February '14 Writers' Retreat to Maine

(Nine scribes at the scenic overlook in Rangeley, Maine)

I love a writers' retreat. From my very first, Halloween weekend in 1993 when I both courted and confronted the Muse at the start of my professional writing career, the notion of vanishing to some literary oasis for a few or more days to be a writer, only a writer, has become the adult version of what Christmas and birthdays were to me as a kid.  I've probably attended some two dozen retreats over the years -- from grand old island hotels to cozy week-long rentals to luxury resort destinations. A retreat has been a gift I give myself for rarely taking a day off from writing, even though I tend to ramp up the output of fresh pages once I land and savor that first cup of Java. It's a chance to reflect, refine a business plan, and to breathe.  I loved the recent weekend retreat to a friend's house held in Rangeley, Maine from Friday, February 21 through Sunday, the 23rd more than most, I think, because it was also a chance at redemption.

Last April, a similar retreat was held in the same house -- a beautiful New Englander being updated and restored by the family of my dear friend, the talented Melissa Gates (whose story "Jar of Hearts" is a must-read in the anthology Canopic Jars: Tales of Mummies and Mummification).  The month prior, we had just moved north after buying our new-old home, Xanadu, and though I was thrilled to see many of my wonderful friends from my Southern New Hampshire Writers' Group, I also felt something physically wasn't quite right with me. A painful lump had formed on top of my scalp, and agony radiated down both sides of my face, ending in my molars.  I headed to that retreat with a smile on my face -- albeit a painful one -- and tried to go about my business as best I could.  Unable to sleep by night, I passed out during the day and developed a fever.  Four days into the five-day stay, I begged off early and returned home.  Two days later, I was admitted to have a massive infected cyst removed and earned myself a five-day stay after all, in a private room on the fourth floor of Androscoggin Valley Hospital. During that time, at least I wrote.  Quite a bit, in fact.  But for the first and so far only time, the joyous creative experience of a retreat was tainted in a long (and miserable) shadow.

None of which had anything to do with my good friends, our lovely hostess (who went completely above and beyond in terms of hospitality), or that wonderful house.  So when a return there was planned, I welcomed the chance to cast out the last, lingering spiritual residue of my brush with Jurassic Cyst -- the physical had already passed, though the experience has left me with a long divot of a scar running along the top of my head.

(Twelve layers of buttercream Heaven!)

Nearly a year after the fact, I've found myself blessed with a wealth of company -- talented and solid friends from not one but two writing groups.  And, through various parties, readings, conferences, and other gatherings, members of both groups have also formed friendships.  When the retreat was announced, Melissa graciously offered to invite members of my Berlin Writers' Group to round out the fun.  Five of us gathered at Xanadu by noon on a blustery, gray Friday and, once Melissa arrived to meet up with us, we traveled by caravan through the wilds of New Hampshire's north country (through the ominous 'Thirteen-Mile Woods') to Errol, where we planned to gas up and grab a bite.  Melissa and I had done the same thing last year -- a quick sandwich and a cold soda in Errol before the last forty miles to our ending point in Maine.  If that sub and drink this time around weren't the best ever; throughout the weekend, I found myself reliving moments from the previous visit, only this time without the crippling misery latched onto my skull like a modern remake of the Ray Milland/Rosie Grier '70s shocker, The Thing With Two Heads.

Rain lashed the house on Friday afternoon, and a stiff wind blew outside.  But inside, with the heat cranked, I snuggled down and quickly penned a full short story ("Second Chance"), one of two for that day.  I sipped coffee, enjoyed the arrival of the Southern New Hampshire contingent, listened to music on my headphones, and healed.  Jurassic Cyst was not some minor outpatient procedure, there one moment, gone the next; what was diagnosed as beginning with an ingrown hair following a haircut had become serious enough to require constant intravenous antibiotics by the time I landed at the hospital. There were long-reaching consequences in the months that followed (including a reaction to oral antibiotics that turned one of my eyeballs into photo-sensitive ground hamburger).  But as the retreat unfolded, the specter of that darkness broke, and I gave up the ghost.

(Short story workshop in town, with the fabulous Esther M. Leiper-
Estabrooks and Judi Calhoun)

On Saturday morning, I rose early and entered the big standing shower in the upstairs bathroom, which boasts a massive rain forest head that feels like being pelted from every direction.  Last year, showering there was almost too painful to bear.  This time around, the experience was exquisite, like a water massage. Though I was on little sleep (energy and exuberance this time around, not due to monstrous infection), I bounded downstairs and started writing the opening draft of a novella, "American Grotesque", which details the experience of the affliction. Writing the words was difficult, but pages flowed, and the last tendrils of the malaise evaporated.  After a lovely breakfast, we headed into town, where I led a workshop on the basics and business of selling short stories, and we enjoyed lunch. Back to our retreat house, I grabbed a quick afternoon nap, returned to writing, and we were treated to a huge turkey dinner with homemade stuffing, gravy, and potatoes courtesy of the talented Judi Calhoun.  A luscious cake made by a famous New Hampshire cake master -- twelve layers deep -- followed.  The food was amazing, as was the group reading that stretched late into Saturday night. The company, the best.  I wrote and completed the exorcism. Hallelujah!

I can't wait for our next writers' retreat to Rangeley -- August, I'm told!

And Now For Something Completely Similar!

It's 2014, the New Year! And like many of my contemporaries, I've been inspired to reflect upon the past twelve months.  2013 had some serious highs, and its share of lows -- a hospital stay to remove a cranial cyst that has left a deep divot in my scalp, the loss of our beloved hero cat Chicken in July at the age of sixteen, a vitamin deficiency that resulted in a month-long zombie state among the lowest of the latter.

I never liked my name growing up, as 'Greg' rhymes with 'egg' and I was routinely referred to as 'Gregory Eggory' or 'Eggy Greggy' among the brats of my grade school years.  But at fifteen, when I discovered the vast universe of possibility and adventure that comes with claiming so powerful a sobriquet as 'Writer', I realized that 'Gregory L. Norris' would one day look fantastic as a byline, and since that Eureka! moment, I've pretty much lived my life by accentuating the positive.  So this post is all about the high highs of 2013, of which there were many.

In January, following decades of anticipation, I completed my 1,000th Work of Fiction.  Like other potent numbers -- 1, 50, 100, 500, 700, and 800 -- the novella "Alibe's Story" was a fan fiction based upon the late, great Gerry Anderson's outer space parable, Space:1999.  To celebrate, we filled our house with friends from my wonderful Southern New Hampshire writers' group and even a few beloved faces from high school, when my mom hosted a party to celebrate my 100th.  It was, not so simply, a divine time.

In March, we purchased a big old house far from the familiar in our state's North Country.  We trucked all we owned and trekked 150 miles to the town of Berlin, to Xanadu.  Following a week-long writing retreat to a venue on the other side of Mount Washington the previous October, I found this house on a real estate website and was smitten with what I saw.  When the price of the house dropped by $10,000.00 overnight, I made contact with the realtor.  We then drove north on a bright Tuesday and were greeted by a flock of wild turkeys, who came gobbling down from the hill in the backyard and were happy to share in the lunch I'd packed for the journey. Since our arrival, we've painted, renovated, and made the house a bright and cozy home where happiness and creativity have prospered.

From the moment we landed, I was inspired by the mountain views beyond every window and the bright nature of the house, and put pen to page.  While renovations to my new Writing Room commenced, I took to writing at our kitchen table, where I collected together twenty flash fiction stories under the working title Shrunken Heads: Twenty Tiny Tales of Mystery and Terror.  The finished book was submitted to Angela Craig, my wonderful editor on various past releases from Elektrik Milk Bath Press, accepted, and published in September. Smaller in size physically than the norm, the book is a charming showcase of my work that any writer would be proud to have graced by their byline.

Numerous of my stories, short and long, were also accepted for publication, in a variety of venues and countries -- a dozen to my publisher in Germany, at least as many to the fine folks at Cleis Press, and many to anthologies like the wonderful Cellar Door, D.O.A. II, Enter At Your Own Risk: Dark Muses (featuring reprints of classic tales by Polidori, Lovecraft, Poe, and Washington Irving!), the brilliant Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam, and the gory and unapologetic Splatter Lands by Grey Matter Press (who then published my story "Third Offense" in their follow up release, Ominous Realities).

In the early summer, I learned that my short story "Bleedthrough" was one of fourteen accepted for the next publication release by the New England Horror Writers, Wicked Seasons.  The story, about evil bleeding through the wall and infecting a young woman's life from the apartment next door, was praised by editor Stacey Longo for its originality and its polish -- apparently, I made her job easy in this one instance.  At the annual conference Anthocon, it was a treat to be handed a copy of the anthology, which contains some impressive names in publishing!  Also at the same yearly event, Canopic Jars: Tales of Mummies and Mummification was launched.  I was asked to edit this anthology by friends who opened a press in 2013 and to select the stories that fill its meaty near-400 pages.  I have always loved this particular trope and was thrilled to dust it off for a fresh new take.  The collection contains my tale "Mummy Chips" about a socialite serving her guests a unique menu, and has garnered more than a few shout-outs as being among the best in the book's many positive reviews.  And at the tail end of 2013, my story "The Moths" was published in the highly anticipated latest volume in the New Hampshire Pulp Fiction series, Live Free or Sci Fi. My combat story of desperate humans seeking to intercept an alien armada using a fleet of heavy cruisers thought long mothballed -- led by the flagship New Hampshire -- concludes the anthology; Pulp Fiction and New Hampshire Magazine Editor Rick Broussard felt mine was, 'the perfect ending' to science fiction stories centered around the Granite State.

My career garnered serious attention in the media, first in a newspaper write-up that quickly led to an appearance on New Hampshire Chronicle, a long-running magazine show that reaches millions of viewers in my home state and past the borders of our closest neighbors.  On perhaps the muggiest and hottest day of the summer, famed host Sean Mcdonald ventured north with his cameraman Chris to tape a segment about me and my writing here at Xanadu -- what fun!  I was also interviewed numerous times for other newspaper articles, was a guest on the radio show Granite State of Mind three times, and was asked to appear in a literary art show at the best of our local eateries, Tea Birds Cafe & Restaurant.  Add to this the creation of a new and exciting writers' group in our adopted home town, and it was beyond the cost of that glaring new scar on the top of my head.

Besides, I've come to look at that reminder of the lows of 2013 as an exit point for the many ideas inside my imagination that couldn't be contained or wait to burst forth into the world.  In fact, I'm writing the first of them now, in early 2014.

2013 Writers' Group Christmas Party

(O Tannenbaum)

For a few years now, we've hosted an annual Christmas party, usually near the start of December because the month grows more hectic the deeper it gets.  This year's gathering was all the more celebratory as it was the first held in our new home in the North Country, Xanadu. Christmas for us actually started last March 4, the day we closed on the property.  By Saturday, the 7th of December, we were more than ready to open the house to writer friends from the wonderful Nashua Writers' Group and its offshoot here in our new home base. Being part of the Berlin Writers' group, like living in our house, feels like a gift, one I've enjoyed since five of us gathered in the downtown to read our writing so many months ago.

By noon, a monstrous ham was out of the oven and ready to be carved, homemade fruit punch filled the big drinks dispenser, and I had spinach salad in the antique bowl and cheese and crackers ready on the platter. As guests arrived, a scrumptious buffet materialized: chicken cacciatore, stuffed mushrooms, chips and dips, taco salad made famous from one of my friends from the southern part of the state, more cheese varieties and pepperoni to choose from, baskets filled with homemade cookies, peanut butter truffles rolled in coconut, pumpkin roll, brownies, a 'deconstructed' cherry pie that earned total thumbs up, sodas, coffee, and tea.  It was, as usual, amazing.  So, too, the spirited game of Yankee Swap (briefly, I held onto a year's subscription to Poets & Writers Magazine).

(the talented two: Judi Calhoun and Launa Keenan)

After the sometimes hilarious goings-on, we settled down with beverages of choice to read.  We were fifteen in all, and fit quite comfortably into the new living room (last year and the previous Christmas in our apartment in Milford, we had writers stacked up like cords of firewood).  Unlike 2012's theme, in which attendees chose a sealed envelope months and weeks earlier to know their individual topic, this time around I urged folks to write based upon the time of year.  Basic, I know, however what resulted was anything but, and offerings ran the emotional gamut from light poetry and short stories to heartbreaking holiday tales. There was mystery and murder, speculative takes on ancient mythological figures, and visitors from outer space. My original short story, "Homeless for the Holidays", is a visceral and grisly tale about two men who find themselves on the streets and taken under the roof of a couple they assume are concerned friends, only to learn that once inside their house, facades don't hold up, and lives are in jeopardy.  It's not an easy story to listen to (it wasn't easy to pen and left me visibly shaken when I reached The End).  I felt liberated, however, once I concluded, and will shop the story around when appropriate markets appear.

The first guests arrived at 10:30 in the morning; the last departed just after 6 p.m.  After cleaning, I moseyed upstairs with leftover cookies to snuggle with the cats and husband, and to watch a movie, one of our Saturday night weekly joys.  The tree was lit, the house bright and energized with good emotion, and we basked in the fun from our third big writers' group(s) party in our home since the move.  Our next gathering is scheduled for May of 2014 when the snow has melted and our beautiful corner of New Hampshire dons its greenery once more.

CANOPIC JARS: Tales of Mummies and Mummification

(Behold -- Canopic Jars!)

I love creature features.  Creature double-features even more.  Along with giant rubber suit monsters of the Japanese variety, mummies have always ranked among my favorite things that creep, crawl, and create terror from the television set. Those desiccated former Pharaohs and doomed princes occupy a unique place in my heart, ever since my Uncle Jimmy and his pal Warren, tasked with babysitting me as a young boy, switched the dial to WLVI-Channel 56, and Boris Karloff's Imhotep dragged his dusty bandages across the snowy screen. Mummies trigger a unique brand of fear within me.  In high school, when I was just starting to write and tap into my imagination, I woke from a nightmare about being pursued by a mummy and jotted the dream down on a note card as a potential story idea. Not long after, I wrote it out and, these many years later, the tale, "That Which Must Be Confronted", still resides in my file system, and I vividly remember the raw nerves of the original dream, which translated onto the page.

Late last year, two friends planning to open a new press approached me about editing an anthology of short stories and asked me about ideas on a theme.  I instantly tossed out the notion of mummies -- the original zombies, and an icon that doesn't get nearly as much play.  I suggested a fresh approach from the expected Egyptian landscape: bog mummies, mummies from outer space, and also the all-important element of the jars in which organs were preserved and stored for future use by the embalmed upon their return from the dead. And thus, Canopic Jars: Tales of Mummies and Mummification was born, the first project by the fine folks at Great Old Ones Publishing.

Over the course of the summer and into the early autumn, publishers Philip Perron (who runs the fantastic Dark Discussions Podcast) and Douglas Poirier invited writers they respected to submit stories for consideration.  I, too, sent out a handful of invitations, and was blown away by the brilliance and variety that resulted. Rejecting stories was difficult; accepting those that made it into the book, a whopping twenty-nine (including a reprint of H.P. Lovecraft's classic, "Under the Pyramids") proved fairly easy.  T. G. Arsenault unleashes evil on an unsuspecting town in "Symphony of the Ancient Gods".  David C. Hayes explores the history of the genre from an actor's POV in "That's a Wrap". Suzanne Robb's heartbreaking "Portraits of the Dead" tackles the loss of loved ones and the belief in their resurrection, the fundamental basis for Egyptian mummification.  The menu's unique in my tawdry tale set at a society party, "Mummy Chips", and Karen Dent embalms the entire Earth in the outstanding "Walking White Death". In addition to fantastic fiction that spans the globe from Egypt to Ireland, New York City penthouses to digs in remote China, from France to the far reaches of the cosmos, Canopic Jars also features poetry by Esther M. Leiper-Estabrooks and a foreword from Patrick Rhea, screenwriter and director behind Lionsgate's Nailbiter film.

Canopic Jars went to press in record time and debuted at Anthocon in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where fifteen of the anthology's contributors were in attendance.  Copies of the book flew off the Great Old Ones Publishing table in the dealer's room, and energy and excitement for the project was everywhere you turned.  A fantastic roster of authors, a beautiful layout (Egyptian hieroglyphs and ankhs detail the scene breaks and end pages), and a classic horror trope given a fresh dusting off, if you will, have resulted in a book I am supremely proud of.  Next up: Great Old Ones have asked me to edit their new anthology, based upon another idea I suggested: Bugs!

New Release Flash Flood

On March 3, 2013 our small family ventured north to our new house (actually, Xanadu's almost a century old) in the mountains. Before the week was through, my soon-to-be-new writing room on the ground floor was being pulled apart so that it could be redesigned to my specifications, and I had claimed office space at our dining table in our new kitchen as temporary accommodations (also the sofa in Xanadu's living room for afternoon work sessions). There wasn't much of a lull between our old digs and new -- I wrote on the long drive up here and through the morning of closing, the stress of which should have driven me to distraction but didn't.

During those kitchen table and living room sofa spells, I penned quite a few flash fiction stories inspired by our adventure to this mysterious and magical town.  One morning soon after landing, the Eureka! moment struck, and I collected together twenty of my wee stories into Shrunken Heads: Twenty Tiny Tales of Mystery and Terror.  I wrote up a proposal, fired it off, and in record time my wonderful editor, Angela Craig at Elektrik Milk Bath Press, requested a read.  The book was turned in, and this past September my terrible infant was born. Petite in size (it's smaller than a paperback and weighs in at only 106 pages), Shrunken Heads is a miniature monster that packs -- I hope -- plenty of bite!

I've also enjoyed several exciting new releases in addition to my short fiction collection.  Over the summer, editor Shawna Bernard approached me about writing for her new project, Cellar Door: Words of Beauty, Tales of Terror V1.  Cellar Door contains two of my original short stories -- "Stray Cat" and "November Comes Too Early" (formerly titled "There's Someone in the Basement").  In the first, a shady apartment dweller mistakes noises in the hallway for a stray cat and devises a violent solution, while in the latter, a woman wakes each night, convinced there's someone moving around down in the basement as the autumn days grow shorter and colder.  I had a great time writing both stories; "Cat" tested me and made me feel quite dirty, truth be told.  On the afternoon I hit 'send' from my laptop, my good pal Esther M. Leiper-Estabrooks, read the guidelines and was instantly inspired. Esther is one of many wonderful new friends I've made since moving north, and a powerhouse poet, columnist, and fiction writer.  We were enjoying a big Sunday dinner and, by dinner's end, she had a draft of "Behind the Cellar Door", a wonderfully creepy epic poem, which also appears in the collection. Rounding out the Table of Contents are such luminous authors as Tracy L. Carbone, J. Daniel Stone, K. Trap Jones, and David North-Martino.  It's always a pleasure to have my work included among such wonderful scribes.

Late last winter, right before the move, I was contacted by the brilliant minds behind the Gay City series of books, which featured my story "The End of an Era" in Volume 4. Editors Vincent Kovar and Evan J. Peterson invited me to submit to their newest, which would pay homage to monsters -- one of my favorite writing subjects! While waiting to close on Xanadu and packing up our lives for the new adventure, I got lost in my longish short story "B.E.M.s", which came to me during a visit to Los Angeles, circa 1999.  In my story, a hardened he-man actor starring in the lead role on a spooky network TV show lives a secret life fighting the Bug-Eyed Monsters that lurk and slither in the back lots and back alleys of Tinseltown, preying upon dreams and the innocent. I had more fun than should be legal writing the story, enjoyed sharing it with my southern NH writers' group in those final weeks leading up to the big move, and fired it off to patient editors who made it very clear that they wanted my work included in the collection. On the first Saturday in our new home, I woke and moseyed downstairs to find the acceptance for "B.E.M.s" waiting in my email.  The end result of the book -- like the previous volume -- is visually stunning, from cover to contents.  "B.E.M.s" appears alongside work by heavy hitters like Steve Berman and Bastard Out of Carolina author Dorothy Allison.

In November 2012 at Anthocon, I met the brilliant Dr. Alex Scully, who approached me about contributing quite a unique story to a new project in the works at her press, Firbolg Publishing, for their Enter at Your Own Risk: Dark Muses, Spoken Silences. I was tasked with telling the story of H.P. Lovecraft's classic "The Call of Cthulhu" from the perspective of the author's most famous baddy himself. Talk about a challenge -- and a rare treat! I immersed myself in the original story, got into Cthulhu's head space as best as I could, and penned "The Whisper of Cthulhu", in which the cosmic giant wakes early from his eons-old slumber to find himself in a reality he never dreamed possible.  Not only does Dark Muses, Spoken Silences include a reprint of Lovecraft's tale, the book also features Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", Polidori's "The Vampyre: A Tale", and Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat", each classic bookended with alternate takes from different perspectives as penned by some of today's most exciting literary voices.  Poe is my favorite author of all time, and to be included in a book with him is a dream made manifest.  My contributor copy arrived recently late one gloomy, cold afternoon -- mail delivery in our neighborhood switched from mid-morning to seemingly mid-night -- and my hands trembled as I opened the package, knowing what it contained.  A stunning and humbling collection to have a story in, truly.

Four books of more than a dozen I've had stories published in since the summer, each one is a reminder of how lucky I am to be living the writing life.

Three Days of Heaven in Xanadu

(Life without makeup)

For the past two months, I haven't felt much like my usual sunny self.  I can blame it on the Second Coming of that horror from the spring, Jurassic Cyst (which landed me in the hospital for nearly five full days in April and left a divot in my scalp big enough to fly a Saturn 5 rocket through).  The loss of our beloved eldest cat, Chicken. A great deal of writing work that, while wonderful and exciting, is far from what I planned to delve into this waning Summer 2013. Perhaps it was that oft-lamented Mercury Retrograde I've heard spoken of so frequently, but never gave much of a second thought. Who knows?  Not I.  Maybe it was all of these things, a personal perfect storm that wove together into a shroud that smothered my love for my new home and the writing life.  Whatever the cause, I knew the effect and, focused on recharging batteries seriously depleted, I took three days to get centered. The results were quite spectacular.  They were, in fact, examples of the way I'm used to living my life. Maybe two lackluster months were meant to remind me of how good I've got it.

Despite a lot of recent attention toward my career in newspaper interviews and even TV, I've become a bit of a hermit in these, my late middle years, loving my alone time (never truly alone, with my small and wonderful family and a very grabby Muse).  So on Friday morning, feeling the need to nest, I made a point that these three days, from Friday to Sunday as I type this blog entry, were to be spent at home, without external contact.  I would get off the grid...or as far from it as possible.  I needed to get centered.

Regarding Jurassic Cyst Part Deux: thanks to a wonderful friend in my writers' group and desperate to avoid another lengthy and expensive hospital stay, I began taking a holistic remedy called Chaga, a repellent-looking fungus-among-us that apparently is growing all over the woods in my backyard. When mashed and then boiled, it makes a lovely tea.  My friend urged me to give it a try and I found it not only delicious, but within one week's time (the Friday start to my nesting period), Jurassic Cyst became extinct.  In feeling physically better, I also began to improve in the spiritual sense.  I woke up on Day One and resumed working on numerous projects that have been shuffled to the side -- completion of a short story started in Vermont last December while attending When Words Count Retreat Center for Writers called "The Honeysuckle Snow" and submission of my novelette, "The Arsonist", to a market I'd love to crack.  I worked on keystroking a novel from longhand draft onto the computer for my German Publisher, who requested a look at what could amount to a full series commitment.  I listened to music I love, played a few favorite movies I haven't seen in a while (Blue Velvet, Day of the Triffids), sipped coffee, walked around my yard and along my road with its stunning mountain views, read for fun (a wonderful old paperback with a tawdry cover, the Ellery Queen mystery The Origin of Evil), and indulged in some online soap operatic episodes of the ABC daytime drama Loving -- later The City -- which I used to watch being taped in New York City and covered for various industry publications, way-back-when.  I recharged those dead batteries.

(Sunday on the sun porch with Ozzie)

Most of all, I remembered.

I remembered that, twenty years ago, I reached the second-biggest turning point in my life, right after that which first inspired me to write.  Late summer of 1993 into the fall, I made a very conscious decision to be a writer, and only a writer because, simply, I love to write.  Not that I forgot this basic yet all-important truth.  I think I needed reminding, however.

Over the past twenty years, my career's enjoyed plenty of highlights and just as many low marks to keep me grounded.  On Halloween weekend in October of '93, I stood atop Wentworth Mountain at my very first writing retreat and, as wet autumn snow began to fall from a gray sky, asked the Muse for a sign, and I sure got it upon my return home -- in the form of my first professional sale to a national magazine, a writing award, and my first book deal.  The message was that if I gave myself completely to that which I love, it would keep me protected, provided for, and supremely happy.  It has.  I may have overlooked the interoffice memo regarding this truth these past two months, but I remembered where to look over the course of the past three days.  And I finished a particularly disturbing little tale of some 4,000 words on Day Three, "Thumbling", after bringing my current novel, which got lost in the muddle of the summer's demands, to its halfway point.  It didn't feel like work, not one bit.  It was fun.  The purest.

Tomorrow is Monday, and regardless of what the morning brings, I plan to wake up with a smile, pour my first coffee of the day, uncap my pen, and remember how lucky I am to be right where I am, doing what I love most.  Hallelujah!

Experience the Magic of Arthurian!

(Poster art by Judi Calhoun)

Mysterious signs began to appear across the northern hamlet of Berlin, New Hampshire.  Even greater mysteries were hinted at through portents, word of mouth, short feature articles in The Berlin Daily Sun, and the Internet destination the curious were directed to, Arthurian. Ancient secrets are about to be revealed, thanks to the luminous Jonathan Dubey, playwright and driving force behind the two-hour theater production set in pre-Camelot England, which takes to the stage starting this week in a venue unlike any other, in a region famous for -- and in desperate need of -- a healthy and thriving theater scene.

It was my pleasure to sit down with Jonathan, a talented scribe from my wonderful Berlin Writers' Group who pens poetry, short fiction, and memoir in addition to writing phenomenal plays (he's also hard at work on a murder mystery for the local dinner theater circuit), about Arthurian, which invites the audience meet a young Arthur, positing the details that created one of history's most beloved legends.

Talk me through the play's genesis.
With a low-budget theater company, I was looking for something that we could do with very inexpensive rights -- or for free.  And I thought that something written locally would be the best way to go.  I had difficulty finding the right project to work on, so I decided why not try writing something myself?  Since I was a kid, I've been fascinated with King Arthur legends, in all the various forms -- books, movies, cartoons.  And I realized that classic literature is free to adapt, and because there are so many different interpretations that contradict, I could just about do anything I wanted with the story. But I tried to keep as true as possible to the classic fantasy of Sir Thomas Malory. Sir Thomas took all these legends and myths passed down through oral tradition and put them to paper.  They got nabbed and rewritten -- still under his name, but making it very Christian and religious.  The church pulled a lot of the mysticism, paganism, sex, and magic out of it.  And now we're putting this show on in a church!

(Arthurian Playwright/Director Jonathan Dubey)

You don't appear in Arthurian but are its director.  Still, you have a lot of history with the local theater scene in this section of the great northern chimney of New Hampshire.
When  I was a teenager, I was involved in a couple of shows in Middle School, High School, and the local community theater, Theatre North.  I then took fifteen years off to grow up, get married, have a career, and buy a house, but returned to community theater five years ago.  I found it to be an organization with goodhearted people but not enough of them, and cursed by the burden of serious financial problems. That theater organization recently disbanded and Arthurian is our attempt to bring something positive out of the ashes -- and to keep the spirit of Theatre North alive as something new.

Local theater in Northern New Hampshire has something of a storied history.  Why is it so important to keep the spirit and magic alive?
It's important to know about local community theater in this area in that there isn't any here anymore. One can travel over an hour to see community theater or summer stock, but art and culture is desperately lacking in this and other economically-depressed regions.  There are artists here, and good ones.  There are writers and other talented people in Berlin and the surrounding communities, and the public needs to know they're here and to celebrate with us.

(Mario Molina as Sir Pellinore in Arthurian)

Arthurian takes a unique glimpse into the King Arthur Legend by showing his life before he was king.  What can the audience expect?
It's a real 'King Arthur Begins' bent, an origin story, starting with Arthur's heritage when his blood father, Uther Pendragon, and Merlin set in motion the events leading to the boy's destiny.  Mostly, it details the difficulties of growing up where he's so different from his adoptive family. We, the audience, steal a glimpse into the workings within the walls of Sir Ector's estate, and come to understand these legendary characters in an intimate and unexpected manner.  Arthur is tempted to make the same mistakes as his blood father, but ultimately makes the correct though difficult choices that eventually shape his fate.

(Arthurian's cast and crew)

You have an amazing cast of local actors!
We have a varied yet talented cast: young Tanner Cote, in his first performance as "Kay"; June Desmond as "Mim", the Head of the Household -- she runs the house, really! -- has over twenty-five years of stage experience; Zachary Boucher as Arthur has some theater experience, but this is his first lead role; after performing the titular role in The Diary of Anne Frank, Samantha Kilbride changes it up as "Sir Ector"; Tyler Fowler and Miranda Braziere play multiple roles, most notably the devious "Scrounger" and the sinister "Larcena"; Mario Molina commands the stage as "Sir Pellinore"; Corey Shaink brings us a quirky and mercurial new take on "Merlin"; and Mary Champlin as the ingenue "Andrivete".  Ramona Dube handles the props as well as the small but important role as "Taubitha", a servant.  Amelia Kendall deftly handles the lights and sounds, and first time Assistant Director Danielle Robichaud also serves as Stage Manager.  The entire cast and crew are local, all living within twenty miles of retrofitted church venue.