Tonight, I was the guest speaker for the 7th annual Lee-Jackson Banquet of the J.J. Alfred A. Mouton Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The theme was “Our Southern Heroes, ” so my speech was centered on Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as such. Before I delivered my speech, I played my guitar and sang some Southern tunes. After the speech, I sold and autographed copies of my book, Stories of the Confederate South. It was not a great night for sales, but it was not a bad one either. The banquet was held at the Steamboat Warehouse Restaurant in Washington, Louisiana. (A city rich in history!)

Overall, I was pleased and thought the evening worth my time and effort. The food was great, and I had an attentive aned receptive audience. What more could a speaker want? If you’d like a copy of my speech, I’ll be happy to send it to you as a Word attachment. Just write me at rickeyp@bayou.com and request it. Pardon this short entry, but it’s late (2:00 A.M.) and I still need to write a poem before going to sleep.

As a 7th and 8th grade gifted reading teacher and in high school as well, I introduce my students to a fine young adult novel, Walkabout, written by James Vance Marshall. It is a fine book to use to teach my students about Australian and Aborigine cultures. The book is generally well-received by the students, a sign to me that the book has dynamics that work with young readers. I teach the book as part of an Australian unit, integrating geography, history, unique vocabulary, botany, and wildlife.  The book helps students think about the issue of survival in a hostile environment.  If you are a reading or English teacher, this is a book you can center their studies around in a unit, one that will teach them more than they intended to learn. If you would like a list of the projects I assign in this unit, or of a test I’ve prepared for the book, I’ll be happy to email it to you. Write me at rickeyp@bayou.com.

I’ve just finished reading a collection of short fiction entitled, Miami Noir, edited by Les Standiford. Sixteen excellent fiction writers contributed their stories, all set in Miami.  It is part of the Akashic Books Noir Series, and reading this one stirred a desire to read the others in the series. I think I’ll move on to the Dublin Noir collection next. You can see all the titles in this series here: http://www.akashicbooks.com/noirseries.htm.

I discovered this book on John Dufresne’s blog. Dufresne is a favorite writer of mine. I found it well worth my time.  As Standiford points out, “Miami is fertile territory for writers who write well and truly of crime and violence and of the dark side of the human condition.” Quoting Hugo, he says the city is the natural place for writers on the edge. As always, when I read good fiction, I learned more than I intended to. There are so many wonderful phrases in the collection, but here are a couple that particularly caught my fancy:

In “Noir Boudoir” by Lynne Barrett, the narrator says, “Here, I got interested in life’s cast-off paper, and started to buy and sell and learn the worth of the worthless” (294).

John Bond’s narrator in “T-Bird” says, “Poker players make fast decisions, always on incomplete information . . .” (242).

If you like good fiction, I would recommend this collection.

I found a great article by Charles Murray, entitled “Aztecs vx. Greeks,” relating to gifted children and the importance of a rigorous course of instruction for them. You can find that article here: http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009541.  I love teaching my gifted students, but some of them are what could be categorized as “underachieving” gifted students. The article inspired me as a teacher, caused me to think again on the importance of what I’m trying to do as a gifted teacher, and gave me ideas for my own instruction. I read through the article with my students. I may have them write a personal essay on the topic as well. I like the article so much that I think next year I’ll start my classes with it. If you teach gifted students or if you have a gifted child, you should take a look at the article.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to write some more about the Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend. In this one, I wanted to focus on the authors I met whose books I found interesting. (Like I don’t already have a long enough reading list!)

All of these authors were witty, intense, and extremely interesting. I met Michael Morris, author of The King of Florabama (a very famous honky tonk); Elizabeth Crook, author of The Night Journal; Carolyn Turgeron, author of Rain Village, DC Stanfa, author of The Art of Table Dancing: Escapades of of an Irreverant Woman; Susan Reinhardt, author of Not Tonight Honey, Wait Until I’m a Size Six; Ruth Francisco, author of The Secret Memoirs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; and Margaret Sartor, author of Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Sex, Secrets, and Growing Up in the 1970’s. Everyone in Monroe who is a reader has read her book, since it was set in our own beloved city. I also finally met David Marion Wilkinson, author of Not Between Brothers. I had talked to Wilkinson on the phone a few years ago, and he guided me in my research somewhat by steering me toward how to obtain a couple of Comanche dictionaries. He was also very encouraging. I like successful writers like him who are generous and encouraging to aspiring writers like myself.

There were other writers I met during this packed weekend, but I spent the most time with these. I only wish I could have weekends like this more often.

I just returned from Kathy Patrick’s Girlfriend Weekend, held at the Marshall, a historic and restored hotel in Marshall, Texas. Kathy, who has been a friend for a few years now, was kind enough to invite me and allow me to promote my newest book, Stories of the Confederate South. Truly, this was one of the best weekends of my life. I’m going to have a few entries on this event, but in short summary: I met many of the coolest authors I’ve ever met; made a list of books to read, a list probably longer than I can get to in the next year; made new friends, ran into old friends, set up future speaking and reading engagements, and learned much about writing.

Saturday, the first full day of the conference, I sold and signed books from my assigned table and heard many fine writer speeches from where I was sitting. While in my corner, I met many of the Pulp Wood Queens, some of whom remembered me from my first visit to Kathy Patrick’s Girlfriend Weekend a few years ago. That night, I went to the Pulpwood Queen’s “Hair Ball.” It was a costume affair held at Marshall Visual Arts Center, and of course I went as a Confederate soldier. I was very fortunate: A most beautiful girl was there in a Southern Belle dress, and of course, as I was the only Confederate soldier present, we danced together. Lucky me! I’ll post the link so you can see the photos taken of the ball. Those who came to the ball really got into the theme: “The Pulpwood Queens Go Hollywood.” Some really funny and some really eye-popping sexy costumes (including the Scarlet I danced with) were seen.

This was a great event–promoting authors, promoting literacy, promoting books, and greatly inspiring to me as a writer. The Dallas Morning News, Southern Living, the Marshall News Messenger, and many other media were there. If only I could attend something like this every week. Life would be good.

As a writer I’ve learned –sometimes the hard way–that spelling is important. The gifted students I teach often don’t think spelling is important in the picture of creation, and maybe they’re right on that. Yet, I do try to stress the importance of spelling correctly, especially in the editing process.

As a writer, misspelled words come back to haunt you. I met one writer, whose first book had a major misspelling in the first sentence on the first page. It was an embarassment to be sure. I appreciate my friends who read my work–some of them are real spelling Nazis. If it’s misspelled, they will catch it.  Most of my spelling errors are committed because of haste, others occur because I have learned a word incorrectly initially.

 As an editor of beginning novelists and book writers, a huge portion of my editing time is spent in catching their spelling errors. That means I must refer to the dictionary often, for though I have a more than adequate vocabulary, I have not memorized the spellings of the million plus words in the English language. As a writer, I have also learned to not rely much at all on spell check.

I just read an article on the American Partisan site about the importance of spelling. You can find that article here: http://www.americanpartisan.com/desk/style_guide/spelling/1.htm  The writer points out that bad spelling reflects badly on writer and publisher alike.  There are many sites devoted to spelling. One is http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html which lists the top hundred misspelled words.

I’m testing my students on spelling this week. I gave them the test first, we graded it, then they study the words they missed (or guessed at). A couple of days later, we have the same test for real. Those students who attack the task of learning spelling through repetition (I encourage writing a word 10 more times) and through memorization seem to do better than those who rely on phonics. Mnemonics are also helpful to the diligent student determined to improve his or her spelling.

If you want to think more of this matter, go to http://www.zaner-bloser.com/html/SPsupport1.html which is entitled “Five Questions Teachers Ask About Spelling.”

I’ve been thinking of writing horror a good bit. More than once, when I’ve talked to students about writing horror, the topic of their fear of clowns arises. The technical word for this phobia is coulrophobia. The word, as well as many articles on the topic of “why” we are frightened of clowns is all over the net. I found one really good article on the topic of coulrophobia at this link:  http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-col2.htm 

Go there and learn why we fear the funny face.  Writers in the genre of horror must understand why we fear the clown.

It’s turned cold and has been raining steadily since early morning. My parents, who live in Kemp, Oklahoma, are iced in. The rain is not scheduled to cease until tomorrow morning. We teachers were given Martin Luther King Day off, and I’m grateful, but I’d enjoy it better if the weather weren’t so wretched. It also doesn’t help to know that I’m returning to a school building that hasn’t had heat in a week, and tomorrow it’s supposed to be REALLY cold. If we’re lucky, the ice storm will skirt north of us. Depressing weather.

On the other hand, cold rain always sets a certain other kind of mood. Right now it makes me want to write horror stories. I’ve mentioned in this blog before that one of my favorite books on writing is Writing Horror: A Handbook by the Horror Writers Association. In one chapter, Nancy Holder says, “The horror writer’s basic weapon is primal fear, which we either discover or develop in childhood–of the dark, of the bogeyman, of being alone, being hurt, being killed. People spend lifetimes hiding these fears, and hiding from these fears . . . .”

It requires personal courage and honesty to be an effective writer of horror. Holder quotes Clive Barker: “Horror writers are the ones who venture into the caves and dark places and return to tell the rest of the tribe what they saw.”

I guess it’s time for me to quit complaining about the rain and get to writing this horror story. Let me see if I can creep myself and my best friend (E. B., my reader) out.

Last year, I’ve enjoyed the HBO series, Rome. I am looking forward to seeing the new year’s series begin tonight. It is such a powerful presentation, I’m surprised that my sophomore students have not even mentioned the series, and when I mention it, they don’t know what I’m talking about. Personally, I don’t watch much TV, in fact I hate it, but I love movies, and I love series like Rome. I know my students watch too much TV, but evidently their choice of programs doesn’t include what I watch. In our curriculum, we TRY to teach Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to our sophomores, but usually it is an exercise in futility. Even many of my religious students know very little about Rome, the empire in power during the days of Christ. Their lack of knowledge–and worse, their lack of interest–indicates they really can’t understand the Bible they claim they want to follow. If you are unaware of the setting of any story, you cannot understand it. However, if my students only knew of this program and thoughtfully watched it, it would make Shakespeare’s play come alive for them. If you want to know more about the HBO series and the cast, Rome, go to this site: http://www.hbo.com/rome/cast/

I have found this series intellectually stimulating, the cast well chosen, the women beautiful, and the general plot accurate and true to history. I’ve been fascinated by the Roman Empire as long as I can remember. I constructed Roman swords and shields as a young boy and acted out in my play the ancient battles I read about. I have always watched every movie and series I could about Rome, including I, Claudius; Ben Hur; The Robe; Gladiator; Spartacus; Cleopatra; the very naughty, Caligula, and Titus Adronicus (film version of Shakespeare’s play). I’m sure there may be others, but these come to mind, and I hope the list shows you I have not missed many of the films related to ancient Rome. As an adult, my fascination with Rome has seeped into my writng. I’ve constructed some fictional pieces set in Roman, and especially Celtic-Roman times. I’ve also collected several good books relating to the Roman Empire.

Watching the Rome series reminds me of how much work I have to do and how much there is yet left to learn.