Locals have the WRITE stuff

William White / Opelika-Auburn News
July 22, 2007

Four local writers were among the Alabama Writers’ Conclave 2007 Writing Competition’s 62 winning entries from across Alabama, California, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia and West Virginia.

The winners were named Sunday during the final session of the weekend’s AWC Conference and Annual Meeting of about 100 writers at the Dixon Conference Center in Auburn.

Thanks to Francesca Gross and Richard Modlin for their great photographic work

The writing competition categories included fiction, short fiction, juvenile fiction (stories for ages 4-12 ), nonfiction, traditional poem, free-verse poem, humor and the first chapter of a novel.

Jennifer G. Margeson, of Opelika, came in fourth in the nonfiction category for her "Bluebonnet Blues" as did Jennifer Soule, of Auburn, for her traditional poem, "Seasonal Moves."

Soule also picked up an honorable mention in the humor category for "Imagine a Dog" as well as Wendy W. Cleveland, of Auburn, for her free-verse poem, "Jewel."

Cleveland, who is a recently retired high school English teacher from upstate New York, said one of her best friend’s father was named Jewel.

"She told me lots of great stories about Jewel," Cleveland said in an interview after the meeting. "From those stories, I gleaned some details she remembered and some details that I made up.

"I just wrote about Jewel, who is a lonely old man and lives by routine doing the same thing day-in and day-out."

She said the local winners meet regularly as part of the Auburn Writers Circle, which was formed after they had taken a novel writing class offered as part of Auburn University’s Outreach Program.

Cleveland said she approaches writing by "percolating ideas."

"Ideas stay in my head for days at a time, then I will go to the computer and begin writing," she said. "Every once in a while, it will come out right. But most of the time, it takes days and days of working."

She said poetry is word driven, and writing poetry proves to be a challenge.

"Every word counts in poetry. Oftentimes in poetry there is a double meaning. There is a metaphor. There is something that isn’t quite obvious.

"Many of us are so used to the literal, so it does take a little bit of thought. It takes a awful lot of thought to write poetry. I find it much more challenging than working on a novel."

The writer, who just completed a novel, said her daughter graduated from Auburn University, which brought the family south from New York.

"I love winters in Auburn," she said.

The organization’s Web site defines the Conclave as an organization where writers and aspiring writers of any genre or style can join together in a quality forum for enhancement of writing abilities. Sharing information, developing ideas, honing skills, and receiving practical advice are hallmarks of the annual meeting held each year.

The Conclave president said some literary conferences are more reader-friendly allowing participants to meet famous authors, listen to their wise advice or hear them read.

"This is not that kind of conference. We are the kind of conference that tries to help the writer," said AWC President Jim Reed of Birmingham. "We get people here Friday night, getting them to roll up their sleeves and actually learn stuff that makes them better writers who are more willing to go back and write more."

A first-time Conclave participant couldn’t agree more.

"This was fun," said Becky Haines, of Birmingham, anxious to write a family memoir for her children. "This was good."

"The part I enjoyed the most was they had us do these writing exercises where we would write up to four times in an hour," she said.

"It made you take what you thought you wanted to write and put it in a different scenario in a different place. You really had to challenge yourself to think of that character in different settings.

"I am going home tonight and begin doing the exercises," she said. "I’m going to be a writer."