Dawning of a New Century

366 Days is a week old

2008-07-31T13:06:00.002-05:00

So I'm doing a daily fiction experiment at www.pcitylive.com, a local social network, in which I'm writing new short fiction of some kind every day. A story, a couple of paragraphs, a poem, an a-b-c piece, something. The project started on my birthday and will end on my birthday next year, so altogether, "366 Days."

You're invited to play along - post comments, critiques, or your own stories in the comments section. Write an alternate ending. Just say Hi. Something to let me know there's somebody out there.

You can find the blogs at my profile, or you can go to the site and click on slide of me and go to a rough feed of the stories. (I prefer the formating at the profile and individual blog pages.)

The site is so happy that I'm "fiction blogging" that they've put me on the front page today, as one of their rotating features. I got to go to their loft office downtown Tuesday after work, where Dustin Bryson took several pictures of me trying to look like a literary rockstar. He has ideas for more pics that we may do later in the year.

So far, the project has been pretty much effortless, as I've drawn upon ideas that have percolated in my head for a long time. Those will begin running short any day now, and we'll see how this evolves. Maybe I'll begin writing a novel a page at a time. Who knows? Let's find out together.

Peace.

Still going

2008-02-14T13:35:00.005-06:00

Amazing story? Maybe not. But the weird truth about Books Alive 2008 is that the only books I sold were copies of "Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century" and "Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents." The former was purchased by Janis Owens, and the latter by a lady on a cell phone whose connection wanted the column collection.

Here's what Janis said in a recent email: "... When we got home and I was unpacking my books, I told Wendel (her husband) that I had a picture that pretty much encapsulated my writing sensibility and my myth in one photo. He stopped unpacking long enough to put on his reading glasses and I handed him the Piggy Wiggly picture on the back of your book. He agreed: there it was, my vision and my past, in one historic pose."

Glad to be of service to the myth. She added: "... I'm loving (the) book and will send whatever criticisms come to mind. None so far, but I'm just started. Xxjanis"

xx to you too.

Photo above: Janis Owens and Michael Morris before their morning Books Alive session, which I moderated. Below: My lovely daughter staffing the booth for Dad.

"City Limits" now available

2007-09-17T13:59:00.000-05:00

After a loooong gestation period, "City Limits" is now available for purchase. The anthology includes work by Emily Cramer Boyle, Anthony S. Buoni, S. Brady Calhoun, N.W. Garrett, Lawrence Gordon, Kendall Middlemas Henley, John F. Jackson, Betty Kearney, Carole Petit Lapensohn, Bette Adams Powell, Jack Saunders, Rebecca Valle, Mary Anne Wright and Terry Wright. It features the art of Barbara Mulligan, articles and a short story by me.

I'm very pleased with the form this work took. I look forward to improving upon it in volume 2 (submissions now being accepted).

Books Alive 2007 -- And The Big Announcement

2007-02-06T10:02:00.000-06:00

If you saw me at Books Alive, then you know about The Big Announcement. If not:

I'll be editing a new literary anthology coinciding with the upcoming Panama City Centennial. It's called "CITY LIMITS," and it will include short fiction, poetry, memoirs, art and photography. It'll also have information about Centennial events, a profile of the artist responsible for the Centennial logo (which will be used for the front cover art), a brief history of Panama City, and more informative content. The plan is to produce one annually for 2007, 08 and o9. (2009 is the actual centennial date.)

For details on submitting content for the publication, go here.

As for Books Alive, it seemed off this year. Most of the presenters were non-fiction folks, leaving those who get excited about poetry or fiction in the cold. The keynote speaker was interesting, as she had personal stories of encounters with Mother Teresa to share. But the crowd was smaller than in past years.

I sold a few books, most notably Nathan's debut "Generation Huh?" For those who haven't heard, I collected three of Nathan's plays into book form for a Christmas present to him and his grandparents. We took two copies with us to Books Alive and he autographed them for the buyers. If he'd brought more, I'm convinced he would've sold more. Next time, we'll be better prepared.

I got an email Sunday from Rebecca Saunders (of the Bay County Public Library) who said she had purchased (from the online publisher) two copies for the library's Local History Room. Nathan was pretty pleased.

Finally, here are a couple more photos from Books Alive: Jack Saunders talking with a reader, and a posed shot of Marlene Womack and Norma Hubbard.

Signing this Saturday, plus special announcement

2007-02-01T14:40:00.000-06:00

I'll be signing at Books Alive 2007 on Saturday, on the second floor of the Student Union East building at Gulf Coast Community College. Please tell your friends and family, and come out and meet authors and book lovers from all over the Southeast.

In addition, I have a special announcement about a new project that will be unveiled at Books Alive. It's something I'm doing in conjunction with the Panama City Centennial Committee. I'll give you the details here this weekend, but the beans will spill (and maybe a beanstalk will grow!) Saturday. Stop by my table for details.

Peace.

Six-month anniversary

2007-01-17T10:21:00.000-06:00

Today marks six months since my bypass surgery. I've put together a pretty extensive blog about this at newsherald.com, if you're interested.

Happy new year.

Tony
(...is still breathing)

Signing at B. Dalton

2006-12-22T14:41:00.000-06:00

The mall was busy, but we weren't. However, Michael had a lot of copies of the anthology that he wanted signed, so there was still lots of ink spread about in perfectly good books.

I like this picture because it looks like Terry Lewis is standing behind an x-ray screen. Who'd've thought he dressed that way under his work clothes?

Signings upcoming

2006-12-18T13:51:00.000-06:00

I'll be participating in a group signing at Panama City Mall on Wednesday night, Dec. 20, from 5 to 8 p.m. outside B.Dalton Bookseller, along with Michael Lister and the gang from Pottersville Press. Then, you can find me at Books Alive! 2007, Feb. 3, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Gulf Coast Community College Conference Center; this is the Bay County Public Library's annual "Festival of Reading," with a day of Free Author Presentations, Book Sales & Signings. You can see my little page on the Books Alive site here.

New anthology available; signing in Century in a.m.

2006-11-24T17:03:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note that I'm signing books in Century Saturday morning. I'll have copies of "Welcome to the Dawning" as well as "Dazed and Raving" and the "Noir" anthology. Now available for order from Writers Cafe is their 2006 anthology, which includes a "Century" universe story called "Some World Not This." Check it out (the art here is the front cover).

Meanwhile, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We actually hit the stores at 3:30 a.m. in a vain attempt to secure a cheap laptop for our son. Never again. Never ever. Ever.

Peace.

Heart to heart

2006-10-27T13:42:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to my latest News Herald blog, which serves to link up all my heart-related blogs of recent months.
Peace.

New story accepted for anthology

2006-10-25T10:18:00.000-05:00

Good news today, as I got this message via email:

"Congratulations: Your story, 'Some World Not This,' has been accepted for publication in the 2006 WritersCafe.org Anthology."

I've been a member of the WC.org community for several months, where we review each other's stories, essays and poetry. I decided to submit a story for the anthology in September, right on the deadline for the book. They chose 28 entries for publication. The anthology should be on sale by late November.

Some World Not This was a painful story to write, and it literally took me years to complete. It's about a guy who's trapped in his memories after a car accident, where he's visited by a girl, a former classmate, who was murdered by her husband.

The description tag for the story reads, "Maybe in some other world, Ray and Suzy could have been happy together. Maybe in some other world, they still are."

It's set in Mosquito Flats, which means it's a "Century-universe" tale.

I hope you'll pick up the anthology (I'll post info on ordering it when I receive more info) and the I hope story will chill you.

Peace.

...two months later...

2006-09-07T15:55:00.000-05:00

It's been more than two months, in fact, since my last post here. Lots has happened, and if you've kept up with my blog at newsherald.com, then you know a lot of it has included just being proud that I'm breathing in and out.

Tonight, though, is a signing party for the new crime anthology, North Florida Noir, in which appears one of my particularly foul and mean-spirited stories. I say that because it's true. I was releasing some demons in this one. The main character is not a nice man. But it does take place in and around Century, and if you recall two little boys who figured in the "Legend of the Blackcats" tale, then you'll know that this is about (or at least includes) Tommy's mom, "Loretta." Just for fun, I think I'll post another story by that name here this weekend. It looks like I'll soon have a collection of Century stories again.

I'll take some pictures at the signing and maybe shoot some video. Meanwhile, if you haven't read my recent entries at the News Herald site, and you have some time on your hands, here's a link. You can save time by skipping to the "Anatomy of a Cabbage" entries.

Lots of links this week

2006-06-27T16:20:00.000-05:00

You can see how I've been spending my nights the last couple of weeks by viewing the videos and photos (check the blogs) for Shakespeare by the Bay and Midnight on Mars

You can also see more of what's keeping me busy by viewing the videos, the new blogs and the photogalleries at The News Herald. There are Shakespeare pics in the Scene Around Town (June 2006) photo gallery.

Read my News Herald blog and comment. I plan to update it daily.

Tonight, Nate and I go to see Superman Returns. Friday and Saturday are the last performances of Othello.

Peace.

Podcast, reading/signing event, new story

2006-06-07T10:11:00.000-05:00

Here's a look at North Florida Noir, an anthology that will carry a Century-universe story by me, "Nothing was Real but the Girl." (I'll send more info about the story later.)

Here's the link to the podcast of my latest column, "Picking up the Pieces at Bay High."

Here's a link to my recent entry on the Shakespeare in the Park ("Shakes by the Bay") website.

And here's information about a reading/signing event I'll be doing on Dad's Day (as earlier posted on my MySpace account:

I've been invited to participate in the Summer Sunday Stories event this weekend, June 11 (Father's Day) at the Sapp House in Panama City. I'll read a selection from my book of columns, Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents, and a short segment from my novel, Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century.The event begins at 3 p.m., my part of the performance is slated to last no more than 15 minutes, and the whole thing is supposed to be about 90 minutes. Afterwards, I'll sign and sell copies of the books.

The Summer Sunday Stories is sponsored by Storytellers@Bay. The Sapp House (a restored home from 1916) is located at McKenzie Avenue and Third Court downtown.

Have the book(s)? Come on out and show me some love. Don't have the book(s)? Now's your chance.

Peace.

New podcast, videos

2006-05-09T15:21:00.000-05:00

Hear my last Sunday's Undercurrents here.

Watch the videos I shot today at these links:
Hail at the Health Department
Storm damage

And here are other videos I've done this week:
Thunder Beach
School uniform dress code fashion show

(Some may take a while to load.)

New Undercurrents podcast and video

2006-05-01T09:01:00.000-05:00

Listen to my latest podcast here.

Watch an accompanying video of the event here.

Peace.

Latest podcast

2006-04-26T14:11:00.000-05:00

You can hear my last Sunday's "Undercurrents" column as a podcast at this link.

An empty ache in Century

2006-04-20T15:47:00.000-05:00

Empty spaces.

Just a year and a half ago, I wrote about my chance encounter with photos of my Grandma’s house in a church hallway 120 miles away. A Panama City youth group had gone to Century to clean up Hurricane Ivan debris and had paused for a lunch on the front porch of her old house, which was by that time empty and had been purchased by a church that now met in the former Century High School building next door.

I wrote of how this crowd of people caring for a stranger’s house had touched me, how I had never anticipated seeing the house under those circumstances, how I’d expected the house to end up being bulldozed rather than put to use again.

I wrote of missing the front porch and flowery yard I saw in those pictures, childhood days of play and work among the azaleas, and the woman who had lived there, "who always had been an old woman" in my memory.

Now, like her, even the old house and its grounds are only memories.

All of it is gone. The house, the azaleas, the fence, and whatever trees had survived the hurricanes (except for a few pines on the back of the property). Her fountains and pools, which she had built with her own hands using concrete and bricks and stones she had gathered on summer vacations.

The walkway she’d poured around the backyard fountain.

The hopscotch court she’d drawn in wet concrete in the midst of her flower garden so that it would survive forever — or at least for the use of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Crushed, now. Destroyed.

Even the grass. They had tilled the earth and dragged it and flattened it. It was a brown scar.

Last weekend, I walked the empty lot where Grandma’s house had stood between the high school and elementary off Hecker Road. It seemed so small now. How could a house and sheds and gigantic azaleas — all of it — how had so many memories fit in so small an empty space?

In the midst of the lot, my wife kneeled and discovered a tiny square of tan tile peeking from under brown earth. Grandma had used these inch-square pieces in her bathroom.

Then she found an old asthma spray cartridge, a symbol of the woman’s lingering infirmity recalling memories of her drawing on those things, desperate for a breath.

We sat in the van and considered the past, the traces of it in our fingers, and a breathless aching in an empty, Grandma-shaped space inside.

Peace.

***

This was my "Undercurrents" column for The News Herald on Sunday, April 16. To hear a podcast of me reading this column click here.

***

My friend Pat sent me the following devotional today:

Of house and home
by John Fischer

Yesterday, I watched 80 years of memories get bulldozed to splinters in 20 minutes. That’s how long it took to reduce a house across the street from us to rubble. We were told it was a 1920s Sears "kit house" and one of the first houses on our block. A tiny one-bedroom cottage, it’s a miracle it held up for this long.

Part of why it came down so fast was its single-wall construction. There didn’t seem to be a 2 X 4 in the place. The big bulldozer brought its giant shovel down on the house’s flat roof and the living room snapped in two. A few more drops on the rest of the walls and it was over. My neighbor, who watched it come down with me, commented that the house was probably held up
by two screws.

I thought of the woman who had lived there most of her life and died two years ago in her 80s. She kept to herself mostly and hardly ventured out except to attend church. The only time we were ever inside was when the house was put up for sale "as is" after her death. We wondered if she was a sole survivor, as no one had even bothered to remove her things.

I couldn’t help but think as I watched it flattened that this little house kept a family warm and dry for 80 years. Someone lovingly cleaned it regularly, hung pictures on its walls, arranged furniture, burned fires in the fireplace, and cooked dinner for whoever was around. Books were read, letters were written, music was played, Christmases and birthdays were celebrated, prayers were prayed, and love was made inside those walls.

These are the things that turn a house into a home.

For the new owner, however, it was a worthless piece of junk that probably cost maybe $3,000 in its day and next to nothing to build, sitting on a million-dollar piece of property. Yet for one woman it was filled with memories and something ached inside me as I watched it come down, even though I didn’t know her. Now the house is gone, but somewhere those memories remain.

In 2 Corinthians 5:1-9, Paul calls our current bodies temporary dwellings, or "tents" – less substantial than the house across the street. And yet it’s the body in which we live, love, and find meaning for as long as we are given on this earth. It’s a fragile existence with eternal connections.

That’s why, of all the things we can do in this body, finding God is the most important. Knowing God will ensure that we have a home with him when this house we currently occupy is nothing but a pile of wood and broken glass. And think of all the memories!

(John Fischer is the Senior Writer for Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotionals. He resides in Southern California with his wife, Marti and son, Chandler. They also have two adult children, Christopher and Anne. John is a published author and popular speaker.)

And that's how the weekend concludes ...

2006-02-12T17:33:00.000-06:00

The Shape of Things finished its run today at Gulf Coast Community College, and we finally got a chance to see the show. In the photo are the cast and director: Nathan Simmons as Phillip, Jewells Blackwell as Jenny, Brandon Duncan (director), Ashley Turner as Evelyn, and Chuck Clay as Adam. It was theatre in the round: The audience was seated in the center with sets arranged in a circle around them inside the "black box" theatre lab. In the final scenes, the audience became part of the play as the characters took seats among the audience to view an artist's showing. Quite the mindbending experience, overall, and what a way to cap what a weekend.
Peace.

Busy Day Concludes: Mask Parade Gala, Literary Gala

2006-02-11T23:16:00.000-06:00

So the sun went down, and the moon came up, and all sorts of things went on all around the town. Nathan went to GCCC to appear in The Shape of Things, Jessi went with Debra's sister and brother-in-law and neice to Mardi Gras, and Debra and I went to Edgewater conference center for the Covenant Hospice Mask Parade. In one of these, you see artist Patrick Reynolds (you're probably familiar with his beautiful angel paintings) checking out Barbara Mulligan's twin "stain glass" pieces. I was just relieved to see that the mask I did got a bid. It was a great dinner and the people we shared our table with were wonderful. We left early (visitors at the house, you know) and stopped by the Books Alive gala on the way home. It was at the Talkington home off Beach Drive, a showcase house that's a mix of art deco, east Indian and modern. That's where the other shots were taken. That's all for tonight. Peace.

Busy Day Begins with Books Alive

2006-02-11T22:40:00.000-06:00

I'm not about to try to identify all these pics in order. But the parade of people through GCCC was fun and frantic. Lynn, Michael and I had a good time, sold a few books, made some new acquaintances and caught up with old friends. Betty Powell gave me a kiss on the cheek. Ethel Lewis, who is a longtime News Herald contact (lifestyle department contributor) did not, but I got a picture made with her.

Pam Anderson, born and raised in Panama City and now a famous cookbook author and USA Weekend columnist, bought my book. Pam will forever be recalled by my wife as the person who drew her into a conversation with "the shrimp man," as Pam called him, then left Debra alone to listen to the rest of the John Cheshire's life story during last night's party. Pretty sneaky, but who can blame her, really? Meanwhile, Lynn noticed that all of my groupies were markedly older than his and Michael's. (Or maybe I pointed that out.) He's worried that my readership will begin fading soon. Hmmm. Next up: Gala ga-ga.

Let's get acquainted

2006-02-10T22:37:00.000-06:00

Just recently returned from the "get acquainted" party for authors and moderators participating in tomorrow's "Books Alive" festival at Gulf Coast Community College. Among the folks enjoying the fellowship were (first pic) Janis Owens and River Jordan, and (second pic) Doug Marlette telling a tale to Wendell Owens.

I shot lots of other photos, but either they were out of focus or I was. Anyway. I'll get more shots tomorrow and post them. Come see me. Maybe I'll get your picture and put it here. You never know. Good night.

Come see me Saturday

2006-02-10T11:34:00.000-06:00

I'll be at joining fellow writers Michael Lister and Lynn Wallace at Books Alive 2006 at Gulf Coast Community College Saturday to sign and sell copies of our work from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a break for lunch from noon to 2 p.m. I'll also moderate a session by featured Florida Megatrends author David Colburn, provost at University of Florida at 2:15 p.m. Some of my other writer friends will be there too: River Jordan will debut her new novel, The Messenger of Magnolia Street; Pam Anderson (the USA Weekend columnist and cooking guru) will be there; Janis Owens will talk about Southern style.
Hope to see you there.
Peace.

Young Writers Fest 2006

2006-01-26T22:09:00.000-06:00

Megan Bell, the Newspapers In Education coordinator for The News Herald, and I led two sessions at the Young Writers Fest 2006 at Gulf Coast Community College today. The program brought fourth- and fifth-graders from all over Bay District to the college to learn about writing and storytelling in all its forms, from oral tradition and mime, as told by folks like Pat Nease and Renee Black, to children's literature and even newspapers.

I talked about the "5 W's and an H" and used a police incident report to get the kids to help me identify the information they'd need to write a police brief. Then we talked about the difference between "hard" news, features, and "opinion" writing, and I talked a little about fiction writing (and rewriting and rewriting) and answered questions about my career.

Megan then read to them from the book "The True Story of the Three Three Little Pigs," which is the story as told from the point of view of the wolf, who claims he was framed by the yellow journalists.

Using what they'd supposedly learned from me, the kids were asked to write either straight "hard" news reports of the incident, a feature or an opinion piece. A couple of them came up with their own fictional take, not based on anything they'd heard, but others added nice extras --- jailhouse interviews, interviews with neighbors who saw the whole things transpire, that sort of thing. I'll be back here Feb. 11 for the library's annual Books Alive. Don't miss it.
Peace.

Letter from a reader

2006-01-22T18:15:00.000-06:00

I got the following letter this week from a reader who said I could share it. He's living and working here in Bay County, and I've known him for years, but never knew we came from the same part of the state.

Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century ... Good Work!

It is strange reading material that is so familiar. You did a finejob of outlining the social dynamics of small town south. Two things that never dawned on me growing up in Jay. I never contemplated the name Century or where the mascot, Blackcats, came from.

Anyway, it took me away and back - way back.

Craig
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will be as one."
John Lennon

Craig Bush
Teacher, West Bay Elementary

Upcoming signing/author event

2006-01-22T18:08:00.000-06:00

Be sure, if you're in the Bay County area, to check out BooksAlive! 2006, the Bay County Public LibraryFestival of Reading, February 11, 2006 from 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM, with Free Author Presentations, Book Sales & Signings, at Gulf Coast Community College Conference Center. Featured presenter is Doug Marlette, editorial cartoonist and creator of the comic strip Kudzu.
You can check my little page on the Books Alive website here. I'll be sharing a table with my Pottersville Press compatriots, Michael Lister and Lynn Wallace.

Reading at the Library

2005-12-18T23:18:00.000-06:00

I read to folks at the Bay County Public Library this afternoon, and members of the Friends of the Library were kind enough to supply cookies and punch and candy. We talked about small towns, and teenagers who dream of leaving them. We talked about changing times. I discussed Zen and the art of writing -- going where the story leads you, being brave enough (or dumb enough) to let go and listen to the small voice nagging in the back of your head. That's how I learned that Wally was a man who knew his Bible -- A Clean Sweep was written before Love and Loss at the Sign of the Pig -- and my difficulty in writing it came from trying to ignore the Bible verse that kept presenting itself. When I gave in, typed "there were giants in the earth in those days" at the top of the page, I suddenly had a handle on who Wally was ... and why he was such a damaged person; that is, he knew better than to act the way he did, and maybe he could figure out how to be better than that.

Follow your instincts. Trust your gut.

And if I don't talk to between now and then, have a safe and happy Christmas and New Year.

Peace.

So the photo experimenting continues

2005-12-17T23:51:00.000-06:00

Still trying to figure out this photo thingy, and they don't lie down where I want them to. Here are some more pictures from the day, though:
LEFT: Folks browse the "gift" table, picking out freebies for the taking.

RIGHT: The writers in a line-up -- Lynn (500) Wallace, Michael (big money) Lister, Terry (???) Lewis, Jack (romance) Saunders, and me (local color). After the party, we took leftovers to the Improv night at Bay High.

Tomorrow (actually, by now, it's today) Sunday, Dec. 18, 2 to 4 p.m., I'll be reading from Welcome to the Dawning as a guest of Friends of the Library at the downtown library in PC. (Is that more teeth I hear gnashing?)

Peace, and good night.

Some pictures from the day's events

2005-12-17T23:35:00.000-06:00

LEFT: Today Michael Lister (left), Lynn Wallace (center), and I (the other guy) had a book signing at the Books-a-Million in Panama City. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. And that was just from the people who wanted our chairs and the three tables we had commandeered. RIGHT: After, we proceeded to Gulf Coast Community College for the Mystery Writers of America (north Florida Chapter) Christmas Party. Michael shoots a picture of Judge (and mystery author) Terry Lewis, who drove in from Tallahassee for the party.
MORE TO FOLLOW...

Signings this weekend

2005-12-15T17:30:00.000-06:00

If you're in the Panama City, Florida, area this weekend, and you have Christmas presents yet to buy, there's always room for books:

Authors Michael Lister, Tony Simmons and Lynn Wallace will sign and sell copies of the their novels at Books-a-Million on 23rd Street from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17. Details: www.pottersvillepress.com

Then, Tony Simmons, assistant managing editor-news for The News Herald, will read from his novel, Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, and discuss the creative process at the Bay County Public Library Sunday, Dec. 18 from 2 to 4 p.m. Copies of the book will be available for purchase, as well as Simmons' first book, Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents, a collection of his columns for The News Herald. Refreshments will be served by the Friends of the Library.

In addition, and I'll be signing at the Mystery Writers of America (private) Christmas Party at the Gulf Coast Community College dining room Saturday afternoon. (Sorry, but you're not invited. So come see me at the other ones.)

Peace.

Keeping an old promise

2005-11-26T20:02:00.000-06:00

So I climbed into the attic and rooted around in the plastic tote that has all my old newspaper clippings from back in the day when I used to keep all my old newspaper clippings, and I found this, the story of the A-OK, which inspired the description of The Centennial Man's home in Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century. I hope by following the link you're able to read the story and see the photo reproduced large enough. Let me know if you aren't.
More old promises yet to be kept, soon to be made good. Hope Thanksgiving was good for you, and the holidays ahead will be happy ones.
Peace.

UPDATE TIME!

2005-11-02T12:45:00.000-06:00

About time, eh?

1) So what if you've got our books? Come get another one! You loved it so much you need to give one -- or three! -- as a gift, right? Right? Lynn Wallace, Michael Lister and I will be signing our novels and whatever else we can sign at Books-A-Million in Panama City on Saturday from 10 a.m. until 1 or 2 or until the last customer runs screaming from the store. Nathan will continue his tradition of having something else to do on my signing days by being at the Florida Theatre Competition in Lakeland, trying his best to win a full-ride scholarship to college. Wish us both luck.

2) Constant Vigilance, the first addendum to Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, a short story that originally appeared in Postcards from Pottersville Volume II, is now available on the Web at Sunshine and Crime.

3) Someone (I have recently discovered who) placed a reader review of ...New Century at Barnes and Nobles.com. Thank you very much. None of the rest of you love me as much as she does. But if you could love me ALMOST as much if you were the second or third or fourth to put up a review...(wink wink, nudge nudge).

4) My next major entry will be a review of prior entries and an attempt to actually do what I've promised to to do in the past. If I said I was going to post something or explain something, then you're going to see it at long last. Keep your eyes peeled.

Peace.

Lots of thanks, and lots of pictures

2005-10-13T22:28:00.000-05:00

(NOTE: I’ve embedded links to photos throughout this time as an experiment, just because I have WAY too many pictures to share this time around.)

I’ve entered into that part of the process where I’m getting responses from friends and family, who are telling me how they like the book. You hope to hear that, of course, and you expect to hear that to some extent — I mean, even if they didn’t like it, you might anticipate that they’d be polite and lie to you.

But if they’re lying, then please, lie to me some more.

I got some nice phone messages last week just before the Java Café debut — Windy (who sent this picture of me with The Son of Todd at Java Café) called to say she usually can’t read something that’s written by someone she knows without imagining them in the process of writing it; that wasn’t a problem when she read Century, and any time she can get me out of her mind is a good thing.

And Virginia called to say there was nothing missing from the story and anybody who thought so must be — (cue the Texas accent) — from NEW YORK CITY!

Bette sent me an e-mail this week to say that she set aside Love in the Time of Cholera to be "wowed" by Century. Wow indeed, Bette. For Bette I’ve got some pictures of patriotic barbershop poles gathered within two blocks of each other on Palafox Street (the main drag) in Flomaton, Ala. Look here. And here. And here.

And then there was a long letter (via email) from my sister, which came at just the right time to counteract things that were really bringing me down in "the real world" — you know the sort, the things that don’t care that I’m trying to promote a book, write new stories, start up a new novel, keep up a blog — the "real world" that thinks I should work a "job" and pay "bills" and answer to a "boss" and keep up a "household" and take "baths" and "eat."

Here are some excerpts from Lisa’s letter (used without permission) taking out elements that maybe got too personal or gave away parts of the plot for those who haven’t read the story:

"So I read this really good book the other day. Have you heard about it? It's terrific! You might want to check it out. It's called Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century. ... Perhaps you recognize the title? Yes? Your little sister is very proud. I feel as though I was transported back home for awhile there. I absolutely loved the book, Tony. It made me laugh out loud, and it made tears come to my eyes. Let's see--I love the way you interwove Shakespeare throughout the book, the references to the Macbeth witches, the airy sprite. I love the chapter on Mary Anne's String Theory, the chapter on Gil at the river ... I love the Centennial Man! The devil! I almost cried while I read about the heart and soul of the town being Friday night football games--isn't it true? And knowing what I know about the school being gone now--it's just very sad, and I think the heart of Century is gone now that the Blackcats are no longer their unifying force. Anyway, some of my reactions were very personal, having lived your life, basically, knowing the stories (like the reference to what that witch Ms. (CENSORED) put you through), but I tried to read the book as a READER, as a lover of words, as a consumer, as someone who had never been to Century, and I really, really liked the book! I feel as though I can't say enough. I think anyone from a small town, particularly in the south, will feel the same. ... The way you talked about it, I really expected worse things--harsher things--to be said. I think, if anything, the book is realistic, not idealistic, but also not derogatory or belittling to our hometown. ... How does one go about getting on the NY Times Bestseller's List?"

I wish I knew. I don’t even know how to convince local booksellers that they could make an easy buck or two by carrying the thing.

Then there was my Dad (shown here on the right with my Uncle Eddie on the left), who talked up the book at Century, telling people how he liked the stories and even warning one lady about the dirty language — even thought it’s not gratuitous like on TV, he said. Maybe he ought to have warned her about the folks bumpin’ uglies. Or not. But I was relieved a bit to hear him say that, because I have to admit to some trepidation about how he — as Alger-Sullivan historian for one, and as my Dad for another — would take the thing. I’m still waiting to hear the reaction from my brother- and sister-in-law, him being the butcher in the family who was formerly employed at the Piggly Wiggly.

More photos from the Century signing:
Here’s me holding the book at the very sign that inspired it.
The Atmore regulars as they perused the table.
A jazz band playing on the steps of the old Century Post Office Museum.
Model A Fords lined up for the crowds to view and later to take rides.

Anyway, this is a really long-winded way of saying thank you all. Thanks for buying the book, for reading it, for responding to it. Thanks for supporting me emotionally as well as financially (the former even more so, as you can probably understand). This book is never going to take the world by storm or make me a billionaire. But your enjoyment of it enriches me.

Next up: Sunday’s Lifestyle front of The News Herald will feature a story about Lynn Wallace, Me, and a deer in the headlights — er, that is, Lon Prater, a nice fellow also from Panama City who has a story in the recent L.Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future collection. I’ll email the story to members of the group Sunday. Here’s a sneak preview of the photo from the story.

Lynn and Michael and I will sign books at Books-a-Million in PC on Nov. 5 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Come by and say hi and hang out and have coffee.

Finally be sure to check out the Pottersville site. There are pictures from our events going up now and they’ll be updated regularly. Also, the "Dispatch" newsletters that I’ve been handing out at signings are on the Century page in PDF format. Look for these to turn into a regular newsletter in the near future.

Street Team assignment: If you’ve read Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, please go to Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and Books-a-Million.com and write a customer review.
That’s about all for now. Peace.

A Day in a Life in Century

2005-10-09T22:49:00.000-05:00

We loaded the van and drove to Century on Saturday morning for the Alger-Sullivan Historical Society's fundraiser to "Bring Back Old No. 100" -- the effort to raise enough cash to pay for moving an old steam locomotive that once served the lumber mill in Century from its current location to the James Houston Jones Historic Park off Jefferson Street. There was a jazz band that played on the porch of the old Post Office Museum, and cloggers that danced in the street, and a dancing troupe, and twirlers who performed, and barbecue plates and hotdogs for sale. The Model A Club lined up a dozen different roadsters, coupes, trucks, and so forth -- all "Model A Fords" -- and gave rides around the town for a $5 donation to the cause. I sold books, as did the Escambia County Heritage Book folks, the Alger-Sullivan group, and a couple of self-published authors. There were other venders along the walkway between the museums as well, and a Civil War re-enactment group from Atmore, Ala.

Here's are a couple of curious things for those of you who have never done this:

1) If someone tells you they'll be back for a book before the day is over, they are probably telling you the truth. That has been my experience. You'll think they're putting you off so they can get away without spending money, but they are most likely just delaying having to carry a book around. They'll be back.

2) The people you most expected to want your book -- friends and neighbors from the old days -- are not going to buy one. They are going to come up and hug your neck and fawn over you and talk about you always writing when you were a kid, and dressing up in costumes and playing with their children, and how proud they are, and is that your mama over there by that picnic table? and then they're gone... They are not going to buy a book. They just think it's real cute that you think you're a writer.

And old friends are NOT going to come out to see you. Not. One.

However, strangers will be excited to know that there's a novel about this subject. They'll be tickled by the chapter headings, or the cover photos. They will buy a copy, and bring other strangers to your table to show them the book, and those people will buy a copy. Sometimes, they'll also ask for information on how to order additional copies, how to order autographed copies. (See Matthew 13:57 and substitute "author" for "prophet.")

That's not to say that I had a bad time in Century. Far from it. I had a good time. The turnout was about what everyone expected, but less than we all hoped for. I was pleased to see so many members of my family again, and so many other people I hadn't seen for such a long time, even if they didn't trade cash for my pretty little paperweight.

Please take a minute or two and check out the Pottersville site, which has been updated recently to include PDF files of "The Dispatch." I've been putting together silly versions of the fictional Century paper to pass out at signings and to leave behind to tweak the curious into scanning the Web for more info, and Michael is putting these on the site as PDFs. If you go to the page for Welcome to the Dawning, you'll find the "Java Cafe Edition," and the "Century" edition should be up shortly. In the future these will become an actual and regularly scheduled newsletter both showcasing recent events and giving a schedule of upcoming ones. I'll let you know when that becomes available. The Pottersville site will also begin hosting some the photos from our signing events, so you might want to bookmark it and visit regularly.

Also, watch for this Sunday's Lifestyle front in The News Herald to feature a story about three local writers -- Lynn Wallace, myself, and Lon Prater, who recently had a tale published in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future collection. There'll be info with that story on a joint signing Lynn, Michael and I will be having at the PC Books-a-Million.

Peace.

Pick a book, any book. See? Nothin' up my sleeve.

2005-10-06T07:46:00.000-05:00

One down, one to go ...

2005-10-06T07:07:00.000-05:00

So the signing at Java Cafe was Tuesday, and a good time was had by all. Bette (who maintains that never a blue stripe should circle a barbershop pole) was there in spirit, surprising us with free drinks (thanks) when she couldn't make it in fact. Among the pleasant surprises were Tom Needham (whose photo of me will follow this post), Kendall Middlemas Henley, who brought Addie, and Windy (I spelled it right this time) Twilly and The Son of Todd.

I distributed copies of The Dispatch, which are going to be regular funtime elements of signing events, and which I intend to become a regular snailmail/PDF newsletter at some point. For now, Michael is planning to link PDFs of them to my page at the Pottersville site, so keep an eye out.

Saturday is the "Return of the Native Son" event. No, that's not quite right. It's the "Help Bring Old 100 Home" event in Century, and I'll be signing books there while they last. Quantities are limited, then I'll be preselling for shipment of signed editions back to the homestead. Anyway, in the historic district Saturday morning, right by "the Old Leach House" just down the street from the Post Office Museum, I'll have my table set up. Parking will be by the little league field on Church Street, as Jefferson Avenue will be closed for use by the Model A club and the cloggers. Barbecue plates for sale, gospel music and tours of the museums on tap. All to raise money to bring the old Alger-Sullivan steam engine back to town for use in the historic park. If that doesn't sound like the ultimate smalltown Saturday, I don't know what does.

The Pensacola News Journal carried a story about the event in Wednesday's edition.

Finally, Michael last night reminded me of the Bible verse about a prophet's popularity in his own country. Hope that doesn't have dire meaning.

Peace.

At the risk of redundancy...

2005-10-04T06:49:00.000-05:00

I sent the following out to an e-mail list I've compiled of various and sundry folk with whom I've corresponded over the years. Most of them are not people who have signed up to receive notices from this blog when it is updated. (Ha-ha, they got spammed anyway.) I try to blind copy those emails, and hope I do it right. For all my big-city ways, I ain't so technologically sophisticated after all. Here's what they saw in their Weird Wired Interwubs thingy:

Hello from Northwest Florida and "Welcome to the
Dawning of a New Century." This is just a short note
as a reminder that I'll be sippin' Joe and signin'
pulp with fellow scribner Lynn Wallace in a
Pottersville Press debut party Tuesday, Oct. 4, 6 to 8
p.m., at the Java Cafe on Harrison Avenue in downtown
Panama City. Hope to see you there. (Mention this
e-mail and I'll give you a free gift.)

If you haven't seen my new book, come by and check it
out. It's shiny and pretty. Looks nice on mantles and
bedside tables, but even better in the hands of
readers who maybe by now have got an inkling that
they're in for something a bit different even before
they crack the spine.

"Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century"
(Wish You Were Here.)
Peace.
Tony

**

“Tony has his fingers all over the pulse of Florida
funk — probably a blessing and a curse for him — but
always a delight to readers of this state’s fiction.”
— Tim Dorsey (author of "Florida Roadkill")

**
"Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century"
By Tony Simmons
ISBN: 1-888146-08-7
Hardcover * 165 pages * September 2005
www.tonysimmons.info * www.pottersvillepress.com

Anniversary Waltz

2005-09-29T22:10:00.000-05:00

Signing Tuesday at Java Cafe

2005-09-29T21:31:00.000-05:00

What: Pottersville Press book signing event
When: Tuesday, Oct. 4, 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: Java Cafe on Harrison Ave., downtown Panama City
Who: Me, signing copies of Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century
Who else: Lynn Wallace, signing copies of his novel Los Caminantes

I'll also have copies of Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents on hand for those who just must have the complete works (ha!) -- you know you have to.

Meanwhile, I've been informed that a couple of you who ordered copies through Pottersville experienced delays, but the books are on their way.

Earlier this week, Tuesday to be precise, I had the opportunity to listen to members of the Philharmonic of Northwest Florida play at the Kingfish Restaurant at the Baypoint Marriott under the direction of David Ott. They were promoting their upcoming season, and before the reception was over I ended up in a conversation with Mr. Ott concerning the paths down which creativity can take you. We talked about improvisation; it was refreshing to have that talk, to know that here was an artist from a completely different discipline who could put my experiences with words into a new perspective -- I talked about how getting into a character's point of view often placed me in positions story-wise that I would not expect, and then I just followed them; he talked of how a sudden notion to slow or speed a movement, to alter a note could change the meaning or feeling of a musical number.

Debra and I were also pleasantly surprised by the organizers of the event. Tuesday was the night prior to our 20th anniversary; I had mentioned this in an email to Crystal Carpenter, the FSU-Panama City public information specialist who was involved in organizing the event. Just as the performance was ending (this is prior to the mixer when we met and talked about creativity) David asked if "Tony and Debra Simmons are here?" and asked the master violinist to play a few bars of the Anniversary Waltz in our honor.

Crystal's photo follows.

Peace.

Setting (or, "No Matter Where You Go, There You Are")

2005-09-18T18:30:00.000-05:00

NOTES FOR A PRESENTATION AT THE GULF COAST WRITERS CONFERENCE

SETTING (or, “No Matter Where You Go, There You Are”)

Here we are.
This must be the place. What a set-up.

Is it time? This must be the moment.

What are we to make of the situation? This space/time continuum. This setting.

Setting is where time and space collide. Setting molds character, shapes themes, “sets” tones.

Think of settings from familiar fictions:
Stalag 17. Animal Farm. Cross Creek. 1984. Slaughterhouse 5.
The Legend of Hill House. Gotham City Middle Earth.
Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn’s mighty Mississippi Starship Enterprise.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Narnia.

(Discussion.)

Setting isn’t everything — but take the right eternal story and place it in a new setting and it takes on new life.

William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” becomes Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet.”
(Or “West Side Story” — or even the recent vampire vs. werewolf love story “Underworld.”)

Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” becomes John Sturges’ “The Magnificent Seven” which becomes “Battle Beyond the Stars.”

“The Taming of the Shrew” becomes “10 Things I Hate About You.”

(Discussion.)

What are we to make of this situation? How would you describe it? Give me one word.
Two. Three. Give me a sentence. What do we have now?
Are we getting a mood here? Can we glean a theme already from a simple description of a setting? A single sentence about a classroom. Do we have a bored student? A frightened one? Cynical? Hopeful?

My own: Bright and cold, white and clean, like a surgical theater, it smelled of alcohol, lemons, and death.

Contrast that with a description you might give of the classrooms in a Harry Potter novel, or Little House on the Prairie. Each of them are classrooms, but each in a different era, divergent realities, with vastly different moods evoked, and often through the descriptions of the settings.

The three rules of Real Estate: 1) Location, 2) Location, 3) Location.Curb appeal.
It’s the same idea as grabbing a reader with a lede. The first thing that a prospective homebuyer sees when they drive up could be what sells the home. Just the same, when you describe the place where you character will do whatever he does, you have the potential to set the tone, create the theme, foreshadow the end.

Here’s the tiny bit of description of a classroom at Century High School used in a chapter of my novel:
Scene III: The alchemist’s study.
Test tubes and equipment gleam in a workshop standing idle, awaiting students’ hands. The chalk board is covered in arcane runes. The equations always balance, not like the tales in the alchemist’s foresight, his waking visions, his stories. And not like life, though the equations aim to explain its basic properties and elements.

In short: There’s little to no description, but the theme is there, as is the foreshadowing. How much detail is necessary in describing a setting?

(Discussion.)

You need to get the details right, however. You don’t want to write about someone using a lead pencil in a classroom in the wrong century, or using a gas light when kerosene lamps were the rule.

J.R.R. Tolkein was building a world, and described it in rich detail in his Middle Earth stories. He would need to tell you what sort of wood the chairs of a little Hobbit classroom were made of, and how they were carved, and how high on the knee of a grown man they would rise. Another novelist might not feel the need to give such a detailed description of a schoolroom because simply saying his characters had gathered in a “college classroom” and knowing the setting was a modern city puts the reader close enough for government work. You’ll fill in the fluorescent lights and rows of chairs yourself.

But a detective novelist might need to place explicit details in the reader’s mind and describe a specific Bunsen burner giving off a brilliant green flame.

(NOTE: At about this point, Mr. Beard makes my next point for me, and I read his this:)

My rule of thumb is to tell what the reader needs to know to get a picture in his head of the place. Readers will provide the set dressing from their own experiences. We’ve all been in hospital rooms. You don’t have to describe all the equipment in detail, just mention that it’s there — unless the equipment is intrinsic to the story, in which case it is essential to be described before you suddenly bring it — as if out of nowhere — into the plot.

Nothing comes out of nowhere. Everything comes from somewhere — and that’s your setting.

Likewise, nobody comes from nowhere. The place you grew up, to a large extent, made you what you are. You need to keep that setting as well in mind when building characters. Who are they really? Where did they come from?

I’d like you to take a minute. Two minutes. Think about your home town. The main street in the heart of the town — it may not be downtown, but the place that was the heart and soul of town for you as a child. What about that landscape comes immediately to mind? Is it the architecture? A certain person always on the street? A store you frequented? Fire hydrants the boy scouts painted like revolutionary soldiers in 1975 — the year before the Bicentennial? An ice cream truck that came every Saturday? A tragic playground death?

(NOTE: I diverged from this quite a bit, as the discussion opened and closed throughout. I didn’t include much of the following segment. I think there’s a story there:)

Think about your school, your time there, a favorite teacher, a despised bully, a strange moment that never made sense to you then — I’m sure if you give it a moment, one will come to you. Put yourself in the little desk, with the fat crayons. What does it smell like there? When is break time? Who threw up chocolate milk on the bus? Which kid never had shoes or always had a runny nose? Is she the one who threw up on the bus? What does it feel like here? Is it hot? Why is there no air conditioning? How does the sweaty man who comes to fix the air conditioning know the little girl who has no shoes?

(NOTE: We closed with a moment of Zen, just like John Stewart:)

Our moment of Zen:

“I was reading the dictionary,
and I thought it was a poem about everything.”

— Stephen Wright
(standup philosopher)

Virginia Dixon, 1st to buy signed copy, w/author

2005-09-18T18:14:00.000-05:00

Jim Pascoe of Ugly Town

2005-09-18T18:13:00.000-05:00

Mystery Writers Michael, Terry, Jim, Joan, Glynn

2005-09-18T18:11:00.000-05:00

Lynn Wallace talks about the origins of his novel.

2005-09-18T18:09:00.000-05:00

Setting: "No Matter Where You Go, There You Are"

2005-09-18T18:08:00.000-05:00

Debut of "...A New Century"

2005-09-17T23:01:00.000-05:00

Saturday was the Sixth Annual Gulf Coast Writers Conference, held at the Gulf Coast Community College Language Arts building. I've participated in a number of these now, and I believe that this one was the best -- and the audience seemed to agree. My own early morning session was not (only two elderly gentlemen joined Nathan and me for a discussion of "setting") but the rest of the conference was WAY good for the writer in me, and for the writer in everyone else there. Sold a few books, too, met some nice people, talked about LIT-trit-chure, ya know, and shared some chuckles.

Lynn Wallace and I joined forces to talk about the journeys our books took to publication in a session called "A Tale of Two Tomes" and we wrapped up the day with a round-robin on alternative (non-traditional) methods of publishing.

Virginia Dixon, an English teacher at Mosley High School, received the first autographed copy of Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, and Michael's wife Pam took her picture with me. Viriginia, it turns out, spent a few years teaching at Northview High School, which was the school that replaced Century High when Century and Walnut Hill were closed and combined in 1995-96. Virginia explained how the kids from both schools seemed to integrate with less trouble than the teachers from the two schools; she came there by way of Pensacola, so she had less trouble than some. Her picture will be on the blog soon, along with other conference photos.

The luncheon speaker was Jim Pascoe of Ugly Town Press, a Hollywood publisher of mystery novels and other edgy fiction. I instantly liked Jim, introduced by Michael as "the David Bowie of mystery publishing," who was an impeccable dresser, charismatic speaker, knowledgable, funny, and giving. He flew in from California on the red-eye just for the conference.

Another standout presenter was Cricket Pechstein of the August Agency, a Florida/NYC firm representing lots of different kinds of writers. She gave us plenty to consider and encouraged a few of us directly through one-on-one pitch sessions. The others she encouraged through her group sessions. She is anticipating an outline and samples from me shortly regarding my new project.

We all went to supper at Uncle Ernie's after the conference -- Michael and his family and their friends, me and my family, Cricket, Jim -- and talked books, music, movies, plays -- it was a fabulous evening. I felt alive, energized. Hearing my son carry on conversations like that, trading movie quotes, dissecting musicians, discussing the future -- yeah, that's the life.

Coming up: Photos from the conference. Then, notes from my session on "Setting (or, 'No matter where you go there you are')"

Now available online and in person ...

2005-09-12T22:48:00.000-05:00

I've been emailing the following to those whose addresses I have and others who are not on this list...
Subject line: "Tony Simmons' new novel debuts Saturday"
Text of the email:
"Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century"
A Novel by Tony Simmons
Debuts Saturday, Sept. 17, at the Gulf Coast Writer's Conference, at Gulf Coast Community College
For more information: www.pottersvillepress.comor www.tonysimmons.info

CENTURY, Fla. — You may not be from around here, but you know these folks just the same: the thrice-cursed mayor angling for re-election; the Piggly Wiggly meat cutter with the Vegan wife; the small-town Lolita around whom a universe revolves. “Century is a real place in northern Escambia County. It’s where I grew up,” says novelist Tony Simmons. “It’s a small town with a magical name and a unique spirit of its own, one of sawdust and Florida panthers.

Like all small towns, it’s the place every kid promises he’ll leave at the first opportunity and never go back. It’s also the kind of place that doesn’t let go of you that easily. “I guess I’m saying Century haunts me. Now I’m haunting it back.”

Simmons is the assistant managing editor for news at The News Herald in Panama City, FL, where he writes a weekly column and oversees the newsroom. Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, his first literary novel, departs wildly from his day job as it revisits some of the themes and characters introduced in his short fiction, some of which has appeared in regional anthologies from Pottersville Press.

“Secrets will get out, and in the process they can take on a life of their own — especially in small towns,” Simmons says. “Secrets are the seeds of revelations, and revelations lead to transformative experiences. And that’s about as close to a whack upside the head by God’s holy two-by-four as you might find even in Century First Baptist Church.”

Thus we find ourselves in Century at the end of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st — the eve of celebrating its centennial in the first week of April 2001. There’s a parade to plan, and a murder to plot, a marriage to save and one to let go, loves blossoming and lives rotting on the vine. Caught in the midst are the regular folks of Century with their everyday world-shattering problems. Folks like Mary Anne, who crochets beside her grandmother’s deathbed and weaves new cosmologies; Gil, the high school science teacher whose visions of possible futures have fled, leaving him nothing but empty facts; Simone, whose columns for the local newspaper explore her love/hate relationship with where she’s from and whom she has become.

“This is fiction, but I’d like to think these characters are no less real for all that,” Simmons says. “You know people just like them. In fact, there are going to be folks in Century who will think I’ve written their stories here. That’s not the case — even though, certainly, the townsfolk make the town. I just hope they make readers feel welcome.”

***
Welcome Words: What other authors have had to say about "Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century":

“Tony has his fingers all over the pulse of Florida funk — probably a blessing and a curse for him — but always a delight to readers of this state’s fiction.”
— Tim Dorsey (Florida Roadkill, Torpedo Juice)
www.timdorsey.com

***

“After I read the book I woke up with the people of Century on my mind. ... I really loved the threading of the lives together. There is a wonderful beat to the book. The characters are downright touchable — and not many writers, even the most commercially successful, can accomplish that. I was amazed at the chameleon-like way that you entered each character and told their truth from their perspective. That is truly the gift of a great writer. But then your freakin’ quantum theory knitting piece blew me away.”
— River Jordan (The Gin Girl, The Messenger of Magnolia Street)
www.rjordan.net

***

“I think it’s the dawn of a stellar new literary career. Son. This thing is funny as (CENSORED).”
— Michael Lister (Power in the Blood, Blood of the Lamb)
www.michaellister.com

****

"Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century" By Tony Simmons
ISBN: 1-888146-08-7 * Hardcover * 165 pages * September 2005
www.tonysimmons.info * www.pottersvillepress.com

(But wait: There's more. Go to PottersvillePress.com and you can "buy it now" as they say on e-Bay using Pay Pal. Or go to Amazon.com and buy it now, too, although they don't have the cover image up yet and they say it isn't yet available.)

Signing Dazed and Raving, and sneaking a peek ...

2005-09-01T22:49:00.000-05:00

I'm signing copies of Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents at the Friday Fest in downtown Panama City tomorrow starting at 6 p.m. Everyone who stops by the booth can register to win a pack of review-copy books received by The News Herald and valued at more than $50. I'll have a sneak preview of Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century there (under glass, perhaps?) with promotional materials for the Gulf Coast Writer's Conference, where the book will debut. Maybe I'll see ya there.
Peace.

Comments on a book yet to be released? You bet!

2005-08-31T22:38:00.000-05:00

Now I realize the "Author’s Note" has explanations and explications, and the prior posts on this blog cover lots of background, but it seems to me there are other things I might ought to say about the stories and folks that make up Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, or as I refer to it, just plain ol’ Century. (Think of this as the DVD commentary track for the novel. You might want to play some music. I’m listening to Keane.)

Okay, so these are things you don’t know about the folks who live there, in fictional Century. Most of you haven’t read the book, so you REALLY don’t know. But these are things about how they ended up being who they are, maybe, or where their stories came from. (Credit where it’s due, when I can rightly recall.)

First off, I don’t apologize for the sex or language, but I will blush in front of my Grandma Massey when the time comes. Sorry, Grandma. I do apologize for any typos you find when the beautiful little book hits your mitts. (And it is pretty -- I held the proof in my hands tonight.) Those are my fault, the typos that is. And if you just don’t like it, the story that is, well, guess that would ultimately be my fault too, as I made the thing. But by then you must've bought it. Too bad. And if you read it, it’s in your brain now. Ha-ha. (That was a joke. Hence, the laughter.)

So let's make with the DVD commentary. The bold titles are chapter names. When you read the story, come back and this'll make much more sense...

Love and Loss at the Sign of the Pig:
Kenny Earl Hooper is not based upon anyone remotely related to me (nor is any member of his family), although I am remotely related by marriage to a professional butcher and he has told me stories that found their way into Kenny’s background. For instance, my in-law has been approached by customers who bought meat at a competitor’s store and wanted him to cut the meat for them. I told him at the time that I would end up using that story, and he told me to do so. Now I did.

Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century:
Sheldon Fite was an English major in college. His favorite courses involved history and literature.

A Tangled Skein:
The Rose of Sharon pattern is real. It’s one my wife was working on at the time I began writing this segment, and all the directions I quote are real. It just happens that as I was trying to write this story, those directions were available. How crazy a co-inky-dink is that? Sometimes things just happen. Sometimes they also have deeper meaning.

Our Place in History:
Simone Williams, on the other hand, was never very good at history (she tends to be vague) and should not be writing about it.

The Shape of Things to Come:
What Peltier did to Jack was a compilation of how three different teachers treated me on separate occasions at Century High School. No one like Gil was there to set them straight. I feel much better now, thanks.

Legend of the Blackcats:
Wanda’s story of the panther her father saw on the darkest stretch of Highway 29 late one night on his way home from work was based on a story my father told me, about a panther that crossed his path in the dead of night.
Meanwhile, a question I’ve been asked: "Was that you in the cemetery with the gun?" The answer: "No. This is a story I made up." For the record: I made up the girl with the Hello Kitty panties too, but Carl and Tommy may have some real-life confessions to make.

The Tempest:
Why is it like that? I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

That’s a lie. Even now, I look at it and marvel. (I’m not bragging. I don’t really know how it worked out. Just lots of nights of struggle, rewriting, headaches, pacing, deleting — you get the idea.) But it does just what I needed it to do, and mostly with the Bard’s own verbage, though turned to uses he never intended. Does it work? It does for me.

Thursdays at The Perm of The Century:
I had in mind here a geographical impossibility for Highway 29: A set-up almost like the streets in Flomaton, Ala., in which a beauty shop and a barber shop actually could sit opposite one another close enough to spy upon one another; there isn’t such a place in the real Century where two such shops coexist, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen in MY Century. (And I also had in mind here a real barber by the last name of Sunday who worked in Flomaton and was closed on Thursday and Sunday.)

A wakening:
"The morning that Mary Anne Brown awoke for the first time in a world without her grandmother, the lantana were blooming by the doorstep in pods of yellow and pink." Me too. That is, they were blooming on my mother’s doorstep, too brilliant to stare at, bright as the sunrise on the morning after my Grandma Simmons died.

The Centennial Man:
The hubcap-covered home was based upon a real place. About 22 years ago or so, when I worked for The Tri-City Ledger, I once interviewed a man who owned that building and covered it in hubcaps. He was a heavy-set white fellow, and had a cat named "Hubcat." I don’t recall the man’s name, but somewhere in a box in the attic I believe I still have a clipping of the story and a photograph of the house. I will endeavor to locate it, scan it and post it here.

The Fourth Horseman:
Brother John Blackwell was called "Jack" all through his youth. During his time in Viet Nam, he was widely known to run a floating crap shoot/sometime poker game and went by the handle of "Blackjack." It was during a search-and-destroy mission in 1970 that he and Jesus found each other.

Constant Vigilance:
Inspired by seeing a car dragged out of Lake Caroline in Panama City.

It’s Always Midnight on Mars:
Inspired by an off-hand remark made at Charlie Coram’s Steak & Eggs one night (the story has been told on this blog before).

(Misc.):
1) Carl and Tommy and Jack (or even Simone) have things in common with me, but none of them are me. No more so than any of the other characters are.

2) For more than a decade, I have worked with high school student interns at The News Herald and encouraged other student writers. Among those who have written for the Education, Generation NeXt and Learning sections while I was the editor were students with strangely familiar names, like Kenna Hooper, Laura Wendt, Shelley Fite, Jillian Weise, Jacqueline Blackwell, David Peltier, Devin Destival, Brady Calhoun, Sarah Bailey, Cara Parell, Sarah McCauley, Lindsay Gilberti, Mae Humiston, Ashley Tynes, Melanie Moroney, Chris Landry, Emily Cramer, and lots, LOTS more.

3) Recently for my 41st birthday I spent some of the money I got in cards to purchase a copy of the movie Magnolia on DVD. I think it, as much as Thornton Wilder’s "Our Town," was an inspiration for Century — how things just happen, but seem to be inexplicably connected just the same. You’ll find references to "Our Town" throughout the text, as well as Shakespeare and the Bible, and you may find allusions to Magnolia as well — some you’d never recognize because "Magnolia" is also my Grandmother Simmons' name, and there are traces of her in this fiction in places that surprise even me. I hope she doesn’t mind too much.

This just in: Author's proof received ...

2005-08-31T19:47:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Quotable Century (Week 10)

2005-08-21T19:18:00.000-05:00

Even now, the sun's still out there, you know, it's just moved on to the other side. It will return.
-- from "The End of a Century"

**

It's always midnight on Mars.
-- from "It's Always Midnight on Mars, A Story By Jack Riley"

**

And the book, knowing no better, simply wrote down what I told it.
-- from "It's Always Midnight on Mars, A Story By Jack Riley"

**

(Quotations from the stories/chapters in the forthcoming literary novel, Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, by Tony Simmons)

Ch-ch-ch-changes (Turn and face the strange)

2005-08-18T22:14:00.000-05:00

If you haven't visited the actual blog page in a while, now might be a good time just for a visual. With the final proofs having changed hands prior to being transmitted to the printer, and with only a month still away from the conference, it seemed a good time for a face-lift on the site. I chose something that looked like it had some green life in it instead of the darkness that was there since the beginning. Maybe something's dawning after all.

Century PDF version 3 has been proofed, and only a handful of changes could be found this time. I'll share them here, though they'll make sense only in retrospect to most of you:

Page 16: In third graf, "It was Sunday, April 1," need to be sure there’s a space between April and 1

Page 105: seventh line from the bottom: "everybody?" should be left-justified, not indented.

Page 143: fourth line from bottom: "committal.):" should remove period before the parentheses.

Page 150: change "those that did nothing" to "those who did nothing."

Page 165: change web address to www.tonysimmons.info

...And that's that. From Bette's long list of questions and concerns and offerings and suggestions way back when in 2004, to three different PDF versions of the manuscript this year, plus a transitional version that I worked on with format-maestro Adam at Michael's place, now finally we're getting to the waiting weeks.

We've watched the ripples change their size but never leave the stream of warm impermanence.

The cover is almost done, the manuscript is done, the waiting is almost over. But the pain begins. The worst part is wondering how folks will respond.

I've had this conversation with a couple of people: Century, the book, is not simple. It isn't easy. It doesn't offer answers or paint rosy pictures. It's funny in places and sad in others. It's scary sometimes, disturbing sometimes. It's fantastic (as in "filled with fantasy") and realistic in various measures. Some will love it (and I've had readers who owe me no kindness tell me they do). Some will hate it (no one has said so yet, but a couple of agents and editors have "regretted to inform" me blah-blah-blah -- and I know the hate is coming).

As a writer (an artist?) I try to make people laugh by finding things that make me laugh, or make people cry by finding things that make me sad, or disturb people by finding things that disturb me, and then writing about them. No, that's not quite accurate. Sometimes, I just start telling stories and the stories lead me places that make me laugh or make me cry or make me uncomfortable, and then I have to be brave enough or stupid enough to tell the story anyway. I ask, Is that right? Is that how it happened? And sometimes it is right, and sometimes, I find out later that the characters lied and it really happened another way, because the story tells itself better and makes more sense another way. Balances better, or goes full-tilt off balance better, whichever feels right. So I go back and rewrite to make the stories work out another way.

Right now, I'm feeling off-balance about the whole thing, I guess. The story is told. I've re-read it a million times, and yes, River, I know you say there's something missing. Bette says it ends like you're "falling off the world," which she describes as a "wonderful" sensation. I happen to think you're both right. There is something missing. You are falling off the world. After the book is out and all the love and hate is flowing, I'll talk to you here about what I think is missing and why. There's a reason, you know. I didn't just make that stuff up by mistake as I went along.

Well, actually, most of it I did.
The secret to writing is rewriting. The secret to rewriting is never admitting it -- pretending you meant to do it that way all along.

I never have been good at keeping secrets.

Peace.

Welcome to a Quotable Century (Week 9)

2005-08-17T23:49:00.000-05:00

"... They say 'till death do us part,' but I really don't want to have to kill anybody."
-- from "Thursdays at The Perm of the Century"

**

One couldn't simply wait upon Satan, he had learned. One had to live, too, else the Devil already had won the day.
-- from "The Centennial Man"

**

(Quotations from stories/chapters in the forthcoming literary novel, Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, by Tony Simmons.)

Welcome to a Quotable Century (Week 8)

2005-08-09T19:07:00.000-05:00

(... Running late this week ... uh oh ...)

Giants fall, after all. So big, they fall harder than most.
-- from "Take Me to the River"

**

The universe forces love and death upon us, and we become its stories. ... "Tell me another one."
-- from "Take Me to the River"

(From the forthcoming literary novel, Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, by Tony Simmons.)

Welcome to a Quotable Century (Week 7)

2005-07-31T16:42:00.000-05:00

Plots are where characters get buried when they die.

**

Stories are not just stories.

**

All stories end the same way. Love and death.

**

-- all from "Take Me To The River"

(Quotes from the forthcoming literary novel, Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, by Tony Simmons.)

Invitation to a Century celebration...

2005-07-27T16:34:00.000-05:00

(Warning: Lots of links in this one, so don’t get lost chasing rabbits.)

I’ve been invited to “help bring Old 100 home” to Century by participating in a fund-raising event at the J.H. Jones Historic Park on Jefferson Avenue in the Historic District on Oct. 8, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

(“Old 100” is a 1919 Baldwin 2-6-2 Steam Engine locomotive that once ran the railroads for the Alger-Sullivan lumber lines in Century.)

The flier for the event (sent to me by my dad) declares that Model A Fords will be displayed and that Dixieland jazz, bluegrass and local children’s dance groups will perform. The Model A owners will be dressed in period costumes. “They take pride in showing their magnificent old cars. Hear them crank up and ‘Cadillac.’”

Expect barbecue plates, cold drinks and good clean fun. Bring lawn chairs, “and come live the good life by planning an early fall day in paradise.”

Okay, so the hyperbole is piling on. If you don’t think so, then prepare to roll up the ol’ pants legs with the next bit from the flier:

“Ray Fortner, author and famous storyteller, will be there with his “hot off the press” new novel The Shiny Badge.
“Tony Simmons, assistant managing editor of the Panama City News Herald and Century native, will also be signing his book, Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents. Come meet two living legends.”

(The bold part is theirs, from the flier, not mine.) The flier continues:

“Visit the Railcar Museum and see the scale model of how sawmill families lived. Visit the Old Post Office and tour the Alger-Sullivan Museum. There you will see a scale model of the Alger-Sullivan Mill at its peak of production, a display of medical instruments, and many more artifacts. You can buy books about the old mill and see photos of how the people lived in Century at the begin-ning of the 20th.”

For more information: call (850) 256-2029, 256-3983, or 256-2661; write the Alger-Sullivan Historical Society, P.O. Box 1002 Century, FL 32535; or visit 7510 Jefferson Ave. in the Historic District.

SOME NOTES: (1) I was there on the day they brought the half-rotted rail car to the land and set it via crane on the rails; lots of renovation work went into making it a museum. I'll scan and post old pictures soon to show you what it looked like way back in 1991 or 92. (2) Century post-Dennis photos are yet to come. Be patient, if you even remembered that I mentioned it last time. (3) There's a new book on the horizon and its name is Century. Welcome it when it dawns.

Welcome to a Quotable Century (Week 6) ...

2005-07-23T22:51:00.000-05:00

(...arriving early this week)

**

There were still giants in the earth. Today, he was one of them.
-- from "A Clean Sweep"
**

He preferred not to check the horse's teeth, preferred just to slide on the Trojan and ride.
-- from "A Clean Sweep"

**

(Quotations from chapters/stories in the forthcoming literary novel, Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, by Tony Simmons. Next post: Pictures of Century post-Dennis and an invitation to visit in October for a book signing and antique car show!)

Century after Dennis...

2005-07-17T20:53:00.000-05:00

There are three photos of a Century resident post-Dennis on the Pensacola News-Journal's website. This is the first of the photos. If this link doesn't work, try looking at the Dennis galleries; there's a Century selection. It's not much to see. They didn't try very hard when they went through.

The three pictures are of Century resident Abraham Griggs who "surveys the damage that remains in his backyard from Hurricane Ivan, just one day after Hurricane Dennis hit the Panhandle." But let's be honest. There were other places and persons they could have photographed and stories they could have told.
I'll share some soon...
Peace.

Welcome to a Quotable Century (Week 5)

2005-07-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

(Having skipped a week on account of Hurricane Dennis...)

**

I wanted to give the boy lead poisoning by lethal, hollow-point injection.
-- from "Number One with a Bullet"

**

See? Guns don't kill people -- ideas do.
-- from "Number One with a Bullet"

**

I looked at the bag, as I had been left holding it again.
-- from "Number One with a Bullet"

(Quotations from the forthcoming literary novel Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century by Tony Simmons.)

Welcome to Quotable Century (Week 4)

2005-07-03T17:32:00.000-05:00

When life hands you potatoes, mash them.
-- from "The Unkindest Cut"

**

There's home cooking, and then there's take-out. ... Sometimes, a man just wants a little drive-through.
-- from "The Unkindest Cut"

(Quotations from stories/chapters in the forthcoming literary novel, Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century by Tony Simmons.)

Welcome to a Quotable Century (Week 3)

2005-06-26T15:22:00.000-05:00

"I think, sometimes, for no reason at all, things just happen."
- from "The Great Physician"
**
"My panties can save lives and defeat evil-doers. I got me some super-powerful panties."
- from "Legend of the Blackcats"
**

(Quotations from stories/chapters of the forthcoming literary novel Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century by Tony Simmons.)

Welcome to Quotable Century (week 2)

2005-06-19T19:47:00.000-05:00

Going to any place else requires of me that I am leaving Century, but staying here does not in turn require that time stands still. It is simply a beginning, without which nothing else follows.
Stay with me here, as time and space intertwine.
- from "Our Place in History: Turning Back Time"
**
All stories end the same way.
What will be, will be.
- from "The Shape of Things to Come"
**
(Quotations from stories/chapters in Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, the forthcoming literary novel by Tony Simmons.)

Welcome to a Quotable Century ...

2005-06-12T09:17:00.000-05:00

He should have raised more cane when he was still able.
— from “Love and Loss at the Sign of the Pig”
**
Ask a woman who crochets about Chaos Theory. She’ll show you her tangled skeins.
— from “A Tangled Skein”
**
(We're taking some time off. See you next Sunday with more.)
Peace.

A dream within a dream...

2005-06-07T16:45:00.000-05:00

I awoke Monday morning from a dream in which I was sitting down to write at the piano. (I know. Odd.) When I was in elementary school, I took piano lessons from Mrs. Turner, the old woman who played piano for our church, Century First Baptist. We had just gotten to the point of using the sustain pedal when I stopped taking lessons for whatever reason. (Probably because I didn't want to any more.)

Anyway, this little dream I was having when I awoke Monday morning: I sat down at the piano to write. The piano had old-fashioned typewriter keys, round and brown and old, with raised edges like the manual typewriter my grandfather used when he worked for the Alger-Sullivan Lumber Co. in Century, the typewriter my father gave me many years ago and that now sits on top of the old cabinet in my living room.

I began to write and reached for the sustain pedal with my foot. I pressed the pedal as my fingers reached for keys and started to press, and I awoke from the dream.

What do you think that means?

Such a tease...

2005-06-04T22:10:00.000-05:00

The following is stuff I recently sent to Pottersville Press for consideration as inside dust jacket copy -- front flap teaser copy and back flap "About the Author" stuff that would run with a photo. It's very similar to stuff that's already on the Pottersville Web site, so you may have seen it already. Or maybe not, if you haven't gone there for a visit. But here you are, anyway.

(Inside front flap copy:)

You may not be from around here, but you know these folks just the same: the thrice-cursed mayor angling for reelection; the Piggly Wiggly meat cutter with the Vegan wife; the small-town Lolita around whom a universe revolves.

Century is a real place in northern Escambia County, Florida. A small town with a magical name and a unique spirit of its own, one of sawdust and Florida panthers. Like all small towns, it’s the place every kid promises he’ll leave at the first opportunity and never go back. But it’s also the kind of place that doesn’t let go of you that easily.

Thus we find ourselves in Century at the end of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st — the eve of celebrating its centennial in the first week of April 2001. There’s a parade to plan, and a murder to plot. There’s a marriage to save and one to let go, loves blossoming and lives rotting on the vine.

Caught in the midst are the regular folks of Century with their everyday world-shattering problems. Folks like Mary Anne, who crochets beside her grandmother’s deathbed and weaves new cosmologies; Gil, the high school science teacher whose visions of possible futures have fled, leaving him nothing but empty facts; Simone, whose columns for the local newspaper explore her love/hate relationship with where she’s from and whom she has become.

In the process, secrets will get out, and they tend to take on a life of their own — especially in small towns. Secrets are the seeds of revelations, revelations lead to transformative experiences, and that’s about as close to a whack upside the head by God’s holy two-by-four as you might find even in Century First Baptist Church.

This is Century at the dawning of a new century.

Welcome to it.

(Inside back flap copy with author photo)

Tony Simmons

Tony Simmons was born and raised in Century, Florida, a real town very much like — but absolutely not — the one in this book, his first published novel. He’s the assistant managing editor for news at The News Herald in Panama City, where he lives with his wife, Debra, and their children, Nathaniel and Jessica. He graduated from Century High School in 1982, and eventually received various college degrees. He has won numerous state and national awards for his newspaper work.

A Web log (or “blog”) about this novel — including insight about his inspirations and steps the work followed between the writing and publication process — is on the Web at www.tonysimmons.info.

He drinks too much coffee.

***

("Aha!" you say, "What's this? 'tonysimmons.info'?" But yes! I just put out the dough for a real honest to goofiness domain, which is currently being redirected to the "dawning of a new century" blog site. Soon, it will be a real Web site, promoting the "Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents" book alongside the upcoming Century book, with a link to the blog instead. Will wonders never cease! --- That was a rhetorical question.)

We met just north of Century...

2005-05-29T21:37:00.000-05:00

Her name was Loretta.
She wasn’t from around here — just passin’ through, you know? She had a taste for the high life, one might say, if one was likely to say such things about someone you didn’t even know and had only just met.
And as it turned out, she had a need for speed.
She was sleek, and just by looking at her you could tell she was of a different time. So what if she was older than me? She was well-traveled, experienced.
It was just a passing thing, after all. She came from Wisconsin, which doesn’t sound very interesting at first blush. Anyone could see that, if they let their eyes wander round back and down low.
Go ahead, Loretta wouldn’t mind. She had that covered.
I met Loretta at a BP station off U.S. 31 in Flomaton, Ala., last week. She was on her way to Speed Week in Charlotte, N.C., with her driver, Jeff Lewis.
Jeff had his pilot’s license, though he drove a bus instead, and he said he was a former drummer for the Coasters, the Drifters and the Platters. He also claimed to have an enormous collection of belt buckles, though you couldn’t prove it by me as I only saw the one he had on.
One thing I can vouch for: Jeff doesn’t meet strangers.
Jeff and Loretta were gassing up in Flomaton on their second annual cross-country road trip, cruising the highways and by-ways of America. Wisconsin seemed like a dream to them now, a bad dream from which Loretta had been saved a slow rotting death — ’cause here’s the thing:
Loretta is a bus. She’s the Miller Brewing Co.’s "High Life Cruiser," a mobile museum, a 1950s-era red-and-white guzzler painted with slogans like "The Champagne of Beers" along one side and with an image of Loretta, the "Girl in the Moon," swinging just above the Wisconsin plates.
A bus very much like her first hit the road in 1954 as part of a direct promotional tour. Several years later, the bus was retired. When the company got the idea of finding and reviving the bus, they located Loretta rusting out in the back 40 of a farm.
They gave her a new frame, new body — the ultimate makeover — and painted her namesake on her rear end — the ultimate modern tattoo.
"Loretta," said driver Jeff, is the real name of the original "Girl in the Moon" on the 1907 neck label icon and named for the granddaughter of the company’s founder. In 1948, Jeff said, they changed the young girl "to look more like Rita Hayworth."
That’s the Loretta you see on the current incarnation.
In 1968, Philip Morris Tobacco bought a controlling interest in the company and decided to get rid of the Girl in the Moon. And in 1997, a new company bought the controlling interest and said, "bring back the girl."
Jeff smiled a lot as he talked. He never offered to give me a beer, or even a coupon for a beer. Never asked me if I drank beer, or what beer I drank. Gotta respect that.
(Cue the Bela Lugosi voice: "I don’t drink ... beer.")

Peace.

***
(The preceding was my "Undercurrents" column in today's edition of The News Herald. Flomaton, Ala., for those not yet in the know, is Century, Florida's conjoined twin, with the L&N railroad tracks acting as a semipermeable membrane between the states.)

Back to what this was conceived as...

2005-05-27T21:52:00.000-05:00

This blog was supposed to give a glimpse of what the process of manuscript-to-finished-book entailed. Without going into some of the drama of personal life, there's quite a bit of drama involved in the mechanics of publishing, and I'm not even on the inside edge of the publishing house.

For some time now, Michael Lister has been building a new Web presence for Pottersville Press, trying out various covers for books in the line and uploading information about authors and upcoming conferences. Meanwhile, my novel has been converted to a PDF file for proofing, a sort of electronic galley, that I went over with a fine-tooth electronic comb and sent back a list of "fixes" I spotted. The next post will be a foreshortened version of that seven-page (often redundant) list of mostly formatting problems created when the manuscript was converted for the PDF, apparently.

After that, I'll be posting what may be an early version of the inside cover flap copy -- the "teaser" stuff you might read in the dust jacket, as well as the info you might find under the author's photo on the inside back flap of the dust jacket. And I've found a photo that we might be using on the back cover. It's from a parade in Century and involves a man dressed as a giant pig in a white grocer's suit. Look for it. Soon.

Nate & Jessi at the Post Office Museum

2005-04-07T10:58:00.000-05:00

Watertower of a New Century

2005-04-07T10:56:00.000-05:00

Perched on the Post Office Porch

2005-03-30T17:37:00.000-06:00

(formerly) Century High School

2005-03-30T17:35:00.000-06:00

The Big Empty

2005-03-30T17:31:00.000-06:00

Nathan and Terry Jones at SunDog

2005-03-26T00:15:00.000-06:00

What a way to start Spring Break!

2005-03-25T23:33:00.000-06:00

Nathan and I drove to Seaside this evening to hear Terry Jones (of Monty Python) discuss -- of all things -- Chaucer. He has a new book out, co-written with a UWF professor, called Who Murdered Chaucer? Now, you'd expect this to be a pythonesque take on the Canterbury Tales, maybe, but no. It was most scholarly, in fact, punctuated by his particular brand of humor and the occasional funny old woman's voice. (Help! Help! I'm being opressed!) ANyway, we were right up front, could've kicked him in the shins if we'd wanted, but we didn't want to, and got to do silly stuff like shake his hand and hold the door for him and say hullo and talk about the why the ground had puddles on it and so forth as we walked with him, his escort and a UWF professor after the talk to the rear entrance of SunDog books where he was signing. I took several pictures, bought Nate a copy of Terry Jones' War on the War on Terror for his Easter present (we buy easter presents in our house -- it's something his mother started), which Jones happily signed "For Nathan, Hi! Terry Jones," and then I got him to sign my autograph book. We had pictures made with him, too. (Nate's will follow.) All in all, a way cool way to start Spring Break. Tomorrow, we're off to Century for the Easter weekend. There will be pictures from there as well. Heads up. And Happy Easter.

At SunDog Books with Terry Jones

2005-03-25T23:32:00.000-06:00

End of a long dry spell?

2005-03-15T13:18:00.000-06:00

Not really. Just a note to say hello to those who remember that this blog is still out here. Seems like I forgot it too. (Ha! You should be so lucky.)

Meanwhile, I'll be talking to members of the Panama City Writers Association tonight at the St. Andrews Civic Club, 6:30 p.m., reading a few columns from the book, and answering lots of questions, I'm sure. I've spoken to the club before, in my capacity as the features editor for The News Herald. They're a sharp group of folks. I'll be selling books as well. I think I'll probably sell out of the last box we have here at the office, which I hope will mean that Nicole will order more.

No news on the Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century front, however. I've recently sent a revised copy to River Jordan, she who travels to cities of sin and meets Mitch Albom (a story she has yet to relate on her blog), though she dropped the name in a phone conversation. But the writing continues.

I'm deep in a revision of my lifetime project, Caliban, which is a Southern-occult-Christian-police-thriller-ghost-multigenerational-whatever of a novel. Lynn and Carole have read a version of it that was a nonlinear mess. This version has learned from earlier mistakes and ten years of growth as a writer (and human being). And I've started a new project that's super-secret. And I've written a script for a short film that Nathan's going to star in and we're going to shoot on Spring Break, edit this summer, burn onto DVD and enter into fall film festivals. And in between, there's been 40-plus hours of work each and every week.

So, totally not sitting around doing nothing. It's a busy time.
Peace.

Uncle Eddie and Me at the Library

2005-02-07T22:05:00.000-06:00

At the Library: Thanks and apologies

2005-02-07T21:56:00.000-06:00

("Undercurrents" column from The News Herald, Sunday, January 30, 2005)

Friends of the Library had me out last week to celebrate my book, Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents, which meant I had to dress appropriately, speak coherently and explain myself — or at least the origins of the book.

Anticipation of a public spectacle made me feel like a monkey at the zoo — a little stupid, a little trapped. That’s no one’s fault but my own: Public speaking’s not my strength, as I’ve said before. It’s even in the book. (See page 3, 8 and 52.)

But library director George Vickery gave a gracious introduction, as did library “friend” Norma Hubbard. They provided refreshments and a table for signing, and the chairs slowly filled with amiable folks, all of which combined for an atmosphere of comfort.

I read a “School Daze” column about my son exploring CD-ROMs in the children’s room of the library; a “Catch a Rave” piece about seeking “redemption” in a beach arcade; a column about the ephemera used to mark our places in books, thus marking the eras of our lives; and a “Quest for the Holy Grind” in which I assumed the persona of a caffeine-addled Poe.

The big thrill of the evening, for all the goodwill the audience bestowed, actually came upon entering the library: My dad, uncle and aunt had driven from Escambia County to surprise me. I had no idea they’d be there for my first official book-related “event.”

My uncle promised not to tell embarrassing stories about my childhood. Then, just before the reading, a man came by and asked if it was true I am from Century, Fla. He said he had left Century 35 years ago, never to return. He said an “Eddie” Simmons had coached him in football and wondered if I was related.

“Eddie Simmons is sitting on the back row,” I said, and pointed out my uncle.

As the evening progressed, the group laughed in the right places, asked good questions, and both my dad and uncle restrained their storytelling inclinations.

However, Uncle Eddie did share with the fellow Centurion a tale about me tossing pebbles at a monkey in a Pensacola-area zoo when I was 3 or 4; I have heard the story, but have no memory of the act. As he has no cause to fabricate such a fable and there was no apparent moral to the story, I assume it must be true.

If so, let me offer late apologies to the monkey, and to my uncle — and the monkey’s uncle, if that isn’t being redundant.

Peace.

Books Alive coming up

2005-02-07T13:05:00.000-06:00

Just a reminder to those who can make it that Books Alive is Saturday, Feb. 12. Everything you need to know about it is at the link, and most of the author listings have neato-keen links to their own sites or books. I'll be a moderator for Jeff Klinkenberg, a writer for the St. Pete Times, whose "Real Florida" columns and features have been collected as a book. You can see his work here. Other than that, I'm not directly involved. (If you saw Friday's "Entertainer" cover, then you know that I'm the correct answer to the question "Which of these does not belong?" as all the other photos are featured authors who will be making presentations. Yes, I alone among the local hacks got special treatment.) I'll be in the main room hoping to sell some books and see some friends, and probably spending money. Come see me. As an added incentive, my family will be there too. Come see them.
Peace.

A Proposed Cover for "Century" novel...

2005-01-27T12:45:00.000-06:00

Dazed signing planned...

2005-01-17T14:18:00.000-06:00

Thursday, Jan. 20, 4 to 6 p.m., at the Bay County Public Library in the Community Room, 25 W. Government St., downtown Panama City. (Note: Library doors close at 5 p.m.) Refreshments will be served. I'll be a guest of The Friends of the Library. We'll mingle, I'll read, we'll tell stories, I'll talk about newspaper work, I'll sell books and sign. The book is Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents.

Books are $18.95 plus tax
and are available from all major online booksellers as well as at The News Herald, 501 W. 11th St.

Tell your friends and neighbors. I'd like to fill the community room and run out of refreshments. And books.

Nice call yesterday...

2005-01-07T16:31:00.000-06:00

...from River Jordan, Panama City native, now Tennessean, author of The Gin Girl (buy it, you'll like it), who had nice things to say about Welcome to the Dawning of a New Century, which she has finally been able to read. Thank you, River.

Many of her suggestions sounded similar to ones made last year by Bette Powell and instituted by yours truly, which resulted in a new "flow" of the stories/chapters/Dispatch segments and an increased presence of characters crossing over into each other's stories.

Some of her suggestions, for the record (as I recall them, anyway): She'd like to see more of The Centennial Man, maybe as a narrator of other people's stories, maybe earlier in the book; the changes of point of view and style from story to story (chapter-to-chapter?) were confusing and jarring, so making the narrator more clear from the beginning of each new tale would be helpful; not starting out with a newspaper column (already changed in the current construction); she's divided on the "Tempest" story and its blatant, possibly-confusing Shakespeare riff -- likes it, turned off by it, thinks an editor would either love it and embrace it or hate it and demand a rewrite -- so she can't decide what to do about it.

She had many good things to say about the residents of Century, or the characters if you will, and gave a detailed positive review of the work that I would share if doing so didn't verge on publicly tooting my own horn, which we all know should be done in private.

She wants more, which is probably a good sign. It's always best to leave'em wantin' more, right?

More shameless self-promotion...

2004-12-22T09:46:00.000-06:00

Books Alive is coming up and I've managed to get listed on the Web site. This link will take you directly to my little corner of their pocket universe. There's other nice stuff on there too about good people you're liable to know, like Michael Lister and Janis Owens and Sammie Garnett, and others too numerous to list. Please explore. And if I don't get back online before then: Have a Merry Christmas.
Peace.

Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents...

2004-12-07T10:57:00.000-06:00

...is now listed at Books A Million.com as this:

"Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents
Paperback)
by Tony Simmons
Available: Print-on-demand title. Ships within 5-15 days.
Our Price: $20.85
Millionaire's Club Price: $18.77
Members Save $2.08 ! (10%)"

and it's listed at Barnes and Noble.com with a cover photo as well and the follwing information:
"B&N Price: $18.95
Member Price: $18.00
Available for Pre-Order
This item will be available on December 28."

Still not showing up at Amazon.

A recent Undercurrents Column about Century:

2004-12-07T10:37:00.000-06:00

(The following appeared as my "Undercurrents" column in The News Herald on Nov. 28, 2004. It ran with a photo contributed by the youth minister of Northside Baptist Church.)

Home is where the heart is

He had sat on the very same front porch and eaten lunch from a paper plate. He had worked in the same yard, toting limbs, cutting grass, digging roots, raking leaves. He had played among the monster azaleas.

He would never have expected to stand in a city nearly 120 miles away and see pictures of other people sitting on that same porch and eating their lunches, working in that yard, toting limbs and raking leaves, moving among the stunted azaleas.

But there he was, and there were the pictures. There was the house, worse for wear and the passage of years, leaning like an old woman, its windows dark, its paint wrinkled and peeling. And there were the other people with their lunches, and limbs and leaves. There they sat on the porch where he had sat so many times and in different seasons.

The house still stands, though parts of it stand straighter than others, off Hecker Road in Century. It was his grandmother’s house, and after her death last year it was occupied for a time by his father. It now belongs to the Escambia County School Board, and it stands between Century Elementary and the former campus of Century High School. The school district leased the high school building to a local church and recently added the old house to the lease.

When Ivan did his worst to flatten Century, the winds knocked over magnolia, pine and pecan trees in Grandma’s yard (because, no matter who holds the lease, it will always be Grandma’s to him). The church asked for help cleaning up debris, and a youth group at a Panama City church responded.

A couple of weeks later, and quite by chance, the man paused in a hallway of that church, North-side Baptist, and looked at photographs tacked to a bulletin board. Here he found a crowd of people caring for a stranger’s house, a house he never had expected to see under these circumstances — one he had anticipated seeing only from a distance, if ever again at all.

In fact, he had expected the district to bulldoze the place, certainly not to allow a church to use it to house visiting missionaries and such-like. He thought of how he missed that front porch, and those days of play and work, and the old woman who had lived there, who always had been an old woman in his memory.

And he wondered if the people in the photos had any idea how their afternoon of sweat could have rekindled a lifetime of memory and years yet to come of appreciation for the work they did for strangers.

And he thought, perhaps, Grandma would be pleased.

Peace.

Dazed and Raving in the Undercurrents...

2004-11-27T13:03:00.000-06:00

...is now available for order through iUniverse.com. It is now listed on the website's bookstore. If I copied the following button correctly, then this should redirect you to the place:

http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-33694-9

I plan to have a debut party as soon as books are in hand here. Look for news in The News Herald as well as on this blog.

Peace.

Remarks at the Writers' Conference 2004

2004-11-21T20:37:00.000-06:00

(So here are some of the things we talked about at the recent Gulf Coast Writers' Conference, which took place in a lecture hall of the Language Arts building at Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City... My topic was supposed to be "Idea, Instinct and Interaction." I have inserted some of the audience interactions in italics.)

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD AND THE WORD WAS GOD.

Let me tell you something. Being up here is not what I’m about. I’m the guy who sits alone in a room and writes. I’m the guy who’s most comfortable with some music, some tea, and some words on paper.

But they tell me this is part of the gig — standing up, talking about myself and the craft, and eventually signing books, if I’m lucky enough to do that. I’m divided about that. Writers long to be recognized, but are best known by the thing they do when they’re all alone. They want to be loved for what they create — and yet, the creation is only perfected when the writer is invisible, when the experience is one of the reader and the words.

When the writer gets too clever, or too beautiful in his work, it takes the reader outside of the experience. Maybe the reader says, “What a wonderful turn of phrase,” or, “What a beautiful passage that was.” That writer has been too clever, has drawn the reader out of the work — has failed.

We’ll get back to that idea in the end of this talk — it’s a writer’s trick called circular construction.

SHOW AND TELL

I’ve brought a few things to share with you. One, is the homemade binding of my novel project — thank my wife for this.
Second is the homemade binding of my column collection, which was inspired by the first.
Third is my Bartlett’s Famous Quotations. I love this book.
And fourth, Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water, Reflections on Faith and Art.
These were sort of instinctual choices, and I hope they bear out. Stick with me here, because they’ve asked me to talk about my work process, which Michael has labeled IDEA, INSTINCT, and INTERACTION.

One thing this novel project has taught me, and which I always knew but seldom let myself believe or act upon, is to follow my instincts. Let me give you an illustration from the columns.

INSTINCTS: USE’EM OR LOSE’EM
(and at this point I turned to a column in the collection and read. I will post a link to the column in the News Herald archive as part of this entry's comments.)

INSTINCT MEANS:
Following where the story leads

The high concept for CENTURY was to do a series of short stories that have interwoven characters and subplots. The hero of story One would be a minor character in story Three, for instance. Point of View and style would vary wildly. Each story would be able to stand alone, but taken as a whole would form a loose tapestry — something like Ray Bradbury’s classic Martian Chronicles.

That plan altered as the stories grew more complex. The pieces became more integral to one another, and some of them made no sense without having read others first.

But all of it was leading up to some catastrophe toward the end of the collection — a terrible incident based upon a real thing from my experience — when a horse ran loose through the crowd at a Sawmill Day celebration in Century and trampled several people. I don’t think that’s telling too much — just enough to let you know where I was going with the chapter called ...

THE FOURTH HORSEMAN

I knew what it was supposed to do, but had no idea who my narrator was, what POV, what the plot was beyond a single random and inexplicable incident. So I sat down with my keyboard and described the celebration, the parade, and was no closer to making it a story.

So I looked into the magic book for inspiration ... looking up the title, THE FOURTH HORSEMAN, to see exactly how it was used in the Bible. And here’s what I found ... Nothing. But a pale horseman, that I found, and it led me to read more from Revelations.

And that led me to my main character, his thought patterns, how he saw the world. And that led me to this — just a taste. I promise not to read too much...

(And here I read a few pages of The Fourth Horseman, leading up to the beginning of the parade...)

INTERACTION

All over the newspaper are ways you can interact with us. Writers, editors, page designers. Our names and phone numbers and e-mail addresses are at the tops of stories, the tops of pages. We want to hear from readers. Even those who disagree with how we did something. It validates the work.

Early on, I became so caught up in the process that I took notes on each version of stories, kept copies of them as they evolved rather than saving over them all the time. And I decided to begin blogging about the process itself. Knowing at some point that it would validate the work.

If you want more of that stuff, including emails to various writers I know, questions raised by early readers of the manuscript, plans for potential publication, plans that fell through, and so forth, you can visit the blog at http://dawningofanewcentury.blogspot.com

Why would I want to expose myself like that? Well, indulge me for a moment. It’s like God leaving us a note to us inside our gene map — and I don’t mean that to sound as conceited as it came out. If you ever read Cosmos by Carl Sagan, you might recall the code discovered billions of decimal points into pi; the universe's way of saying, "I'm here." Or, there's a grand design. What I mean is this:

Why do we write? Because we can’t NOT write. It’s not for money or fame, it’s because we’d go mad if we didn’t get the words out. Writing, for those of us in this room, is probably a mental illness from which we hope never to be cured.

But that leads to another idea: Can you be a writer if no one reads your work?

(At which point someone interrupted with "Is that like the tree falling in the forest?" not knowing that what I had written was...)

I think that’s kind of like the tree falling in the forest. Not only does no one hear the tree, but no one cares. No one can marvel, disagree, suggest differences, conceive alternatives. Communicate.

MADELINE L’ENGEL in her book on writing and spirituality, Walking on Water, says Art is Communication, and "if there is no communication, (then) it is as though the work had been still-born.”

That creates in us the paradox of creating art — in this case, literature. That’s because the artist is not the point of the work. The work is the point of the work.

(A member of audience disagreed. She said her journal-writing is still writing, and it is not meant to be read by anyone. I agreed with her that it was writing. It just was not art. When she was gone and someone else found it and read it and was moved by it, then it would be recognized as art.)

E.M. Forster said that “all literature tends toward a condition of anonymity” — that it is “always tugging in that direction, saying in effect that ‘I – not the author – really exist.’”

Think of those moments when we see God in Nature — when something so beautiful and sublime presents itself and says “There is a God, and only God could have made this.”

Only then we see the signature of the creator, and marvel. Otherwise, we see only the creation, not the invisible creator.

And though the creator longs to be loved and appreciated for what he has wrought, the creation is only perfected by making him seem unnecessary — that it would have existed, in fact must have existed, quite by itself and without outside influence.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD.

Coming Soon: Dazed and Raving...

2004-10-28T13:39:00.000-05:00

...in the Undercurrents

I have finally gotten a go-ahead to produce a collection of my newspaper columns. That is, I think I made enough of a nuisance of myself that the Powers-That-Be pointed me toward the street and said, "Go forth and do what thou wilt. Just don't embarrass us." So that's why I've been kind of absent for a week or two.

The collection is full of Century stuff, including some that have not appeared as entries here. The cover art I'm submitting is a John Russo cartoon of me on a scooter; it ran with a "Bay Book" column I wrote for the Local/State section of The News Herald in 2001. Instead of an author photo on the back cover, I'm submitting a color portrait of me that John drew a couple of years ago.

I've spent the last couple of weeks adding columns from 2004 (this project began in early 2003) as well as updating my info on various publishing alternatives, narrowing the field, and making a Hail Mary -- not really. As I'm up-fronting the funds to do this, and can't afford a printing house's requirements (i.e., thousands of dollars to fill my garage with boxes of books that may not sell), I chose to use iUniverse.com, a print-on-demand publisher that will list the work with Barnes & Noble.com, Amazon.com, and put two copies in the hands of Ingram so that it is shown as "in stock," rather than "backorder only" and can be purchased by bookstores. (That's the idea, anyway.) If all goes well, I might have it out by Christmas, but January is more likely.

Not that I have any misconceptions about the appeal of this thing. I suspect it will be widely loved by those in my immediate family, a few friends, and maybe a handful of regular readers who find it a "novel" item. (I dream that it will strike a chord with someone who will give me billions to write some more stuff. Hey, a guy can dream, right?) Trusth is, I'll have trouble getting it into Books-a-Million because of their distribution requirements, but I plan to have a few signing parties around the area and sell it direct. We'll see. I'll keep those of you out there listening in updated.

Wish me luck.
Peace.
Tony

Schedule for the conference

2004-10-27T13:44:00.000-05:00

Here's a copy of an email from Dottie Hall, writing for Michael Lister:

We're looking forward to this weekend. We've got a great conference in store for you.

Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m.(SDT) with the first session to begin at 9:00. (The tentative schedule is below). All sessions will take place in LL38 (the lecture hall). The editor appointments will take place in the student lab.

Come to the front entrance of the Language Arts Building at Gulf Coast Community College.

Please e-mail me back with your lunch selection: Your choice is chicken or chicken--fried or baked.

For those of you with editor appointments, they will take place during the afternoon following the luncheon. You'll receive your time slot when you sign in.

Don't forget the conference bookstore. It will have the latest and best books on writing and publishing.

... Please tell all the writers you know. They can still join us, and they won't want to miss out on such inspiring and practical presentations as the ones we've lined up this year.

8:30 a.m. Registration / Welcome

9 a.m. Art, Craft, and Obsession: Some Thoughts on Writing Michael Lister

10 a.m. Do it and Die: Thirteen Deadly Mistakes First-Time Novelists Make Dirk Wyle

11 a.m. Whose Story is It?: P.O.V. - The writer's Critical First Choice Lynn Wallace

12 p.m. Lunch Work in Progress Luncheon: Elements of Writing and getting Published Group Discussion

1:30 p.m. Privileged Information: Narrative Techniques You Need to Know Terry Lewis

2:30 p.m. Process: Idea, Instinct, and Interaction Tony Simmons

3:30 p.m. Keeping it Real: Realism and Regionalism in Writing Michael Lister, Lynn Wallace, Terry Lewis, Benjamin M. LeRoy, Tony Simmons, Dirk Wyle

4:30 p.m. Pitfalls to Publishing: Today's Publishing options for Writers Lee & Juanita Raymond

(See the previous posting for prices, etc.)

This just in:

2004-10-19T13:42:00.000-05:00

The 5th Annual Gulf Coast Writers and Storytellers Conference
Saturday, October 30, 2004 (8:30 - 6:00 CDT)

SPEAKERS INCLUDE: Benjamin M. LeRoy, executive editor of Bleak House Books. In both conference sessions and individual editor appointments, he will be revealing what editors are looking for and what it takes to be successfully published. Other presenters include judge and novelist Terry Lewis; poet, novelist and writing professor, Lynn Wallace; fiction writer and newspaper columnist, Tony Simmons; novelist, Dirk Wyle; novelist and reporter, S. V. Date; reporter Tim Croft; Florida Historian and true-crime writer Stuart McIver; novelist, columnist, and screenwriter, Michael Lister.
This exciting conference will cover all elements of the writing craft, and will host the September meeting of the Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. Please join us to learn about crafting the perfect crime and to network with established writers. We’re also offering manuscript and script evaluations by agents, editors, published authors, and professional screenwriters.
LOCATION: Language Arts Department of Gulf Coast Community College (5230 W. Hwy 98, Panama City, FL).
Our experience has been that each participant in past conferences has added great dimension and diversity to the experience, so please see yourself not only as a participant, but as a valued contributor to this celebration of craft and artistic endeavor.
Registration Form
Name
Address
Telephone E-mail
Rates
$35.00 if postmarked on or before October 10th
$45.00 if postmarked after October 10th
$25.00 for a manuscript critique (send 25 pages no later than 10-10-04)
$25.00 for editor appointment with Benjamin M. LeRoy
$20.00 for the Mystery Writers Luncheon
$60.00 for Novel Writing Contest (Deadline is 10-10-04 / Winner will be offered contract from Pottersville Press)
For more information call Michael Lister @ 850-639-4848 or e-mail michaellister@mchsi.com. Gulf Coast Community College is located at 5230 W. Hwy. 98 in Panama City, FL.

Just Added: Novel Writing Contest Winner will be Published in 2005.
Learn the Craft.
Get Published!

Trying to post a link to the "Century" Yahoo group

2004-10-15T10:18:00.000-05:00

alt="Click here to join DawningOfANewCentury">

Click to join DawningOfANewCentury

Look out, it’s autumn in Florida...

2004-10-11T15:55:00.000-05:00

There was a crispness in the air on Friday morning — a reminder that this is, in fact, autumn.

Not that you’d know it by the 85-degree afternoons that make the season seem more like Summer: Part II — The Revenge of the Lovebugs.

That’s because Northwest Florida is unlike places to the north where trees change colors, hillsides turn a fiery red and yellow, and frost can appear on cold October mornings. Places where you bundle up to go for walks and can’t get your kids’ Halloween costumes on over all the layers of coats.

Here, autumn is as much about mosquitoes as the summer months are. People go to football games in shorts and flip-flops. You’re more likely to have to cut your grass than to rake fallen leaves.

Here, autumn is when going to the beach is fun again — the water’s warm, the seaweed and algae have disappeared, the sun still is hot. The summer tourists have gone away and the winter snowbirds haven’t yet arrived.

And yet … .

The autumn has a different spirit than that of summertime, a different attitude, even before the days grow noticeably shorter than the nights. There’s a sense of clocks winding down, of calendars growing thin, of minds turned back upon times long passed away.

That brings me, in my roundabout manner, to a virtual tour of the Florida Panhandle at the "Film North Florida" Web site.

The photos reveal glimpses of little communities such as Chumuckla, Jay, McDavid and Walnut Hill (and my hometown, Century) — places from my past, when days were brighter and calendars thicker and clocks wound tight.

There are more well-known places to visit there as well, such as Pensacola, Gulf Breeze and Navarre. There are even forays into Alabama, including Brewton, Mobile and Flomaton.

This is where autumn takes me, time traveling to other places and times, to memories of crisp evenings and warm afternoons, to small towns and familiar faces.

Where does it take you?

Peace.

***
(The preceding originally appeared in print on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2004, in slightly different form as my weekly "Undercurrents" column for The News Herald.)

This is just a test...

2004-10-11T08:26:00.000-05:00

...to see if I've set up my Yahoo Groups notification email correctly. We'll see.

Want to see some pictures?

2004-10-06T14:12:00.000-05:00

Then check out Film Florida for images taken all over the Century area -- Flomaton's in there, and Walnut Hill, and Brewton, and McDavid and all sorts of places around the area.
Peace.

The perils of writing "faction"

2004-09-28T09:32:00.000-05:00

...Sometimes the facts get in the way of a good story.

Take, for example, the case of author Tom Franklin, who has a psychotic dislike for armadillos — so much so that he pledged to include at least one armadillo death in each of his books.

He was frustrated in the writing of a novel set in 19 th century Alabama, however, by the fact that armadillos had not yet migrated to the Heart of Dixie in that era. Likewise, a coyote scene had to be rewritten to feature a pack of wild dogs instead.

Franklin was one of the featured authors at Books Alive, the annual festival of writers and readers at Gulf Coast Community College on Feb. 7, 2004. It’s a fund-raising event for the Bay County Public Library, and it attracts hundreds of people from the Panhandle to meet, listen to, pick the minds of, and buy autographed books from some of the best writers out there.

Mark Winegardner, recently selected to continue Mario Puzo’s Godfather saga, was the keynote speaker. Other breakout sessions featured Brad Strickland (Star Fleet Academy and other young adult novels); Franklin’s wife, the poet Beth Ann Fennelly; Panama City native (and Nashville resident) River Jordan; and several others. Numerous local writers also filled the conference hall, which had been converted into a bookstore.

But back to truth and consequences:

Franklin was paired with Tom Piazza in an early-morning session in which they compared and contrasted their approaches to fictionalizing real life events.

In Franklin’s case (Hell in the Breech), it was the story of an outlaw family brought to vigilante justice; in Piazza’s case (My Cold War), it was re-examining his experience growing up in the nuclear shadow of the early 1960s — "duck and cover" drills in the elementary school, memories of his mother’s reaction to the news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, images of the soulless ranch houses of the suburbs and their bone-thin trees.

Franklin’s armadillo fixation was hilarious, and his run-in with the descendant of one of his fictionalized characters was a lesson for all writers — "I’d change the names, if I had it to do over," he said.

But perhaps the canniest of comments came from Piazza, who, by the way, won a Grammy last Sunday for liner notes he wrote for a jazz CD last year. (Yes, they give Grammies for liner notes).

Asked by a member of the audience if writer’s work had revealed the truth behind the old axiom that "there’s a book in the life of every person," Piazza responded:

"Yes, there probably is a book in every person — but it will probably take somebody else to write it."

And if you do, change the names.

Peace.

***
(This column originally appeared as my weekly "Undercurrents" column in The News Herald, Sunday, February 15, 2004. It seemed appropriate to the subject of writing about my hometown in a fictional fashion.)

Measuring the human debris in Ivan’s wake...

2004-09-27T11:43:00.000-05:00

CENTURY -

You can go home again — but in the wake of Hurricane Ivan, you might not recognize it.
In the land of my roots, there are forests of broken trees, acres of pines snapped or twisted off at 10 or 15 feet. Houses and mobile homes bisected by centuries-old oaks. Tin roofs peeled back. Gravestones disturbed. Cars smashed by a collapsed garage roof or metal shed. A city park, no longer shaded, but rather decimated by the pines dropped all across it.
We made a 5½-hour trek via detours through Alabama to reach northern Escambia County last weekend. Many miles of road were reduced to one dangerous lane, skipping around fallen trees that protruded into the roadway. A plague of love bugs swarmed.
We carried generators and ice, gasoline and nonperishable food. We had family in the area with whom we had managed only spotty communication since Ivan had crushed the earth underfoot.
It’s a world with no power or phones, no ice or clean water. People were living off of Meals Ready to Eat and ice supplied by the National Guard. Those who didn’t have a generator lay in their sweat at night and listened jealously to the humming sounds carrying through the night from elsewhere in the neighborhood.
And then there was no gas to run the generators. Tempers flared. People lost hope. Cars and trucks of every description were abandoned on highway shoulders, where they had run out of gas while driving in search of gas.
"We heard they had gas here," said a woman who pulled up to a Guard supply post in an SUV. She was downcast when she learned the gas was for emergency vehicles only.
The stories were frightening. My dad rode out Fredrick, but he said the next time a hurricane came within a hundred miles, he would be headed a thousand miles in the other direction. Never again, he said, looking out his window at massive magnolias that fell just inches from his house. Never.
My uncle described seeing his car levitate in the back yard, then settle back into place.
And there were strange blessings: More than once, we saw tiny wooden houses unscathed in the center of a ring of gigantic fallen oak or pecan trees, any one of which would have destroyed the home.
And others: Hummingbirds swarming around a feeder on Saturday afternoon; spiced apple dessert in a chemically heated MRE; the hug of a school friend’s mother when she recognized me after 20 years.
You can go home again. Some things never change.
Peace.

*******

(This column originally appeared Sunday, Sept. 26, 2004, as my weekly "Undercurrents" column in The News Herald, Panama City, FL.)

People get together...

2004-09-24T11:58:00.000-05:00

...and good things can result.

We survived Hurricane Ivan and traveled to Escambia County to help my folks and other family members last weekend. Look here soon for my column about that trip, which will bear a Century dateline. (I won't post it here until it has been published in the paper.)

Upon our return, Michael contacted me about meeting with him and Lynn to talk about a publishing effort. We sat at TGI Fridays (I had the Jack Daniels bacon burger) and talked about contracts, print-on-demand and other options. We settled upon Pottersville Press publishing both of our books (I have not read Lynn's -- it hasn't been proferred to me yet), and we talked about group signings, readings and other promotions.

I have in mind a debut party for Century at the Century High School cafeteria, or maybe at the Alger-Sullivan museum.
I'll post more here about the discussion and plans soon.
Peace.

Imagine my embarrassment...

2004-09-08T08:17:00.000-05:00

...when, watching television this weekend, I see part of the movie, The Runaway Bride, starring Julia Roberts, and see that the name of the hair salon in her quaint little town is none other than "Curl Up & Dye." I have to go back and change that part of the manuscript now.

I saw the movie on video when it first came out. I've heard that there's a common memory problem in which people see something or hear something and years later come up with the same thing and think they've invented it. I never meant to use something from another source like that. I could have, upon seeing the movie again, claimed to have named the salon thusly as an homage to the movie, but please. It was nothing of the sort.

Somewhere in trying to come up with a name for the salon in Century, that name popped up in my brain and I used it. I thought it was damn clever. It was clever, but it wasn't my original thought. Now I'll have to be even more clever and rename the salon. All I can say for sure is that it won't become "Century Beauty Shop."

And the tribulations continue...

Much has happened...

2004-08-29T21:58:00.000-05:00

...But nothing has changed.

Sorry for the long gap between posts. Kind of got knocked off-balance by things at the day-job and by bad news from an agent to whom I had sent the manuscript. I am honoring her wishes not to have her letters to me excerpted here, or her name used in the blog. She seemed to have liked the stories, and the characters of Wally and Kenny Earl in particular, but there was "something" she couldn't put her finger on, and she said the editors with whom she works would not know what to do with the book.

So now...what? I'm still awaiting reviews/responses from some of my writer acquaintances, and I've nudged Michael about moving forward with a small, regional publication. I hope that comes to pass, or at least begins to get some forward momentum, because otherwise I'm gonna lose it. Depression is a very real thing, I can tell you.

In days to come I'll fill in more of the empty days and hours and minutes since the last post -- emails and so forth, and maybe some more background on the book. Till next time.

Peace.

Unrelated: Michael has quoted me...

2004-08-01T21:33:00.000-05:00

...on his Web site, from a review I did for his new book. Here's the excerpt:
"Lister writes with confidence and an eye for detail, having been a prison chaplain himself. The characters speak in real voices and address the hardships of prison -- racism, sexual assault, violence. Lister's Jordan is a spiritual man in a little piece of hell on earth, and the narrative doesn't flinch from portraying it as such. Moreover, the storyline is based on an actual event where Lister served. That makes Blood of the Lamb a troubling what-if of a whodunit."
Tony Simmons
The Panama City News Herald