Tuesdays with Story

Tuesdays with Story
2-23-2012

Quote of the Week
“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” – Dr. Seuss

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest Update
It turns out that Tuesdays With Story can brag of not one, but TWO second round finalists in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest! Greg Spry’s novel Beyond Cloud Nine has been selected (along with Asperger Sunset by Carol Hornung, mentioned last week). Round three finalists (best 250 out of 1000) will be announced at the end of March!

March 2, 2012 – the 108th Anniversary of the birth of Dr. Seuss
My personal favorite Dr. Seuss book was “The Lorax” (and I really hope they didn’t screw up the movie). “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees./I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” Even at a young age I marveled at the need of creatures to have an advocate, and, quite frankly, the Lorax has a bit of a downer ending – everything is gone, ruined, including the Lorax, except there’s just one spark of hope – one last truffula seed. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot/nothing is going to get better./It’s not.” He told the truth to children. I appreciated that.
Here’s what the Amazon Author page has to say about Dr. Seuss:
“A person’s a person, no matter how small,” Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, would say. “Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted.”
Brilliant, playful, and always respectful of children, Dr. Seuss charmed his way into the consciousness of four generations of youngsters and parents. In the process, he helped millions of kids learn to read.
Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 2, 1904. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1925, he went to Oxford University, intending to acquire a doctorate in literature. At Oxford, Geisel met Helen Palmer, whom he wed in 1927. Upon his return to America later that year, Geisel published cartoons and humorous articles for Judge, the leading humor magazine in America at that time. His cartoons also appeared in major magazines such as Life, Vanity Fair, and Liberty. Geisel gained national exposure when he won an advertising contract for an insecticide called Flit. He coined the phrase, “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” which became a popular expression.
Geisel published his first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, in 1937, after 27 publishers rejected it.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1984, an Academy Award, three Emmy Awards, three Grammy Awards, and three Caldecott Honors, Geisel wrote and illustrated 44 books. While Theodor Geisel died on September 24, 1991, Dr. Seuss lives on, inspiring generations of children of all ages to explore the joys of reading.

Tuesday Night at the Bookstore
A small group of writers assembled the evening of the 28th at Barnes and Noble, but found their table absent. The mezzanine had been scheduled at the last minute for a visit by Stephen King. Mr. King’s agent however, arrived saying that the author had cancelled as he had been mauled by an escaped lion while being haunted by ancestral ghost who were being pursued by the insane caretaker of a former asylum that had been taken over by zombies. A typical King day.

The B&N manager had an angry crowd on his hands and importuned the three authors to give a reading to the assembled multitude.

Terry Hoffman led off with a section of The Great Tome. Our heroine’s aunt is still haunting her dead mother’s home, looking for the book of powers. Gone for a day, her place is taken by brother Rod, who is drunk, as is his habit, as his wife’s cancer has returned. A few grammatical changes and word elisions to the first page was followed by a minor plot change to find the half drunk bottle by more subtle means.

King’s manager, we observed, was scribbling notes furiously. We assume intellectual property theft is in Terry’s future.

The crowd reaction is what you’d expect from a King crowd, demanding Terry’s autograph on arm casts, the inspection of head wounds and promises to buy many copies as long as King wrote a blurb and they learned to read.

Andrea Kirchman followed with the second chapter of Pip, where in we discover that the little girl’s uncle happens to be a bear (out came the manager’s pen again). The storybook rural landscape passes outside the car window as Pip asks the Uncle for a story, as to how he and her late father became brothers. Smoothly written, clear and effortless writing was the consensus. The crowd cheered for some time. Several noted they knew the bear would eat Pip soon.

Jack Freiburger presented the first part of section II of Jesus Walked into the IHOP. The savior is savoring buckwheat pancakes as he discovers parallelism in history while thinking about some incidents from his 2000 year, and counting, past. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus was related as it was actually observed, this time by Jesus, rather than by Paul. They agree on general items but the details change with the viewpoint. Our editors pointed out some repeats of repeated repetitions. Jack then tried to lecture the crowd on the finer theological points decided at the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, but the throwing of chairs and other heavy objects suggested to him that the evening of readings be adjourned.

We hope our regulars return in two weeks, as we were badly out numbered by the bloodlust spectators.

Hothgar Beidemeier, recording secretary

Who’s up next . . .
March 6: Greg Spry (chapter 18, Beyond Cloud 9), John Schneller (chapter 12, Final Stronghold), Liam Wilbur (odds and ends, Scott & Rory), Aaron Boehm (???), Amber Boudreau (chapter 3 rewrite, Noble), Lisa McDougal (???, Tebow Family Secret Recipe), and Clayton Gill (chapter, Fishing Derby).
March 13: Carol Hornung (scene, Sapphire Lodge), Katelin Cummins (???), and Liam Wilbur (chapter, The Fog-Gotten).
March 20: Liam Wilbur (chapter 8, Scott & Rory), Rebecca Rettenmund (chapter 5, The Cheese Logue), Millie Mader (chapter 33, Life on Hold), Pat Edwards (poems), Judith McNeil (more of “The Waldorf Hysteria”), and Jerry Peterson (chapter 24, Thou Shalt Not Murder).

Newsletter editors . . .
Lisa McDougal is our editor for March. Volunteers needed for April and beyond!

The Last Word . . .
“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try.” – Dr. Seuss