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Cameron Castle || Whidbey Writes Sept. 2015

Sept. 2, 2015

Congratulations to Cameron Castle, our Whidbey Writes featured writer for September. We’re pleased to be able to share his short story with you. Whidbey Writes is a collaboration between the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts (NILA) and Whidbey Life Magazine (WLM). Its purpose is to give WLM readers an opportunity to enjoy short fiction and poetry by writers who have a connection to Whidbey Island.

We look forward to publishing the original work of selected winners at the beginning of each month as part of Whidbey Writes. NILA and WLM congratulates Cameron and thanks volunteer editors Heather Anderson, Mureall Hebert and Chris Spencer who review submissions on solstices and equinoxes and pass on the work they enjoy most to Whidbey Life Magazine for publication online and in print.

To find out more about Whidbey Writes and the submission criteria, visit the NILA website. To make a submission, use this page.

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I Learned How to Spit

By Cameron Castle

The other day I was mad, just pissed off for some reason I don’t remember. Some inanimate object failed to cooperate, so I was mad. I don’t usually get mad at people or anything with free will. It’s a table leg, or a drawer, or a tape dispenser that acts in a disobedient way that fuels my anger. Probably the pitchfork I was holding was the culprit, but it doesn’t matter because what followed next is what is important.

I slammed the tines of my pitchfork into the edge of my compost pile, turned my head, and spit. I launched a projectile out of my mouth in a beautiful arcing motion that sailed gracefully at least ten feet, landing on the freshly mowed lawn. I gurgled and tried it again. It flew like bird.

I had never been able to spit. Coincidentally, I also never before in my life needed, used, or owned a pitchfork. I believe those two are intertwined in this mystery.

Spitting first became an issue in junior high. It was an early marker of virility. On the playground boys would spit. Most could expel some sort of something a reasonable distance. Anything past one’s shoes was acceptable.

Two boys, Steve and Mike, were head and shoulders above the rest. Elite. They would stand side by side, and with a crowd forming, put on a show. Each could attain distances beyond ten feet. They had different styles. Steve was the head tossing, low volume, high arching style. Mike was just the blaster. Artillery. Sturdy and leaning forward he would fire a cannonball. The competition was fierce. They would jockey back and forth as champion.

What about me?

I never cleared my chin.

Humiliating.

I could have had a live bug in my mouth, and I would rather swallow it than risk a girl seeing me try to spit and have the result being the thing flapping or wiggling from my chin.

My father couldn’t spit worth a damn either. He didn’t mind though. He spit often because he smoked unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarettes and constantly would have to spit out the bits of tobacco. Same every time. Spit. Wipe.

So, what happened?

I moved to an island, Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, and live on five acres. The last house I lived in had a patch of grass in the front yard the size of the felt on a pool table. I could mow the front and back yards in nine minutes. If my wife, Laura, ever asked, “We need to leave in ten minutes. Are you ready?” I could answer, “Yes.” Then go mow the lawn. Now it takes me five hours on a good day to mow. I love it. I have a tractor mower and, as mentioned, a pitchfork.

The previous owners left the tractor. Perhaps because the yard at their new house in Phoenix didn’t require it. But what a gift. They left an owner’s manual, which was necessary because I had never started or used a riding lawn mower. But, possibly as a joke, the instructions they left were in Spanish.

The first time I climbed on board, I looked at the key, jiggled the gear shift, touched the two knobs and one lever, and . . . pulled out my cell phone. On the dashboard there were two notations. One was a very simple drawing of a man flying off a tilted tractor with his arms and legs splayed out with a circle and a line through it. Next to that, a toll-free number. I called it.

“Sears customer service. How may I help you?”

“I am sitting on the tractor lawn mower the previous owner left me. And, ah . . . how do you start it?”

“You’re not the original owner, so you have no warranty protection. I cannot help you. You can go online and download a manual. Anything else I can help you with?”

With sarcastic comments swirling in my head, I downloaded the manual. It said to pull out the choke, press down on the brake, and turn the key. There was a picture of the dashboard. I went to the mower. Same model, same dashboard, only no choke. Just smooth red metal where the choke was supposed to be. I called back. Same story. I fought my way to a supervisor, and under the fear of losing his job over helping me, told me how to start the thing.

It worked great until late one afternoon. As it started to get dark, I noticed the thing had headlights! I flicked on the lights, mowed ten more feet, and then the whole thing stopped. Lights, engine. Poof. Stalled in the middle of the yard. Getting dark, with rain in the forecast, I fiddled around until I figured out I’d blow a fuse. I searched, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I called the toll-free number again.

“Warranty? Yup.” I answered, then used the last name of the previous owner.

The agent, looking through his data base, said, “Let’s see, Sanford . . . ah, Michael?” Since I had no idea what the guy’s first name was, I said, “Yes.”

“Okay, Michael, what can I do for you?”

“I need you to tell me where the fuse is located.”

“No problem. Okay, here it is. It’s under the hood.”

“Really? That’s a great help. So I can stop looking in the refrigerator, or in those bushes. Under the hood? Seeing as I never would have thought to look there, and you have already been such a huge help, could I ask you to go even a step farther and let me know where under the hood I should look?”

“Nope. That’s all it says.”

“It must say it somewhere. I have been looking for an hour. Can you ask somebody?”

“Nope.”

I gave up for the night and tackled it again in the morning. Tucked up at the top, next to the steering column, behind a tangle of wires and hoses was a tiny opaque yellow fuse. I pulled it out and went to the hardware store. They had it. In a five pack. At the counter I said, “I am over fifty years old and this is the first time I have ever needed a riding lawnmower fuse. You are selling me a 250 year supply of these things. My great-great grandchildren will have to pass them down in their will.”

You’re starting to get the picture. City kid, salesman moves to the country. “Green Acres is the place for me . . .” I have never been the least bit macho. I sold china and linen to restaurants.

The previous house we owned, in the sub-division with the pool table lawn, was eight feet from my neighbor’s house. He owned a Harley Davidson repair shop. One day he was in his driveway working on a big motorcycle. I was in my garage with the door up, sorting cotton napkins to show to a restaurant. Laura came out to the driveway, and I asked her the following question. Holding up a teal napkin, I wanted to know if I looked okay in the suit and tie I had picked out. I asked, while holding a cotton damask napkin in the air, “Does this tie go with my outfit?” At which point my neighbor cringed so dramatically he crunched his knuckles on some gear or bolt and let out a painful yelp.

Shortly after moving to the island I went to the hardware store to buy some batteries. The guy in front of me clunked on the counter, most of about twelve feet of thick metal chain. I had two packs of AAA batteries, a pair of reading glasses, and some gum. After he left, I said to the nice girl ringing me up, “I never in my life have needed twelve feet of thick metal chain. I can’t even dream up a scenario where I would be standing somewhere and say, ‘Man, if I only had about twelve feet of thick metal chain right now I’d be okay.’”

Back to the pitchfork. I bought one and I use it. Just the ticket for turning the compost pile. My mower now runs like a top. I shovel, and plant, and prune. And I now do another thing. I spit. Like a champ. I don’t know why I can do it now. I don’t know how changing my surroundings, daily routine, and lifestyle could produce physical changes, but it did.

Next time I am out working on the property and I get a bit of grass in my mouth, I am going to spit. I am going to launch that sucker into the air in a glorious long-distance arc that would make Steve or Mike proud.

Then I might just head to the hardware store and pick myself up a big ole length of heavy metal chain.

And some gum.

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Cameron Castle is an author and a stay-at-home dad. His recently published memoir is entitled, “My Mother Is Crazier than Your Mother.” He lives on Whidbey Island.

Photos are courtesy of the writer.

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WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

September 2, 2015
Four Writing Wonders

BY STEPHANIE BARBÉ HAMMER
Jan. 21, 2015

Whidbey may be an island, but we draw some of the most brilliant writers in the US to our foggy shores.

Recently, I’ve spent time with not one but TWO Washington State Poets Laureate. (By the way, it’s not Poet Laureates, but rather Poets Laureate. Like Attorneys General. Explanation courtesy of current Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen.)

Current Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen (photo courtesy of writer)

Two weeks ago at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts (WICA), Austen taught a poetry workshop to 27 people. Although we could barely fit around the table, the crowded conditions hardly mattered because Austen made that crowded table feel like the kitchen counter at her house. We hung out, read together and chewed on some complex poetic imagery. We thought about trees, mustard, cheese sandwiches, and floods in Florence, allowing those images to help us cook up our own poems. We walked out with heads full of word-recipes for future work.

Previous Washington State Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken (photo courtesy of the writer)

That evening, several of us dined with Austen and former Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken. We sat at the Roaming Radish and talked about how to bring young people into the literature conversation. Flenniken’s eyes shone as she described the reactions of kids in the schools she visited. “How do these words make you feel?” she’d ask. And they’d tell her. We decided that poems can get at emotions in a way that no other word-work can.

I heard Flenniken again the following week at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts (NILA) MFA program, which meets twice yearly at the Captain Whidbey Inn. In her class on listening, Flenniken asked us to make a poem using 10 words that she would assign to us. Each word needed to have its own line, and the whole thing had to make sense. But we got only one word at a time, so we didn’t know what was coming. That meant we had to really open up and hear the possibilities each word offered.

It’s amazing what comes out when you just listen.

Author Nancy Rawles (photo by Ingrid Pape Sheldon)

NILA also presented novelist Nancy Rawles, who taught a class on revisiting that great book idea you had once and then abandoned. Should you revisit it? How do you decide? How long will it take you to re-investigate the project? Great questions to consider. Subsequently, Rawles paid a visit to Whidbey Air Radio to discuss her critically-acclaimed novel My Jim, explaining that her book tells the story Huckleberry Finn does not tell: what happens to Jim’s wife and family after he escapes.

Nancy Rawles reading at Whidbey Air Radio (photo by Stephanie Barbé Hammer)

Rawles’s novel gives us insight into the lives of the majority of African American captive workers who lived and died as slaves.

Later that week Tananarive Due appeared in our NILA classroom. Due is a civil rights memoirist and best-selling horror/suspense novelist. She gave us pointers and examples of how to craft powerful characters, how to create suspense and what resources to use when doing research for historical fiction. In the class on research, she showed us a photograph of an elegant African American woman wearing a beautiful shirtwaist dress being dragged off by two white policemen. “That’s my mother,” said Due.

Tananarive Due reading at Whidbey Air Radio (photo by Stephanie Barbé Hammer)

In the subsequent talk she described how her family’s struggle for Civil Rights empowered her fictionalized narrative account of the remarkable Madame C.J. Walker, reputedly the first female African American millionaire. “Use your personal history to fire up your writing,” Due urged us.

I don’t know about you, but I’m fired up to read more by and about these incredible authors, and I’m proud of our island organizations for bringing these wonders to us.

Find out more about these authors at their websites:
Elizabeth Austen
Kathleen Flenniken
Nancy Rawles
Tananarive Due

Stephanie Barbé Hammer lives mostly in Coupeville with occasional treks into the wilds of Los Angeles. Her poetry collection “How Formal?” launched in May 2014 and her brand-spanking new novel “The Puppet Turners of Narrow Interior” (about German Americans, secret Anabaptists, bunraku puppets, ghosts, and hope) comes out later this year. You can follow her on twitter at stephaniebarbeh and read her blog here: www.stephaniebarbehammer.net.

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CLICK HERE to read more entertaining and informative WLM stories and blogs.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

January 20, 2015
Writers Have Plenty of Reasons to Attend Island Conference

BY DIANNA MACLEOD
Whidbey Life Magazine contributor
October 22, 2014

There are at least 150 good reasons to take part in the upcoming Whidbey Island Writers Conference (WIWC)—at least one for every writer who plans to attend.

Just ask Kristen Nelson. A brother’s military service inspired her to write a novel with a premise as intriguing as it is surprising: the trials and rewards of a soldier leaving the male-dominated field of special ops to learn, of all things, midwifery.

The task of writing a first novel is a daunting one.

“I second-guess myself and doubt my ability to do this,” admitted Nelson, a resident of Useless Bay. She considers the conference a great opportunity to experience camaraderie with others like herself who labor away in silence and solitude, chasing a vision only they can see.

“Writing can be an isolated, solo experience, but it can also be a collaboration. I’ve realized that other people are here to help. This is my first WIWA conference, and I’m looking forward to learning about craft.”

Whidbey Island Writer’s Conference Poster

Conference veteran Gloria Koll has her own reason for attending the gathering. A seasoned writer, Koll is finishing a novel she plans to release in early 2015 through Amazon’s CreateSpace, a means by which authors can self-publish their work. Set between the years 1885 and 1945, Koll’s saga involves a young woman journeying from Norway to Dakota Territory.

Koll is a regular participant in the fall WIWC and counts on it to sharpen her storytelling skills. “Speakers give me inspiration to go off in a different direction,” she said. “Breakout sessions make it easy to ask questions and exchange ideas.”

Indeed, Day One is filled with small, intimate classes that allow instructors and attendees one-on-one interaction in a casual setting. Access to the workshop leaders and keynote speakers is one of the most popular features of the event.

“Our unique Chat House format is informal, friendly and welcoming,” notes conference director Terry Persun. “Everything is geared to help attendees feel comfortable working with professionals who can help them achieve their writing goals.”

According to Freeland resident Valerie Johnson, the conference will help her decide “whether I can do this thing.” For years Johnson has considered capturing her rich family history, much of it written down by ancestors, in a novel. “It would include the grittier parts of ‘mountain’ life: folklore and a little black magic,” she said. Part of her desire to turn family memories into historical fiction stems from the recent death of a relative (and local Missouri storyteller) at age 102.

“My motivation to call myself a writer may be as simple as, if these people, with their hardscrabble lives, could do it, I can. I know I’m drawn to try.”

Setting is important to writers, and WIWC organizers have sought out inspirational settings for events in private homes, historic buildings, and local businesses scattered throughout Coupeville and the Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve.

Tranquil settings are a welcome counterpoint to the political and psychological thriller Geoff Tapert first conceived in 2010.

“I have a big story to tell involving a citizen getting caught up in the American surveillance state, getting out of it and creating change along the way. If I want my story to assist with much-needed reforms, it has to intrigue the reader. I’ve done more than enough research. For an engineer, excluding information isn’t easy.”

Tapert attended part of last year’s conference and liked what he saw. His primary reason for returning this year is to learn more about developing his characters as well as how to identify and understand his target audience.

Tapert is not alone. Carving out a niche, creating a platform, finding a readership is one of the writer’s greatest challenges. Accordingly, conference organizers have included sessions on the practicalities of publishing and marketing, including opportunities to meet with agents and editors.

Susan Wingate will be teaching at a Chat House, “Breaking the rules of fiction” with Nicole Persun. (photo courtesy of WIWC)

Tim Mack plans on taking full advantage.

A newcomer to Langley, Mack has written a nonfiction book about young wealthy technology philanthropists and how they seek to change the world in ways that are often more wistful than workable. A long-time public policy analyst and consultant, Mack has a keen interest in utopian societies that start out with idealistic aims.

“How do people get together in the modern age in constructive ways? Solutions aren’t enough,” Mack stated. “We need folks with implementation skills.”

His book completed, Mack is ready to pen a proposal. “I need to learn how to talk to people who might be interested. The conference is a service to people who are newbies to nonfiction.”

But Mack has yet another reason for attending. “It’s a chance for me to watch and listen and begin to immerse myself in the writers’ community. I’m seeking some kind of support system.”

Daniel James Brown, author of “The Boys in the Boat” (photo courtesy of NILA)

In recognition of the need to cut loose every now and then, participants will be given plenty of time to take the stage, enjoy live music and mingle. A “Write Night” party at Greenbank Farm promises writers the opportunity to wordsmith together, inspired by the Saturday evening keynote speech of best-selling author Daniel James Brown (“The Boys in the Boat”). Open mics will offer writers the possibility to read their work aloud. Music by The Western Heroes will tempt writers to trade the computer screen for the dance floor.

At least until Monday, when it’s time to wake up and pound the keys again.

To learn more about the conference and to register, visit nila.edu/wiwc.

The Northwest Institute of Language Arts (NILA) encompasses the Whidbey Writers Workshop low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, the Whidbey Island Writers Conference, and the Whidbey Island Writers Association. NILA also produces the Soundings Review literary magazine.

Photo at the top: Sarah Zale, teaching at this year’s conference with Bill Kenower: “Life as story: in poem, memoir, and personal essay.” (photo courtesy of WIWC)

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Dianna MacLeod received her journalism degree from the University of Michigan and is an alumnae of Hedgebrook writing retreat for women. Under the critical eye of her Whidbey Island writing group, she hopes to complete her novel, “Sainted,” in 2015.

CLICK HERE to read more entertaining and informative WLM stories and blogs.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

October 22, 2014
Location, Location, Location: Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program

BY DIANNA MACLEOD
Whidbey Life Magazine contributor
August 13, 2014

What’s true for homebuyers is equally true for writers: place is paramount.

The Captain Whidbey Inn in historic Coupeville on Whidbey Island (all photos by Martha McCartney)

According to novelist Molly Gloss, “The small, essential details of place make the fictional world whole and convincing, as if these particular people could only have performed these particular acts in this particular setting.” Her remarks, delivered at the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Residency Program held at the Captain Whidbey Inn Aug. 4-12, had the writers in attendance nodding their heads and taking notes. The Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program is one of the writing programs offered by the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts (NILA), located on Whidbey Island.

If place is as important as Gloss claims, there’s a kind of genius at work in NILA’s choice of venue. The Captain Whidbey Inn—intriguing, suggestive, evocative—is not unlike a good tale. It contains twists and turns: narrow passageways, blind alleys, innumerable staircases inside and out. It grafts myth to fact: although reputed to be constructed from trunks of the Madrone tree, it’s hard to believe the twisted stems of such trees could produce logs straight enough for building. The Inn’s history is filled with reversals and surprises: today’s front door was originally the back door because in the early 1900’s most guests arrived by boat and entered from Penn Cove. The Inn has what writers call “backstory” and what the rest of us call a past: it formerly served as a boarding house, private residence, post office, general store and girls’ school. The Inn is even reputed to have a hovering presence, a ghost of its own—and it’s not who you might think. Even the name of the Inn has changed—as if the original name, Whid Isle Inn, was a working title abandoned for something better suited to the evolving story. Here in this setting, with its “details of place”—treadle sewing machines, steamer trunks, spinning wheels, crank phone, pump organ—gathered the 57 students enrolled in NILA’s master’s program for ten days of study, discussion and debate about the art and craft of writing.

The origins of the program, a story in itself, begins in 2002 with a five-person team of designers including current director Wayne Ude. They faced the kind of hurdles that keep innovative programs like NILA’s from ever taking off. “I faced mountains of blankety-blank paperwork,” he recalled. But with a doggedness not always typical of the visionary, Ude methodically won the necessary approvals from state, federal, and agency authorities for his hybrid program—part online, part on-the-ground.

“As of this residency’s graduation on August 9th, 52 alumni will have completed the program,” Ude said. “We’re about as large as we ever intend to be.”

Despite its growth, the program has managed to keep a front-and-center focus on a community in which established and aspiring writers encourage and mentor each other.

Nowhere is this more evident than the evening readings held in the Inn’s dining room. Against a backdrop of old mirrors hanging on the wall, students—both new, continuing and about to graduate—read their poetry, fiction, and nonfiction to their peers in an atmosphere of delight, pride, and encouragement—the kind shared by working artisans devoted to their craft. It’s further testament to the program that many graduating students remain in the fold, volunteering their time and skills to improve NILA—expanding social media, refining information technology, spreading the word. In NILA’s case, there are no better ambassadors than the graduates themselves.

Fiction author Doyce Testerman is one such ambassador. An instructional designer in academia and a working writer, Testerman was initially skeptical. “The focus of most MFA programs seems to be turning out teachers of writing,” he observed. “I wanted something focused on living as a writer.” Testerman is exactly the sort of person for whom the program is designed: those with busy lives, families, jobs. Before enrolling, he weighed the sacrifices. “In order to attend the residencies, I’d have to chew up all my vacation time, leave my wife and three kids for periods. Why? My agent and publisher didn’t care if I had an MFA.”

After enrolling in a nine-day residency to sample what NILA had to offer, Testerman signed on. “I knew I would become a better writer. The faculty and students make me want to try harder. When I see what students and grads bring to the readings, I step up my game to match.” The 43-year-old Denver-based author is due to graduate next August.

Fantasy writer Nicole J. Persun is four days into the MFA program. A published writer, the 20-year-old native of Port Townsend was introduced to Wayne Ude five years ago by her father, who is also a writer. “I started my first novel at the age of 13,” she recalled. “When I was very young, my father made up bedtime stories with me.” In fact, Persun’s final project for her bachelor’s degree was a comparison of actual events in the life of her father, Terry Persun, and events in the fictional lives of his characters. Because NILA is in her own Northwest backyard, Persun hesitated before applying. Her association with Ude helped tip the scales. “Wayne has seen my development as a writer,” she said. Affordability was also a factor. “I decided not to go $100,000 into debt for a two-year degree.” Active in several writers’ associations as a board member and/or instructor, Persun had ample opportunity to compare MFA programs, both on paper and through word of mouth, before settling on NILA. “It was my first and foremost choice,” she said.

Former cop Craig Anderson is the first veteran to be enrolled in the program. After 26 years in the military, Anderson enrolled in Eastern Washington University to develop his writing skills. Upon submitting a short story and a chapter from his novel-in-progress (“Alone Against the Dead” featuring a retired military cop as protagonist), Anderson was accepted by NILA. Together with Ude, Anderson had to climb the “mountains of blankety-blank paperwork” to ensure the 9-11 GI Bill would cover his tuition. But he considers it well worth his time. “I’m a native of Spokane. I don’t have to move, I don’t have to uproot my life. This program works for working people.” After 15 years in public relations, 55-year-old Carla Sameth knows the power of image and the potency of story. Teaching others to write memoir has reinforced that knowledge. “For years I’ve been helping other people tell their stories; now I want to tell my own,” she said of her reasons for enrolling in NILA’s MFA program. A resident of California, Sameth plans to write about her own experiences as well as continue to help others—community college students, youth, incarcerated populations—write about theirs.

Although Jim Gearhart, 48, is a student in the MFA program, he is also about to become editor-in-chief of NILA’s biannual magazine, “Soundings Review.” Like Testerman, Gearhart “test drove” the program by enrolling in a residency in the summer of 2012, hoping to learn more about his chosen genres: fantasy, science fiction, nonfiction and essay. “I’d taken online courses and felt there was something missing,” he recalls. “Here at the NILA residency, the morning workshop is a turbo-charged writing group.” He also likes the opportunity NILA provides for students to continue to react to each other’s work online after the residency has ended.

“The atmosphere here is incredibly supportive,” commented Gearhart. “There’s no feeling of competition. You learn from your fellow students. We’re in it together.”

Gearhart’s sentiments are widely shared. “The people involved in NILA are a large quirky family,” added Testerman. “We keep track of each other, of our personal bogeymen.” It’s just as Molly Gloss said: these people could only have written these words in this setting. All together, at the Captain Whidbey Inn, in early August 2014.

One can’t help but feel that the ghost drifting up and down the twisted staircases of “Whid Isle Inn” would agree.

For more information about the MFA program, NILA’s individual residencies, or the October Whidbey Island Writers Conference visit nila.edu. To learn more about the writers mentioned in this article, visit their individual websites.

(All photos of the Captain Whidbey Inn by Martha McCartney)

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Dianna MacLeod received her journalism degree from the University of Michigan and is an alumnae of Hedgebrook writing retreat for women. Under the critical eye of her Whidbey Island writing group, she hopes to complete her novel, “Sainted,” in 2015.

CLICK HERE to read more entertaining and informative WLM stories and blogs.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

August 13, 2014
Make fiction magic with writer Deb Lund at a class in Bayview

The Whidbey Island Writers Association presents a class with author Deb Lund from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 16 at the Old Bayview School, in Langley.

Lund, author of the children’s “Dinoseries” of picture books and WLM’s “Creativity Cafe” blog, presents her deck of Fiction Magic cards that are designed to get writers out of ruts and on to the finish. Fiction Magic card prompts may inspire new ideas, provide insights into revisions, or move writers through blocks.

Here’s an example of one of Deb Lund’s Fiction Magic cards. / Photo courtesy of the author

“For years, one of my teaching tools has been a deck of cards,” Lund said.

“It was a homemade, laminated deck with prompts that worked for any part of a manuscript from beginning to end, and any process from idea generation to revision. I wore out that set with writers of all ages at conferences, classes, retreats, and workshops. After a zillion requests for copies of those cards, I’m finally putting them together in a really cool deck with a booklet,” the author added.

Lund said that fiction writers are troublemakers. Part of their job is to create characters and get them in trouble. But they must also play the magician and pull rabbits out of hats, save heroes from certain death, and invent stories out of thin air. The Fiction Magic entries the card deck booklet are prompts open to interpretation. Each prompt contains tricks and tips.

“The tips are a bit of creativity coaching which help apply the card’s message to your writing life,” Lund said.

The registration fee for the Fiction Magic class is $5; Whidbey Island Writers Association members get in free. Visit the NILA website here for details.

The Old Bayview School, also known as WICEC, is located at 5611 Bayview Road in Langley.

Photo of the author is by David Welton.

January 14, 2014