There is definitely something wrong with the publishing industry when a book that is unanimously regarded as excellent, including by those in the industry, has absolutely no chance of being considered for publication. Sound odd? I thought so too.

I was having coffee with a fellow-author friend of mine not long ago, and we were discussing the various trials and tribulations of dealing with agents, doing our own marketing, and in general the challenges most authors face in the publishing world today. We found a lot in common, but I was shocked (and, at the same time, sadly not surprised) when she told me of the reaction by agents to her book.

The book in question is called “The How Did You Die Show” and it’s a stunning collection of mixed-media works from the exhibit of the same name that graced several major art shows in Toronto. The title is provocative, the art within compelling. The artist, Lisa-Scarlett Cruji, enjoyed so much success with the shows that she decided to publish the exhibit in book form.

Despite her success in the art world, Lisa-Scarlett struggled to get the attention of an agent. But she was lucky enough to meet with a literary agent who worked for the TV industry – someone who could give her an honest, professional assessment of the book’s potential with no obligation. The agent devoured the artwork, and when she finished reviewing the entire collection, this was her conclusion:

“It’s fabulous. I love it. No agent will ever touch it.”

Her explanation was that the book didn’t fit into any established category. It would be hard for an agent to create a snappy “elevator pitch” and harder still for a traditional editor to know how to work with it. It might be brilliant, but because it was so different it would be too much work (read, too much money) for the traditional publishing industry to embrace.

In three simple sentences, the agent captured one of the big problems with today’s publishing industry: it is totally about the money. Whereas in the old days publishing houses had the liberty to take chances on unique, niche books like “The How Did You Die Show” for their artistic merit, today the various squeezes on publishers force them to put their resources into those books for which there is an immediate, obvious and lucrative audience. The latest Jody Picoult novel will be gobbled up by her fans. An autobiography of, say, Justin Bieber will send the tweens flocking to the ebook sites. But an artistically fascinating collection of mixed-media artwork on a sometimes-uncomfortable topic by an artist unknown outside Toronto? Sorry, not gonna happen.

Now don’t get me wrong. Jody Picoult is a brilliant author who deserves her legion of fans, and the Biebz is just so darn cute how could I not want to know his hard-earned insights over eighteen years of life? But books, like all art, are supposed to be able to challenge us and open our minds to new ideas and fresh perspectives. Perhaps like no other media, books have the ability to explore deep into the human condition, to reveal truths gradually and often with powerful counterpoints built in. No visual art can compete with literature for the gradual, thoughtful revelation of the profound, and while music is beautiful and essential, it can’t explore intellectual ideas with the precision of writing. All art has always been about pushing boundaries, and some of the greatest artists in any medium have been those who have thrown aside the conventions of the day and created something revolutionary.

So why is the publishing industry turning away from the innovative and strange, and instead filling the bookstore shelves with yet another glossy picture book on jet fighters, yet another retired politician’s memoirs, and yet another summary of why the Kardashian sisters are so completely amazing?

Because those books sell. Period.

I’ve come to know quite a few people in the publishing industry, and by and large they’re excellent, sincere, hardworking folk. But when I ask about their company’s attitude toward manuscript quality versus marketability, they sigh and shrug, and just resign themselves to the fact that that’s the way it is. A publisher’s got to make money, otherwise it goes out of business. Likewise an agent’s got to represent financial winners, otherwise no commission cheques come. I get this. I understand that publishing is an industry like any other, and that companies have to be profitable to survive. But publishing has a responsibility to the art form that it represents, and one of the biggest aspects of that responsibility is to ensure that new, avant-garde forms of this art have the chance to meet the public.

Will everyone like “The How Did You Die Show”? Probably not. But many will. That’s the thing about art – it’s personal and subjective. The more important question is: does the book deserve the chance to be judged by the wider public? Absolutely. It’ll be only one of approximately 85,000 books published in North America this year, so it’ll be up against some stiff competition, but it’s a quality piece and it deserves the chance.

The modern publishing industry fails its audience when it retreats completely into the economic safety of mass market best-sellers and rejects the unusual or the bold. With the various e-technologies now becoming more and more accessible to all, the modern publishing industry is at real risk of losing the best and brightest authors to new media. The revolution is already beginning – stay tuned.

Image Credits

Images courtesy of Lisa-Scarlett Cruji

How Did You Die, Ava? One of the best-selling works from the show

The Cover of “The How Did You Die Show”

Artistic Freedom Under Fire is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

My husband Shaun and I had just climbed into bed and were getting ourselves settled down for the night. I was engrossed in my book and he was half-heartedly watching a show on his iPad. I was getting drowsy and nearly ready to nod off, when Shaun abruptly turned to me and asked “Are you going to write that book?”

“Huh?” I asked as I quickly tried to come up with a reason why I hadn’t managed to start it yet.
Shaun just looked at me. After nearly twenty-three years of marriage, he was well aware that I knew exactly what he was talking about. He just patiently waited for me to answer.

It was shortly after New Year’s Day that I had braced myself and announced to my family that my one-and-only resolution for the year was to write a book. I was fully prepared to be teased about this goal. After all, I’m not known for my long attention span. I’m more of a short and sweet, instant-gratification type of girl.

Much to my surprise (and delight) my family was entirely on board with my grand idea. They were eager to help in any way that they could. My sweet girls started suggesting names for my characters. When I mentioned that I wanted the setting to be in a small town, my husband surprised me by taking me on a day trip to explore out of the way towns in our area. Then, to my amusement, they all started to vie over who the dedication was going to be made out to.

Despite all this support, when I sat down to start writing, I couldn’t find the words. I was baffled. The story was one that has always been a part of my memory. It should have flowed easily from my thoughts out onto the paper.

It didn’t take too long for me to realize that this story I needed to tell was too important to me. It was about how my parents met and fell in love. In my mind, to have their love story written down would be the perfect gift for their fiftieth anniversary. I had one year to do it.

I turned to my husband and said, “I’m scared. I don’t know how to write a book, what if I mess it up?”

“You won’t,” he told me. “It doesn’t have to perfect. Just start, the words will come.“

He’s right. There’s really no reason to fear the words. If it doesn’t work, all I have to do is start over again.

The words will come.

Photo Credit:

“Shakespear’s Words.”   Some rights reserved by Calamity Meg

Finding the Words is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

I set out to write a novel, but it fractured into episodes. I fought this disintegration for a long time, trying in vain to hold the pieces together, convincing myself that I had failed to live up to my vision. Then one day I realized it wasn’t me, it was the subject that couldn’t hold to the novel form. The subject was “holidays,” and as I discovered, it’s perfectly suited to the short story. Here’s how it all happened.

There’s this guy. Let’s call him Larry. Middle aged. Outward successful. Rich, even. But Larry’s got some regrets and some dark secrets. One is a girl he once loved. The biggest mistake of his life might have been letting her go. The other is the source of his wealth, the result of a strange coincidence that led him to make an unethical choice that haunts him still. His story is told chronologically from the time he and this girl get together.

There’s this girl. Let’s call her Julie. Middle aged. Outwardly successful until her life falls apart just before the novel opens. She’s got a couple of grown kids who’ve moved away, a husband who’s just run off and no career. Julie also has a dark secret, one that involves Larry, though he doesn’t know anything about it. This secret caused a kind of splintering in her life after she moved away to go to university so she constantly imagines herself living other lives. After the trauma of her husband’s abandonment, she decides to move back to her hometown where she imagines herself beginning again. Her story is told as a series of flashbacks after she returns home and happens upon Larry on, of all days, Valentine’s Day.

And there you have it, the seed of destruction. Valentine’s Day is a particular kind of day, one for which we have certain expectations. We will feel this way. We will do that. We will be happy. Of course, the truth about Valentine’s Day – and about Julie’s life – is that it’s just as likely to make us feel ways we don’t want to feel, ways we believe are not appropriate for that day. We are just as likely to feel like failures because our lives haven’t lived up to our collectively mythologized version of the perfect romantic life that this holiday presents as normal.

Larry’s story starts out as a baby in his mother’s arms as she carries him into a house as stuffed at Christmas as the turkeys in the oven, but with uncles, aunts and cousins. At the centre of this scene are a larger than life great grandmother and great grandfather who are a kind of judgement on what baby Larry will become. Another seed of destruction planted.

The novel fell apart… a short story collection was born.

I realized that holidays are like short stories – they concentrate human experience. At holidays, families gather, expectations rise and are met or not, myths grow out of our experience. Joys and sorrows, successes and failures are intensified. In other words, holidays are microcosms of life. And the short story is the perfect form to explore the subject because they too are concentrated, episodic in nature, pivoting on a single event.

I wrote about a father at his first Christmas after a separation from his wife. I wrote about children giving each other candy hearts and cards at Valentine’s Day and how adult expectations about romantic love can be disastrous in kids. I wrote about the end of summer at Labour Day and how that holiday can ask us to measure the joy we’ve managed to accumulate or not to that point in our lives. I wrote about April Fool’s day and Halloween. I set one story in Jamaica where the main character is on a winter holiday. I wrote about a young man working after graduation and about an older couple learning how to live with each other all over again after retirement. I even wrote a story that takes place during the hockey playoffs when, at least around here, fans seem to take a spring holiday to watch them.

In the end, I wrote 18 holiday stories. Borealis Press liked the idea and my book called – what else – Holidays has just been published. (If you want a copy, visit my website) In all, 13 of those stories made it into the collection. A version of Larry’s story as a baby at Christmas opens the collection. It’s called “What It Would Make of Him as He Went Along.” Julie’s experience didn’t quite succeed as a short story, so it didn’t make the cut. But it could yet anchor a novel.

Photo Credits

Holidays Cover

Author Darcy Rhyno with Relatives

Holidays and Short Stories is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

What are the risks of writing non-fiction about real people, real family heartbreaks, real relationship challenges? Does writing about life’s difficulties produce any catharsis and relief? Why would a writer want to revisit tragedies in his or her past?

Those were just a few of the questions addressed last week by authors Barbara Stewart, Lynne Van Luven and Jane Johnston. In an engaging evening panel discussion at Cadboro Bay Book Co., the three shared their experiences and insights as writers and, in Van Luven’s case, as an editor of many others’ memoirs.

Lynne Van Luven kicked off the evening by observing that we live in a celebrity and social media culture where public sharing of life’s complexities is everywhere we turn. Her entertaining mini history of ‘life writing’ illustrated (with examples from Montaigne to Frey) that the human impulse to record and share life experiences is not something new.

Life writing demands much more than the telling of a personal story, Jane Johnston says. The writer’s larger challenge is to weave together the personal and the universal. “Each of us is part of a greater tragedy,” she says of her own experiences as a birth mother during what she called “the baby-scoop era.” Her non-fiction account of that experience is included in ‘Somebody’s Child: Stories about Adoption.’

Barbara Stewart’s ‘Campie‘ is a memoir of (in one of many self-definitions) “a sober, celibate, bankrupt vegetarian who mops floors, cleans toilets, burns garbage, does laundry, makes beds and picks up after rig workers” in a northern Alberta oilfield camp. Talking about the challenges of remembering and recreating life stories from many years ago, Stewart explained that she relied heavily on her considerable stash of artifacts. Her letters, notes, matchbooks and miscellany from the past “helped me remember the smells, the sounds and what it felt like.”

In response to audience questions, each of the writers recounted how publishing their life stories in itself created new family and relationship tensions. Yet each believes that the personal and social insights gained were worth the risks and discomfort.

And asked about the pain of revisiting life events that were extremely difficult, the panelists all spoke of rewards – albeit rewards that are not easily earned. “Once you tell a story, you set it free and set yourself free,” Van Luven said. “It frees up space for something else.”

Photo Credits

Photo By Lorne Daniel – All Rights Reserved

The Risks And Rewards Of Life Writing is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Pull on the shorts, the t-shirt and the runners. Head out the door. Put one foot in front of the other. Again and again.

At its core, running has an attractive simplicity to it. If only writing were so simple.

There is a school of thought that writing is – or can be – that simple. The idea is that writing is a process, a practice, a method for getting at clear thought. Not a way of communicating thoughts that are already clear.

I like to call myself a runner and I like to call myself a writer. Judging from the blogs and social media profiles out there, I’m far from alone. Many writers run, it seems. But these days I’m finding it easier to keep up a consistent running practice than to sit myself down at the writing desk.

The parallels between writing and running are remarkable. A runner may have some basic ability but the growth, the improvement, comes about almost entirely as a result of getting out there and training. Start with short runs, gradually extend them, throw in some hills and speedwork and results will start to accumulate.

Writing skills grow in a similar way. There’s no getting around the need to simply write. Get words down on paper, then some more words, then some more. Over time, you start to feel those words flowing in more interesting combinations, you begin to weave more intricate patterns with them.

Writing a book is not unlike running a marathon. It would be foolhardy to think one could just set out one day and do it without any practice, without putting in the hours, days, weeks, months or years of training. When you’re starting out, it doesn’t help a lot to obsess over the long struggles ahead. Just get the pen (or the fingers on the keyboard) moving. Settle in. The practice makes you better.

The problem with writers (okay, ONE of the problems with writers) is that we also have built in critics – our internal editors. “That paragraph is flat and lifeless,” we tell ourselves even as the words are tumbling out.

Rarely do I fall into the same trap on a run – psyching myself into the belief that I’m not worthy – not fast enough, too old, too tired today. The reality is, I’m a recreational runner, not an Olympic competitor, and that’s okay. Running is good, healthy, fun.

Can I find the same perspective in writing?

Well, I’m practicing. By writing this.

One Step At A Time: Running And Writing is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

‘You can’t go home again,’ Thomas Wolfe wrote in his famous 1940 novel that carried the phrase as its title. But for writers the greater truth may be that you can never leave home. Or that home never leaves you.

I recently had the pleasure of co-leading a “Writing Home” workshop for the Writers Guild of Alberta with my colleague Judith Williams, an international award-winning author of non-fiction for young readers.

It was fun to pull some highly influential books from my shelves and revisit writers’ perspectives on writing about place. I quickly accumulated quite a stack of sources – more than I could even touch on in the afternoon workshop.

A favourite starting point is Scott Russell Sanders’s “Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World,” a lyrical exploration of the meaning of home, home towns, and home terrains.

As Sanders says in his preface, “the geography of land and the geography of spirit… are one terrain.” In the first chapter, Sanders returns to the now-flooded territory of his childhood, on the Mahoning River in Ohio. “Of course, in mourning the drowned valley I also mourn my drowned childhood,” he writes, but quickly shifts beyond mourning. “Loyalty to place arises from sources deeper than narcissism. It arises from our need to be at home on earth.”

That sense of connectedness operates on many levels but perhaps our strongest emotional attachment is to our home spaces – particularly the rooms and houses of our childhood (a topic of an earlier blog.)

Talking of the house where he and his wife have raised their daughter, Sanders observes that “these walls and floors and scruffy flower beds are saturated with our memories and sweat. Everywhere I look I see the imprint of hands, everywhere I turn I hear the babble of voices, I smell sawdust or bread, I recall bruises and laughter. After nearly two decades of intimacy, the house dwells in us as surely as we dwell in the house.”

The house dwells in us. The house also literally enables – it gives us the capability of forming our humanity in certain directions and ways. The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard wrote about this in ‘The Poetics of Space,’ a difficult (at least for non-philosophers like me) but intriguing book first published in 1958.

In our workshop, we each took a moment to share an example of a meaningful place from our lives. Judith Williams talked of growing up in Quebec and being intrigued by her father’s wardrobe with its deep drawers. Inside one she saw a pile of papers. He was, she discovered, writing a book.
A new possibility appeared – an ordinary person could write a book.

Bachelard also uses the example of wardrobes, suggesting that they are not just a metaphor for a sense of intimacy and privacy but that their very existence allows us to learn those concepts. In other words, Bachelard would claim, if we don’t have the experience of private and ‘hiding’ places, we are incapable of experiencing privacy in the same way.

The spaces around us don’t just reflect our writerly ideas – they form them, enable them.

We write about our homes but long before that our homes write us.

Photo Credits

Books – Courtesy Of Lorne Daniel
Thumbnail and Feature Image from the Microsoft Clip Art Collection

Homes, Places And Our Sense Of Self is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

A stack of journals sit on my desk. Hilroy notebooks, perfect-bound journals with elastic ties, a big black drawing book with many blank white pages, a couple of notebooks with section tabs, and one with a hard cover.

Some have pages torn out. Most have empty sections. Some have logs of my attempts at healthy living and other habits that seemed a good idea at a particular point in my life.

For me, the impulse to journal is a layered, complex and inconsistent practice. The pile of evidence in front of me says that I launch into journaling with great intentions. Some are dated in the 1980s, some in the 90s, some this century. Rare is the one that is full, complete.

Some of the journals attempt to track the daily pace and activities of life. Others were clearly intended more as idea-catchers. A few hold first draft poems, or essays. Others still record step-by-step attempts at life management programs – all about the process. Inside most of the journals are one or two or more clippings – articles I found meaningful. Quotes. Wise advice from here or there.

What is the purpose of a journal? I’m tempted to see my mismatched piles as evidence of failure: they tell the story of failed attempts, aborted journeys. Certainly, they provide insight into my changing whims and interests.

In a more positive light, each journal in its way must have served some purpose. Here, I am luxuriating in a memorable vacation, there I am tracking a fitness regime, and over here I am trying to record the confusing slide of my father’s last weeks of life.

As a writer, the journals are a discontinuous collection of possible prompts for future work. Yet, mostly, their work is done. They got me here.

Photo Credit

Photo By Lorne Daniel

Journals And The Backstory Of Life is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

In June of 2008, I had attended a writer’s conference, where a literary agent had expressed interest in reading the manuscript I was trying to publish. He had indicated he would read my manuscript quickly, before I completed the self publication process I was involved in as a backup plan to traditional publishing. When I got home from the conference, I quickly sent him a digital copy. He had seemed very interested, and I couldn’t wait to hear back from him.

After about three weeks, when I hadn’t heard back from him, I sent a followup email. I was puzzled – this didn’t feel very quick. I was in the final stages of self publication, and after a brief break to attend a high school reunion, I was coming closer to the point where I would need to either hold up on self publication, or move forward. I had to make a decision, so I continued forward with self publication, and it appeared my book would be published in early August.

Finally, the first week of August, I got a reply from the literary agent:
“Many thanks for sending me your manuscript Freedom’s Just Another Word. While there is much to admire here, I am not confident that it is something I could place with a publisher in today’s highly competitive market. I hope you find someone who disagrees and wish you the very best of luck with it.”

Honestly, looking back, I think I didn’t let myself feel how disappointed I was about receiving this rejection. I had such a positive feel when I met with the literary agent that this reply surprised me. I was glad that I had continued forward with my plan to self publish. I think the excitement of what happened next covered up any disappointment I might have felt. I got to say those magical words:

“I am a published author.”

Just saying the words almost rendered me speechless. It was just too amazing, too incredible, to realize that I had just been published. I went to Amazon on August 6th and found a listing for Freedom’s Just Another Word. I just sat there and looked at the entry. Then I would get up, go do something else for a while, then come back and look at the listing. It hadn’t changed, but I couldn’t wrap my head around it all the same.

After a while I realized that it was like the first time I had run a marathon. Everyone had talked about how sometimes you got very emotional when you crossed the finish line. It wasn’t like that for me. I was just numb. I walked through the “get your medal and get your picture taken” lines almost like a robot. I couldn’t absorb any more about the experience. It wasn’t like shock – quite. It was more like realizing that the last six months of training had just paid off. I guess part of me up until the very end wondered if I would actually run, and finish.

We had heard about all the obstacles – illness, injury, things like that which caused a lot of people not to finish. But I had finished! I had finished even with my right knee bothering me badly enough three days before the race that I had to go get acupuncture to heal it as best I could. I felt like I could run, but even during the race wasn’t sure if the knee problem would intrude. The knee was fine and never bothered me during the marathon.

With publishing my book, it was not a bothersome knee, but the deep messages by my Grandma that had held me back from publishing two previous book.  She said they’ll call you crazy if you try to become an author.  Then she told me “I can have you committed,” if I tried to write and went crazy.  Finally she showed me what it would be like to be in an asylum – that really locked up my writing. I hadn’t been sure if those old messages would intrude and make me hold back from actually publishing the book. I wasn’t sure until I actually saw the Amazon listing – and then there was the reality of what I had done. I had broken past, I had moved beyond. No wonder I was stunned and numb! The enormity of what I had just accomplished would take a while to sink in.

When I finished the marathon, I became aware a couple of days later (when I could walk up a flight of stairs again) that it would take a while – possibly several months – for me to fully absorb what I had just done. Only after time had passed could I look back with a sense of detachment and take in what the event signified. I sensed it would prove to be the case with publishing my first book. “I am a published author.” That would take a long time to sink in, because of the added element of shaking off the Grandma weight.

This was a line of demarcation – one of the three significant transition points of my life. The first was working the wheat harvest to walk in my Dad’s shoes – to find his story. The second was running my first marathon. Now the third – publishing my first book. All three events had the flavor of a rite of passage. I had crossed a threshold – I returned from harvest a changed man in a very intense way. Crossing the finish line of my first marathon affected me deeply. Now I sensed the same phenomenon with publishing my first book – I was different in a way that might take me months to capture in words.

I intuitively sensed that it was too soon to begin publicity for the book – I needed to absorb first – let everything sink in. As well, I wanted to order a copy of my book from the publisher, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, to make sure that the distribution component was working correctly, before telling people how they could buy my book. I made no immediate plans to do anything else and spent the month of August letting it all sink in. Later in the month, I sent inscribed and signed copies to several people I wanted to thank for being part of the process. But other than that, I didn’t get active on the publicity phase. I did feel some fear releasing, and spent several nights with my legs shaking with fear. But I believe I was still in the stunned place, and that’s why not much fear released. Besides – I hadn’t publicized the book or told many people about it. It was possible that getting the word out about my book would stir up some old feelings to be released.

“I am a published author.” Wow!

Photo Credits

Crossing The Finish Line ©  Dan Hays. All rights Reserved.

Feature Image – Microsoft Office Clip Art Collection

I Am A Published Author is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

A writer learns that the leap of faith he took in attending his high-school reunion resulted in healing something from the growing-up years. For Part One, please click here.

San Juan Country Club, Farmington New Mexico, the 40th reunion of the Class of 1968 dinner and dance. Dinner had started winding down, and it looked like the band was about to play, so I could listen for a set and leave. During dinner I had been visiting with Betty, a woman I’d gone to junior high with. We had looked through several junior high and high school annuals she had brought with her. We had also looked through the Scholarly Scribbles literary magazine that our class had compiled in the 8th grade. I had discovered that a number of people still had their copies, and like me, thought of that junior high time very fondly.

Dancing at the "Club"

Bobby, the lead singer in the band that was about to play, had told me some of his memories. Our Civics teacher had called us a group of “pretentious pseudo-intellectuals.” We laughed over that, because that’s how we remembered that particular teacher – a pretentious pseudo-intellectual who was very self-impressed. But on the other hand, my friend Sandra, who had talked me into coming to this reunion, said that Mrs. Kerr, our 9th grade English teacher, had told her many years later that our class was one of the most vibrant, intelligent and enjoyable classes she ever taught. I just knew junior high had been an almost magical time for me, and the Scholarly Scribbles literary magazine seemed to capture the essence of that time.

Then Betty and her husband got up to leave – they had to attend his reunion in Aztec. So I was left at the table with two couples I didn’t know, who were talking among themselves. I saw an empty seat at a table next to the dance floor, so I moved over there, asking one of the women if I could sit there. It was Koni, who I had known a bit in junior high. She introduced her friend Maggie, who didn’t go to high school with us, but worked with Koni and Dennis, a local surgeon who was about to play guitar with the band. Maggie had come to support her friend and to see the surgeon play. She said she might want to dance some, but didn’t like country western music. She’d tried it once or twice, and didn’t find it fun.

As we sat listening to the band tune up, a woman walked up to me. She said she was at a table of women who were wondering who I was. “I’m Dan Hays. I went to Ladera Elementary, then Hermosa Junior High, and FHS – but my family moved away in the middle of my junior year.”

She smiled, nodded and said, “Good to know. I’m married, but it’s that table of single women over there who were wanting to know.”

The band started playing and I convinced Maggie to dance a slow song with me. She did, and we had a lot of fun easing around the dance floor. Then they played fast song, and we stayed out there for it. I love fast dancing, and gyrated easily around the floor, with a big grin on my face because I enjoyed it so much. I started to see people watching me from the sidelines – and did I mention I love that kind of attention? Several songs later I had spotted the table of women, and they were suddenly dancing around me and smiling at me. Later I went over and asked one of them to dance, and it turned out it was Ellen, someone I had known since junior high. It was one of those amazing experiences where you escort the woman to the floor and transition from walking to dancing seamlessly. It was enchanting.

Finally, I had to stop and rest for a minute – I was drinking glass after glass of water. Tom, the football star, was walking by, and I introduced myself. He was amazed, and knew exactly who I was. When I had gone back to Farmington in 1984, I had looked him up, and we talked about that visit. Several of his buddies had talked with me at the VFW event on Friday night, and I could see them watching me now, and other people as well. I could feel a lot of attention now focused on me, both because of the dancing, and now I had been visiting with the class popular guy. I loved the whole experience.

Later, as the dance wound down and I slow danced with the woman from junior high – I’d been alternating between dancing with her and Maggie for the past hour, I was once again astonished at how differently this reunion turned out than I had expected. I would look back later and realize that I had healed something from my growing up years, but at the moment, I was just aware that things felt good. During the next fast dance, Tom wanted to fist bump with me out on the dance floor, and while I mentally laughed at the gesture, it also felt good because of the acceptance it signaled.

The next day I headed back to Texas, aware that something special had just happened. I’d been checking my email because I was moving forward with self publication on my book. But, I was also waiting to hear from the literary agent who had wanted to read it. I had two strong directions in place for publication.
But what I really wanted to do was go home, pull out my copy of Scholarly Scribbles, and just read.

Photo Credits

Dancing at the “Club” ©  Dan Hays. All rights Reserved.

Scholarly Scribbles  ©  Dan Hays. All rights Reserved.

A Writer Revisits High School: Part Two is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

A writer attends a high school reunion dinner dance, planning to leave early, but things don’t turn out like he expected.

6:30 PM. July 5, 2008. I sat in my car outside the San Juan Country Club in Farmington, New Mexico. Inside, the dinner and dance for the 40th reunion of Farmington High School Class of 1968 was about to start. I sat there, just looking at the building – I was about to do something I’d never done in high school. I had a snapshot memory – me and my friend Bobby, sitting in his car outside the high school cafeteria, slumped down in our seats, looking through the window at the after-football-game dance going on inside. We didn’t go in. I never went to a high school dance. I was small for my age and very shy, and spent my high school years on the outside looking in.

In the middle of my junior year, my family moved away, and my life was too turbulent to think about dances. I had never gone to a reunion, not feeling connected with the high school I eventually graduated from. But this year, after exchanging emails with a woman I’d known in Farmington since the fourth grade, I had agreed to come back for this reunion. This was the town I grew up in, where I’d made a lot of friends, and lost touch with all of them over the years.

Now it was time to go inside and my stomach was in knots at the thought. I’d gone to the opening event on Friday night – a happy-hour gathering at the VFW hall, where I had visited with a few people I remembered, and had seen a lot of people I didn’t recognize or barely remembered. The group then moved over to the lounge at the Best Western motel, and I had gone along, visiting some with people before calling it a night. I had started to wonder if this whole thing was a mistake.

I was going to the Saturday night event because I’d paid for it, and a couple of guys I had known since junior high had re-gathered their band and were playing for the dance. They had started the band after I moved away, so I’d never seen them play. I decided to go for the dinner, listen to the guys play a couple of sets, and then leave. I checked my email once more from my cell phone. I had been answering messages about getting my book set up to be self published. I was also waiting to hear from a literary agent who was reading my manuscript, and might be interested in representing it. I was checking email often. There was finally no more reason to stall, so I gathered my courage, got out of the car, and went inside.

When I walked inside the country club, the whole interior looked different. I guess a remodel after 40 years was to be expected. I had grown up spending a lot of time at the club, so it had memories attached to it, on the golf course, at the swimming pool, at lunch with my Dad. Now, half of the main ballroom was filled with tables, white tablecloths, and fancy silverware.

On the other side of the room was a sizable dance floor, and against the far wall, in front of a bank of windows overlooking the golf course, a band was setting up. I got a name tag – they had everyone’s high school picture on them, so we could all recognize each other. I was on time and, being used to events where everyone was “fashionably late,” I was surprised at how crowded the room was, with a steady hum of chatter. People were already starting to fill plates from the buffet, so when I spotted Betty, who had lived next door to me in junior high, I moved over to visit with she and her husband. There was an empty place at their table, so I sat next to them for dinner. Betty had brought several yearbooks and we looked through those as we visited. Yes, the homecoming queen our senior year was who I thought it would be.

Then we began talking about our time at Hermosa Junior High. I was surprised to discover that Betty had also kept her copy of Scholarly Scribbles, the literary magazine we compiled in our 8th-grade English class. I was to find four different people who still had their copy. I had published five poems and a short story in that magazine. Shortly after that, I had stopped writing altogether. I was later to find out it was because my Dad had shamed my poetry, and shut down my creativity. So it was surprising to find that the magazine had a strong impact on others as well.

As the band was testing equipment, I walked out onto the dance floor to talk with Bobby, the lead singer. I had a feeling that would be the only time I’d be on the dance floor that night. We talked about the popular girl who had disappeared — she had become pregnant and we’d never known about it. We laughed because we suspected we knew who got her pregnant. We compared notes, and remembered that each day during lunch in junior high we had a competition to see who could walk the farthest on their hands.

I saw Tom, Mr. Popular in high school, and the star football player, come in with his wife, causing quite a commotion from all the attention he attracted. I was sure Tom might not recognize me now – I had been quite a bit smaller back when he knew me. But Tom had lived down the block from me during grade school, and I knew later I’d go up and re-introduce myself. I felt disconnected from much of the group – it appeared they had all stayed in touch and knew about each other’s lives. I was also self-conscious about not having graduated with this group, and having essentially disappeared from school in the middle of my junior year. Back then, Farmington had been an oilfield town, so a lot of people came and went, but I was just feeling like an outsider right now. I knew I would leave this dinner/dance soon.

11 PM. As I whirled around the dance floor to a country and western tune, with a woman I’d had a crush on in junior high snuggled in my arms, it struck me that the dance sure hadn’t turned out like I’d expected.

Photo Credits

Dan Hays

A Writer Revisits High School: Part One is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN