| Speaker, Deborah Hilcove |
On a recent Saturday afternoon, about 15 writers gathered for a workshop co-sponsored by the Scottsdale Historical Society and Arizona Authors. With the idea of grounding fiction in artifacts, Judith Starkston and Deborah Hilcove arranged a tour of the Little Red Schoolhouse, led by Museum Director JoAnn Handley and Docent Janet Larkin.
Following that introduction, Starkston spoke about her book, Hand of Fire, set during the Trojan War and incorporating Mycenaean swords as artifacts to link scenes and plot elements. Hilcove shared excerpts from her manuscript, Geronimo’s Daughter, and showed how an amulet helped develop her characters and major theme.
During the workshop, participants were invited to write―briefly and extemporaneously, without time for editing or revising―about a Museum artifact from the tour or something from their own experience.
Starkston and Susan Pohlman recalled the cradle upstairs in the Museum, saying, “It’s small, very narrow. Suggests a cramped room, maybe something closing in. Narrow attitudes, maybe. A feeling of being constricted, contained.”
First-time Museum visitor, Patty Schoenfeld, described the “school house bell which at one time announced to the children it was time to come to class…[and now tempts visitors] to ring it one more time.”
Bill Mast chose a photo of a pictograph from a cave in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park and wrote: “The light of the morning sun barely touched my ancestor’s artwork. The painted bird and turtle drew me closer. I whittled my walking stick to a point and gouged deep into the celestial line. I waited. Then it came. I felt the spiritual connection with my ancestors. Connected, I could see the deep red sunrises―our beginnings―and those vibrant sunsets―foretelling the end…”
Referring to her novel-in-progress, Cherie Lee described an inherited diary from 1887 “with spi-dery handwriting.” Cherie plans a young adult historical novel and began her paragraph with the main character signing for a certified letter from a lawyer: “She flung the letter on her desk and it fluttered to the floor…”
Cynthia Kiefer was inspired by the Museum’s East lake-style piano in the parlor and wrote, “A dirty forefinger slipped onto the smooth white key.
She pressed down gently…The note was clear and pure…Lila would not be able to resist the lure of music.”
As the workshop drew to a close, many of the participants agreed they had discovered sources and ideas to be incorporated in their future work.
Schoenfeld summed up the afternoon as “an outpouring of some quite imaginative and amazing scenarios.”
Find Deborah at: http://ift.tt/1Pt97jp
from Arizona Authors Association http://ift.tt/1JM9XLk
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment