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5 May
2004
Charlotte and I were in Springfield, Missouri last week at the
Missouri Writers
Guild annual conference at the University Plaza Hotel. It was
wonderful to see our dear friend, Bobbi Smith, there. She was the
featured speaker. I asked her how she liked writing for Leisure Books,
and she said they were wonderful. The publishing company has changed
hands, so it’s not the old story of low pay and slow pay there. She
loves their cover art and their distribution system. Leisure and Zebra
are the last remaining publishing companies who are not publicly owned.
Bobbi made some cogent remarks on writing and the publishing industry,
using her Top 10 lists, dispelling a number of notions beginning writers
have about writing and publishing. To the point, and very true.
In two weeks, on May 15th, I’ll be a speaker at the
Ozarks Writers League quarterly meeting in Branson, Missouri, at the
College of the Ozarks, along with Dusty
Richards, Velda Brotherton, Suzann Ledbetter and Kim Lionetti. Kim was
formerly an editor at Berkley, and is now a literary agent at Bookends
Literary Agency. She and three other women agents are all former Berkley
editors. There will be panels and individual talks. I will speak on
MYTHIC STRUCTURE IN FICTION, which deals with plot and character using
Joseph Campbell’s THE HERO’S JOURNEY and Christopher Vogler’s, THE
WRITER’S JOURNEY, as models.
I am a few pages from finishing THE JOURNEY OF DEATH, Book #2, in my
OWLHOOT TRAIL series for Pocket Books. Then, I will write another Ralph
Compton Trail Drive novel, THE ELLSWORTH TRAIL, for NAL/Signet. My PALO
DURO TRAIL in the same series is currently in production. Following that
book, I’ll write the first in my new series at Berkley, THE VIGILANTE,
entitled THE LAW OF THE GUN.
As mentioned here before, Charlotte and I are flying to Las Vegas in
June, to attend the annual
Western Writers of America convention in
nearby Mesquite. My son Frank lives in Vegas and will meet us at the
airport and drive us to the Casa Blanca in Mesquite. My sister, Kay
Bell, is also flying in from San Francisco, along with another son, Vic,
to spend those few days with us.
I spoke with all of the principals at Skyward while I was in
Springfield. The publishing company was formerly based in Dallas, but
Jim Harris, who owns it, moved to Branson and bought
The Ozarks
Mountaineer, a regional magazine I’ve been contributing to for over 20
years. I have a short story in an Ozarks mystery anthology, edited by my
friend, Ellen Gray Massey. Leonard Kunkel said that the book was going
to press this week or next and would be out soon. A second anthology is
planned, and Ellen has another story of mine for that one. Jim Harris,
who is a television/motion picture director and producer told me that he
is creating a television network and building sound stages in a canyon
just outside of Branson. He has a movie coming out called DELOVELY,
which is about songwriter Cole Porter and will be the last film shown at
this year’s Cannes film festival. So, Branson is kicking up its heels
again and still on the map. When you have that much creativity in one
place, someone like Jim Harris and his saff can move mountains. Another
man came to Branson and tried it, but his film projects fizzled out. He
had the talent there, but each person he hired pursued their own
self-interests instead of trying to create something of value. Jim
Harris seems to have the right combination and his companies are not
in-bred like so many others who come to Branson and fail to tap the
talent pool that exists there.
Janet Franklin and Paul “Gus” Gustafson, co-owners of
The Coffee Cup,
held their first songwriters competition on April 30th and used local
judges, two of which, Skip Hughes and Gary Covington, come to out T.A.L.K. sessions, sat in judgment. The evening was a rousing success.
The songwriters meet the first Tuesday of each month at 6::00 p.m. at The Coffee Cup. Some of these same songwriters have sat at our Tuesday
table, as well.
It’s all about being creative. And the local talent in East Texas has a
great pool of creative people. We know. We’re among ‘em.
Until next time, keep writing and keep reading.
Jory |