mary L. Ports

Ukelele Lady

When zephyr winds wail and moonlight wanes, casting eerie shadows on hills and plains, Ukelele Lady, near her humdrum shack, sings to the ravens and they echo back. Gala celebration with flowers in her hair, expels the lonely frigid night around the campfire’s glare. Songs of the wildwood flash and flounce through trees; kindled songs of long ago, scattered by the breeze. When frowsy lady’s voice rings out, pitched high, then low, from out her throat, it gladdens all the frogs about; those favorite songs she likes to quote. From far and near, all creatures sing, infectious are her songs of glee. A happy show time, she does bring. Final curtain: Sassafras Tea.

Poetry for Thought Creative Writing Award Word Challenge Win, May 2006

In Memoriam

Mary Blei Vandever (1939 - 2009) NWALA lost a loyal member with the passing of Mary Blei Vandever. She was a talented poet, short story writer, novelist and humorist. Mary had two vocations: truck driving and writing. My favorite of her poems pictures her love of the road and her talent. TRAFFIC CONE Guilt and shame weigh heavily on my shoulders. Though not intended nor contemplated one random act of violence.

West fork of the Bitterroot River, Montana, executed in pencil by member Charlotte Hoyt, October, 2008

P urt N ear

B y M a ry B l e i V a n d e v e r

The first time we met him at the Willow Springs Truck Stop, he became our special friend. An ancient bewhiskered gent, he enthusiastically told how he’d driven a chain-driven Mack back when the only highways were dusty or muddy trails. He was lovingly known as Purt Near because, as he so aptly put it, “Yessir, I’ve purt near done it all.” Several years ago, on the way to visit my parents, our car broke down. We were stranded with three restless children in the hot parking lot of the truck stop while repairs were made. Purt Near’s tales of wonder and adventure kept the little ones intrigued while we waited. Since then every trip to visit my parents includes a stop at Willow Springs to say hello to Purt Near and hear more stories. The folks at the truck stop told us Purt Near stopped in one day and asked, “Could I help out a bit for some food to eat?” “We’re so glad he did and glad he stayed. He’s been helping out for ‘purt near’ ten years now.” Today as we turned off the highway into the truck stop, a lump formed in our throats. We felt a dreadful loss when we read the message hung across the front of the building for all those passing by to see. On a banner bordered in black was a fitting epitaph: “yessir, purt near did it all.”

I never meant to hurt you. But there you are. Completely scrunched. So flat and orange. Mary edited two anthologies for the Southwest Manuscripters and won the naming contest for their newsletter The Write Stuff! I depended on her understanding of human foibles when she edited my work. I think we gossiped more about our fictional characters than we did about real people! For many years she was my dear friend and first reader. She was unique and I’ll miss her. — Louise Watkins Mary Blei Vandever grew up on a ranch in the Colorado Rockies near the town of Westcliffe. She got to spend Saturdays in the library where her mother worked as continued on page six

NEW KIDS from page one Frank Sinatra and Barbara Streisand. His own recording of the tune, A Taste Of Honey, was often played on WNEW, NY. Ray later had a film production company and his own independent talent agency in Hollywood for twelve years. Some of his more famous clients were Gary Busey, Bruno Kirby, Annette O’Toole and Trinidad Silva. All this and more is going at a feverish pace into his fascinating autobiography and Ray is gearing up to read a few choice pages to NWALA members.

Be Like the Bamboo

Become better human beings by being like bamboo, dealing with events directly and adapting with the endurance to change as need be. While the strongest tree can be uprooted and knocked over in a storm, bamboo prevails in adverse conditions, by bending and yielding to the prevailing winds. Excerpted from Wowisms: Words of Wisdom for Dreamers and Doers by Ron Rubin & S.A. Gold, Newmarket Press, © 2003

VIEWS, a newsletter for the members of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Writers Association is published monthly, except for July and August of each year. The meetings take place at 10 a.m. on the third Saturday of every month, except July and August, at Mo’s Restaurant, 4301 Riverside Dr., Burbank. OFFICERS President-Tom Howard Vice President-Joe Panicello Secretary-Arturo Ruiz Treasurer-LaVonne Taylor

MARY BLEI VANDEVER continued from page five

a volunteer. Surrounded by books, Mary concluded that authors experienced all the fun and adventure they wrote about. She decided to do the same. Her girlhood ambition was to hop freights and ride the rails or hunt dinosaurs. Due to a lack of a railroad nearby (and dinosaurs), she never did that. Her father taught her to drive when she was twelve and she discovered that wheels lead where rails don’t go. Married to a truck driver and fascinated by the highway tales and legends, Mary responded to the enchantment of the open road. She soon acquired her own trucker’s license and spent several years driving cross-country, known up and down the “super slab” by the CB-radio handle of Dragon Lady. On a highway somewhere between Boston and LA, she decided it was time to write and share all her adventure and excitement with the world, whether it was prepared or not. Her articles appeared in Truckers/USA, The Daily Breeze, and a skit was produced and presented by the Palos Verdes Theater Workshop. Mary was a ten-year (or more) member of the Southwest Manuscripters and the editor of their 1996 anthology. — Excerpted from That’s Truckdrivin’ and Other stuff n.o.s., 1st Books Library, © 2003 and Manuscripters Anthology

Throughout the last few years, Mary wrote many charming stories and poetry for Views, among them “Diesel Dog,” April

CHAIRMANSHIPS Historian/Photographer-Madelyn Beck Hospitality-Mary L. Ports VIEWS editor-LaVonne Taylor Fundraising-LaVonne Taylor Membership-Jack Clubb

For information, call: 323-876-3931 or go to www.nwala.org or www.nwalablog.org __________________

Spunky St. Jude, NWALA Mascot

What’s in a word? And, in this case, an image? The latest thing in eye Pods. Photo and digital imagery by Worth.

2007; “A Critical Review,” December 2007; “The Barn” (a poem), February 2008; “The Gift,” January 2009. I feel priviledged to have known her, if only for a short while. — LaVonne Taylor, editor