I’m very lucky to have had the chance to meet bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe. Not only is she a talented writer, but she’s a pleasant, cheerful, upbeat person who never fails to bring a glow with her. I can understand her GLOW. She gets to live here, in Charleston, South Carolina, where it’s 70 degrees on Thanksgiving. She gets to write while sitting at a desk overlooking the ocean. And finally, she gets to WRITE about the things she loves and actually get paid to do it. So without further ado, meet Mary Alice Monroe.

Author Bio: New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe found her true calling in environmental fiction when she moved to coastal South Carolina. Already a successful author, she was captivated by the beauty and fragility of her new home. Her experiences living in the midst of a habitat that was quickly changing gave her a strong and important focus for her books.

Since then, she has explored the problems of endangered sea turtles (The Beach House, Swimming Lessons, and her first children’s book, Turtle Summer), raptors (Skyward), the indigenous grass and endangered ecosystem (Sweetgrass), and the rivers and mountains of North Carolina in Time is a River. Publishers Weekly wrote, “Monroe is in her element when describing the wonders of nature and the ways people relate to it.” In July 2009, Pocket Books released her newest novel, Last Light over Carolina, which brings alive the disappearing world of the coastal shrimping industry.

Monroe continues to write richly textured books that delve into the complexities of the human psyche and the parallels between the land and life. Mary Alice is an active conservationist. She is a dedicated member of the Isle of Palms/Sullivan’s Island Turtle Team and serves on the Board of the South Carolina Aquarium. For information, videos, blogs and more, go to www.maryalicemonroe.com.

An H and Five Ws with NYT Bestselling Author Mary Alice Monroe

1) How did you get published?

I did all of the steps that I recommend to authors hoping to get published. First, I joined a writer’s group. This group focused on writing techniques, critiques, and mutual support. We also learned selling techniques: the query letter, proposal writing, manuscript preparation, and synopsis. I attended conferences where NY agents and editors spoke, did workshops, and held meetings. This is very important. At conferences I signed up for interviews. There were groups with one agent and eight of us wannabes sitting at a big table. Each of us had two minutes to pitch our stories. It was painful. Some stuttered, some went on too long and were cut off, and others were prepared and stood out. Those few were the ones asked to send material. I also did one-on-one interviews. Again, a good pitch is critical. I discovered that no agent or editor will buy or represent your manuscript based on these meetings. The best you can hope for is for him or her to say, “Send the manuscript.” Then you can immediately send the manuscript to his or her office with the note stating when you met the agent and that she requested the manuscript. That at least gets the agent to read a page or two!

I also volunteered at conferences. I highly recommend it. I once volunteered to drive an agent I liked to the airport after the conference. We talked in the car and she asked me to send the manuscript. I did. She bought it and that first novel was published. That novel, The Long Road Home, was published by Harper in 1995. It had a small print run and sold out, never to be seen again. Until this November! My first novel will be released for the first time since its original publication in November 2010!

2) Who is your biggest literary influence?

There isn’t only one. I studied William Blake extensively and he left his mark in everything I do. I read Charles Dickens voraciously and believe he is the master of characterization. James Clavell’s work shaped my concept of the noble hero and his thorough research, especially in Shogun, shaped my desire to reveal history and setting with color and verve. Pat Conroy’s love of the southern landscape inspired me. Rosamunde Pilcher’s talent for revealing character through dialogue, and her ability to make small details show and not tell is unparalleled. Finally, Rachel Carson’s dedication to nature and the landscape has greatly influenced my work and my motivation.

3) What is your LEAST favorite thing about being a writer?

Deadlines.

4) Where did the idea for Last Light Over Carolina come from?

I’ve always been fascinated with the sight of the shrimp boats on the horizon. They seemed romantic, yet I was well aware of the hardships and struggles the shrimpers faced. One day my neighbor, friend, and mentor, Clay Cable, who is also VP of the shrimper’s association, said to me, “Mary Alice, if you’re going to write that book about the shrimpers you’d better hurry up!” I knew he was right. The shrimpers are facing threats at many levels--the glut of inferior imported shrimp is driving down prices, the soaring price of diesel fuel is making it too expensive to take the boats out, and the high value of coastal land is causing folks to sell dock space to developers. I realized that shrimp boats were a vanishing part of our southern landscape and heritage, as was the shrimping industry. I wanted to tell their story while I could.

5) When have you had the most trouble completing one of your books?

Whenever I feel I don’t have enough research done, or I haven’t found the soul of the story—that something I want to say through my story—I’m stalled. It is a frustrating, agonizing time for me. I dig deeper, I take long walks, I pray, I reflect. Once the story “clicks” in my mind, I like to write fast so I can get it down. After that, it’s a lot of hard work, but I’m happy because I’m in the zone.

6) WHY are you a WRITER?

Why do I breathe? I’ve never not been a story teller. As a child I made up stories and songs. I’ve always had a vivid imagination. When I wasn’t making up stories I was reading. I wrote my first story when I was eight. I believe it is important for all writers to learn and polish their craft. But the artist - a painter, a dancer, a singer, a writer - is born with the talent.

Thanks for the interview, Mary Alice! Keep up the great work!

I’ve found it’s very easy to forget to be thankful. It’s very easy to bitch and moan about the cost of gas. The fact that the Steelers lost to the Kansas City Chiefs. The fact that my life is so hard because it’s rainy today. Thankfulness—gone. And it’s just so easy to do.

Today, I’m putting away my usual cynicism and dark sense of humor, and I’m being all gushy-mushy. I’m listing the things I’m thankful for. Perhaps, my thankfulness will seep through your computer and into your fingertips, until you, too, are thankful. Because shoot, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how gray the skies, there is always a reason to be pleased.

SARA DOBIE IS THANKFUL: That although she was raised a Detroit Lions fan, she expatriated to Pittsburgh in college. Therefore, she no longer gets upset when the Lions lose. She gets excited when they win, but she no longer puts faith in their ability to do so.

SARA DOBIE IS THANKFUL: That her little brother moved to Charleston so they can now watch bad B horror movies and drink cheap beer on the same couch, as opposed to on couches hundreds of miles apart. That her dad consistently calls on Saturdays whenever the Michigan Wolverines do something stupid. That her mom learned how to send texts that say, “I love you.”

SARA DOBIE IS THANKFUL: That she lives in Charleston, South Carolina—a city with ancient wrought iron fences, mansions overlooking a turbulent harbor, and flickering lamps that bathe the bricked streets of the French Quarter in golden light.

SARA DOBIE IS THANKFUL: That her boyfriend has a sense of humor that makes her laugh until her ribs hurt; that he cooks better than Martha Stewart; that he supports her, no matter what, without looking at her like she’s off her rocker; and that all it takes is a hug from him to make Sara Dobie believe everything truly, honestly, will be all right.

SARA DOBIE IS THANKFUL: That she has loving friends—in Charleston and scattered across the US—who send hugs, smiles, advice, and gag gifts, without expecting anything in return.

SARA DOBIE IS THANKFUL: That she has been on many adventures. Spellbound and dizzy at the edge of the waterfall in Hocking Hills, Ohio. Crying at the glory of the Paris Opera House. Drunk with her Uncle Barney, stumbling along the quays of Venice. Hiking the Narrows of Zion National Park in my battered, green Airwalks from eighth grade. Even playing Marco Polo in my parents’ basement. (And Dad, we will always know you had your eyes open.)

SARA DOBIE IS THANKFUL: That sometimes, she remembers to be thankful. Because it is easy to forget. And what is life, if we forget to be thankful for the little things that make life so great?

Happy Thanksgiving, dear reader. I’m thankful for you, too. Tomorrow, eat until you pass out. Hug everyone you know. If you’re up to it, hug a stranger at the supermarket. Or feel free to just yell GOBBLE GOBBLE after one too many spiced ciders with Captain Morgan.

At the theater on Saturday, a twelve-year-old gave me a run for my money. When Taylor Lautner took off his shirt, I was about to purr. Then, this little girl in freakin’ pig tails beat me to the punch. I must be getting slow in my old age. I say old at 27, because shoot, Lautner is 17. Talk about jailbait…

I read all the Twilight books. I liked them for what they were—teeny bopper vampire porn. I saw the movie Twilight, and I thought it was dumb. Granted, I saw the midnight showing, and I had a migraine at the time, but still, the flick—and all the actors—annoyed me. I did not go to see New Moon on opening night. I waited until Saturday, because I thought, why not? It’s not like the movie is going to play once and then, disappear like a distraught Edward Cullen, leaving Bella (or Sara Dobie) lost and bewildered in the woods.

There was a line thirty people long when I arrived, but thankfully, my dates for the evening were already there, waiting. My dates were three chicks, and I’d say the girl to guy ratio in the theater’s entirety was about 9 to 1. We took our seats, and yeah, we squealed during the opening credits. The movie began, and…

What? Are you expecting some grand epiphany? Well, there isn’t one.

New Moon was a lot like Twilight, only a little better. Much like the Harry Potter crew, the Twilight kids evidently took some acting classes in the interim. The directing was good. Nice camera angles. Some cool shots. Nice close ups on Bella being SAD and MISERABLE. The best part was the music. I wonder what Radiohead’s Thom Yorke thought when his agent was like, “Hey, dude, you want to do a song for the Twilight saga?” I suppose he said, “The what saga?” Thom Yorke’s probable shock at soundtrack inclusion notwithstanding, the soundtrack was GOOD. Some Death Cab, Band of Skulls, the aforementioned Thom Yorke, and of course, the return of Muse.

I’ll say a bit about the special effects and makeup. The werewolves were pretty sweet, and the wolf dudes were fun on the screen. I thought they were more interesting than the vamps, to be truthful. The vampires did look cool, though, as vampires tend to. On the topic of the coolness of the wolves, I’d like to submit my bid for Team Jacob. I know, it’s a stupid advertising ploy to take sides, but it was a strange juxtaposition for someone who read all of Stephanie Meyer’s teen angst. By the end of Twilight, you’re all about Edward Cullen. By the end of New Moon, I was asking “Edward Cullen who?”

Jacob wins. It’s not just how dang cute the boy is; it’s the charisma that Rob Pattison seemed to be lacking. It could have been the dialogue. Maybe Pattison’s absence for the majority of the film. Maybe Pattison’s desperate need to eat a sandwich. (He was skinnier than me, and no girl likes a dude THAT skinny.) Whatever it was, by the end, I wanted Bella to pick Jacob. We’ll just have to see what happens, hmm?

The bottom line: New Moon is an okay flick. It’s entertaining. It has some good dialogue. We can all appreciate the attractiveness of the cast. If you’re expecting an action movie (as billed by the trailers), go see something else. If you’re expecting high brow entertainment, just stay home and read a book.

I don’t necessarily believe in Seasonal Affective Disorder. At least not in Charleston. Maybe in Ohio, but not in Charleston. This does not mean I’m safe from the occasional emotional outburst and/or weepy meltdown.

The New Yorker’s blog, The Book Bench, is a consistent favorite of mine. I usually like what they have to say, and they keep me UP on all that’s happening in the book world. Surprisingly, they featured a National Geographic photographer the other day, and this is where the weepy meltdown comes in.

I didn’t sob or anything. I just smiled a little and got teary, because this post reminded me that animals…well, they rock. No matter what. No matter how scary a certain leopard seal may have been in the past, this leopard seal knows, deep down, how to take care of other creatures. And that’s what this video is all about today. Like I said, leopard seals have more humanity than Oprah, because Oprah wouldn’t share her dead penguin with me.

An excerpt from the article:

When Paul Nicklen, a biologist and photographer for National Geographic, decided to travel to Antarctica to document the leopard seal, a large, aggressive animal that dominates the Antarctic waters, he didn’t realize he would be getting one of the best shots of his career. Leopard seals are imposing, even frightening. They’re sexually dimorphic—the females are larger than the males by up to thirty per cent—and they weigh in excess of eleven hundred pounds. In 2003, a British scientist named Kristy Brown was snorkeling in the Antarctic and was fatally pulled underwater by one. “With its massive serpentine body, reptilian head, and sinister black eyes, the leopard seal looks positively prehistoric,” writes Nicklen in his new book “Polar Obsession.” Yet leopard seals are often unfairly cast as villains; their gait and playfulness can often be mistaken for aggression. (Investigators of Brown’s death believe the seal had been trapped inland all winter and was starving.) Nicklen was determined to capture a different side of the animal, one that demonstrates their intelligence and capacity to interact with humans. In the video below, Nicklen describes an incredible four-day experience with an enormous female leopard seal (she was roughly thirteen feet long and three feet wide), which created one of the most compelling chapters in his new book…

You want more, don’t you? Of course you do. I promised a video. So head over: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/11/getting-the-shot.html. Enjoy. Thank God for the wild creatures of this Earth.

The Halsey Institute’s 5^th Annual Membership Event felt a lot like Heaven: bright white light, walls covered in what looked like stain glass, and crowded with people who seemed confused, wondering how they had gotten there. On the topic of Heaven, if the Friday image stands true, there will be wide food spreads, free wine, and no option of coat check. That being said, the warmth of the Halsey interior was pleasant, considering the chill of the Charleston night. The upbeat tunes of Garage Cuban Band increased the illusion of summer heat, as did the aforementioned overhead lighting.

For me, a Charleston artist’s single print set the tone. Colin Quashie, whose “wry, ironic, and irreverent art” shoved the night full-force into an unavoidable religious epiphany, opened my eyes to a thematic stage of Holy City delight. Quashie is one of many “Hall of Patron Prints” creators. These featured patrons have had shows at the Halsey, and in remembrance, they leave a special print with a Halsey focus when they leave. Left by Quashie was a print of the fictional magazine CQ, featuring a bearded man on the cover with the headline, “Can the Lord Jesus Christ Be Gay?”

The unexpected celestial imagery continued in the main hall. The College of Charleston Art History and Studio Art departments collaborated to create an “Illuminating Pages” series, wherein the students copied medieval style in what resembled church stain glass windows. The featured artist of the night in the main gallery was Aldwyth, a collage and assembling artist, and yet the idea of God watching carried forth into his Casablanca (classic version), including a multitude of famous artists’ works, surrounded by eyes of all sizes and shapes, watching the audience. (Perhaps, judging the audience?)

Ah…it feels good writing something for the fun of writing it. Writing something that makes me laugh. Writing something that comes from ME—inspired by nothing but a need to create and a need to be silly. So thank you for joining me on this romp. I hope you’ve enjoyed “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again.” (And thank you, Esquire Magazine Fiction Contest, for the prompt!) Enjoy your Friday. The work week is almost over. Soon, you, too, can put on your football jersey and drink all day like Nolan and Max. (If you’re catching up, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.) Now, here it is: Part 4 and FINAL.

Never, Ever Bring This Up Again, Part 4 and FINAL

Max is flat on his back on a worn leather chair that looks more like a recliner than something you’d see in a salon. The place doesn’t feel like a salon, but it does feel like a place providing cheap Happy Endings.

When we walked in, the lobby looked a lot like a dentist’s office, with faded off-white linoleum tile and uncomfortable brown chairs with metal armrests. Our fellow patrons were out of a mid-eighties horror flick, and the place smelled like the days when smoking wasn’t prohibited indoors. They didn’t flinch over our Steelers/Falcons jerseys.

And the chick with the wax doesn’t seem to mind that we reek of liquor.

Max lays there in his stupid Atlanta jersey; thankfully he left the aviators at my bar. His blond hair sticks up on one side, and he looks like the alcoholic, adult Dennis the Menace. He’s in his boxers, because the little Philippine chick asked him to take off his jeans. Now, she is standing by the counter near the door of this private room, and she’s stirring a tiny cauldron of wax with a tongue depressor.

“I need you to please remove your boxers,” she says, and Max glances up at me.

“Nolan!”

“A bet’s a bet, dude,” I say.

Max isn’t nervous to take off his boxers in front of me. He is nervous to have his balls waxed. So here we are: I’m fully clothed, tired, and drunk. Max is wearing nothing but his jersey, and I can’t help but look down as the Philippine chick sticks a towel between Max’s legs. I think to myself, “Amazing a guy so short is carrying THAT around.”

This is all old news to the wax chick, who’s no bigger than a junior high kid and wearing the pigtails to match. All of a sudden, as she reaches for the wax-soaked tongue depressor, Max looks up at me. “Nolan, hold my hand,” he says.

“What?”

“Hold my hand.”

“No.”

“Nolan, I need you right now. Please hold my hand.”

I sigh, but I reach out and clasp hands. He’s squeezing so hard, I think a finger might fall off, but I’m too busy watching her spread hot, orange wax on Max’s balls to care.

“Jesus,” he mutters, and when she puts the first piece of linen over that thin layer of wax, Max closes his eyes.

I watch as the Philippine chick unceremoniously tears the linen away from Max’s skin. I’m too entranced by the way the fabric dances over her skinny right shoulder to notice Max is whimpering.

I look down at him—my best friend, with sweat on his forehead and tears in his eyes—and I ask myself, where did this bet come from? We were watching the Super Bowl. The Steelers had been behind in the first quarter, and I’d said, “Hey. Max. Wanna make a bet?” And it had happened. But why this bet? Why waxing his balls?

As he reaches for my wrist with his other hand, the woman puts more wax on Max. I realize I’m enjoying his pain. I realize I’ve wanted something bad to happen to Max since he kissed me last week.

Before Max, I hadn’t been kissed in two years. I hadn’t dated, and I hadn’t flirted. I’d been content with my asexuality, and he’d screwed it up by making me like him, making me want to risk my stability on a relationship. And I couldn’t let that happen. Been there, done that, and there’s no time for it. It isn’t worth the pain.

So I’d made a bet. I’d won, and now, Max is paying. Maybe I’m a masochist. Maybe I’m obsessed with self-preservation. Or maybe I made the bet because I could never seriously date a man who would let me have him by the balls.

The Philippine chick rips off another strip, and by now, Max is biting his lower lip and staring at the buzzing overhead lights. He looks at me. “Never, ever bring this up again,” he says, and I don’t know if we’re talking about his bare nuts or the fact that I love the dumb bastard.

* * *

THE END.

Girls, don’t you wanna own a bar? Boys, are you scared to bet on football? Well, here’s Part 3 of “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again.” If you missed Part 1, click HERE. If you missed Part 2, click HERE. If you’re caught up, then keep reading…

Never, Ever Bring This Up Again, Part 3

The smell of stale beer almost makes me vomit. The sight of Max hitting on Jessica makes it worse. My skinny bitch employee is fishing for her cell phone in her purse on the bar. Max leans next to her, and he’s doing his move where he acts interested and makes you laugh and it’s all just disgusting, isn’t it?

Outside the open front door, my dog, with jaws that could crush a teenager’s head, nuzzles against King Street’s token homeless celebrity, Byron. I walk past Jessica and Max and into the sunlight.

“Whoa,” I mutter as the sun hits me like a tack hammer between the eyes. “Byron—” I can smell him. Weed, his normal musk, and I suspect he washes his makeshift dreads in tequila every morning.

“What up, girl?” he says, like we’re old friends when, in fact, he stole my dog a couple weeks before and didn’t return for two days.

“What the hell are you doing?” I say, and Max steps up behind me.

“Byron, dude, I told you to stay away from Nolan’s dog.”

“Chill brother, I was just talking to the old boy.”

“He’s not old. He’s two,” I say, not knowing why this ticks me off.

“Byron, just get the hell out of here, man,” Max says, pushing me out of the way like I’m a distressed madam in a western flick.

“Max, I can take care of this.”

“I’m just trying to help,” he says, and I try standing on my tiptoes to be taller.

“I don’t want your help,” I say, when what I mean is I don’t want to believe I’ve fallen in love with you, you stupid little prick. Don’t you realize, I like being alone? Don’t you understand I don’t date? Don’t you know I don’t put myself out there because men are jerks and I’ll just get hurt again, you stupid, short fool? Why the hell did you ruin my life?

Max ignores my assertions, both stated and imagined, and says, “Byron, get the hell away from her dog.”

Byron shrugs. “I get lonely is all,” he says. He walks off down the street, whistling a tune with dreadlocks snake-dancing down his back.

Max turns to me with his hands on his hips and aviators in full force.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Huh?” he asks, because I’ve never thanked him for anything.

“Nolan!” James is in the doorway. There are smudged fingerprints up and down the tinted glass door, and I think about Windex before James says, grinning, “The phone’s for you. Something about a salon?”

“Aw, hell,” Max says, diving for the portable phone in James’ pudgy hand.

It’s easy for me to shove Max in the shoulder and send him tumbling, feet-over-head, onto the pile of discarded cigarette butts outside the bar. Once the man is down, I claw at the phone in James’ hand and run past a confused Jessica, back to my office.

“Yes? Hello?”

“Hello, is this Nolan?” says a voice that is clearly not of this country.

“Yes, this is Nolan.”

“You want his balls waxed?”

I say, “Yes,” and somehow, I feel like this woman knows Max—like we have some shared intention to cause him pain.

“It costs sixty-dollar,” she says, and I can picture her. She’s probably five-foot-two. She has close-cropped black hair. She’s Asian. Has to be. She sounds too sweet to be American.

“Yes, that’s fine,” I say. “Can I get an appointment for today?”

“We have opening at…two?”

“Yes, perfect.” I get the directions, and the salon is in walking distance, albeit in the ghetto. I hang up the phone, and when I turn around, James and Max are both giving me the stink eye.

“Well?” James asks, and I think Max has stopped breathing.

“The appointment’s in a half hour.”

“James, a little help here?”

But James shakes his head, and for that moment, I think James hates Max. “Nope, a bet is a bet,” he says. “Where is this place?”

“Upper King. Off Huger.”

“Oh, yeah, I know that place. Owned by Philippine chicks.” He glances at Max. “Don’t be a smart ass, dude. Nothing worse than a bitchy foreign chick, especially when she’s messin’ with your balls.”

*          *          *

The END. Part 3. Part 4 and FINAL comes at ya tomorrow.

If you missed Part 1 of my inappropriately hilarious barroom tale of football and male hygiene, be sure to head HERE. If you’re all caught up, I present to you Part 2 of Sara Dobie’s “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again.”

Never, Ever Bring This Up Again, Part 2

A block later we’re back at my bar. It doesn’t have a sign, but there’s my damn dog, sitting with his tongue hanging out, tied to a parking meter out front. I didn’t do this to my dog; my business partner, James, did this to my dog, because he doesn’t like cutting limes with a dog at his feet.

“Guess James is here,” Max says.

Joby looks like he’s about to get laid when he sees me. His brown, doggy eyes shine, and he’s smiling. “Hey, dude,” I say, patting his head. He’s half Irish Wolfhound, so he has a huge skull. No one messes with my dog; I guess we have that in common.

I turn to head inside, and Joby barks when I open the door to my bar.

“Joby, no,” Max says.

Joby sits down, resuming his tongue-flapping posture. I hate that my dog listens to Max.

Inside, it’s dark. We don’t open until four, so the place is empty. There’s one TV tuned to ESPN, rehashing the well-deserved Steelers victory from the night before. My sandals stick to the decimated hardwood floor, and I almost fall forward after wading through what looks like a spilled Jager-bomb.

“Hey, grace,” announces James’ voice from the dark.

“Hey, man,” Max says, and he brushes past me. One of the bar stools does a shimmy when he walks by; Max isn’t walking straight anymore.

After dislodging my shoe from the sap-like spill, I walk toward the back of the bar—toward my office. “Have you morons slept?” James asks.

I pause and glance at the TV. It’s Hines Ward, flying through the air to catch a Ben Roethlisberger pass in the end zone. I almost drool, so I close my mouth.

“Hello? Nolan?” James says.

“No, we never slept.”

James is a big guy. I’ve seen him bounce men Max’s size like skipped rocks across King Street. Funny, because he looks cuddly. He has this tight, curly brown afro, and at the right angle, it glows like a halo under the Charleston streetlights.

“You get his balls waxed?” James says, nodding toward Max, who’s fiddling around with something behind the bar.

“I’m working on it,” I reply, and I stomp to my office.

James and I met as seniors at the College of Charleston. We smoked a lot of weed together and wallowed in our shared lack of career aspirations. It had been James’ idea to take over his dad’s bar on King Street. It had also been his idea to make me co-owner. I think he was in love with me once, but he never said anything so I wasn’t sure.

The fluorescent light is already on when I reach the office. It’s the size of a bathroom stall with 1970s wood paneling on the walls. The floor is as sticky as the rest of the place, and it smells like smoke. The only office-appropriate deco is the computer and telephone.

I click on the Yellow Pages website that I bookmarked for taxis and pizza delivery joints. I start typing “bikini wax” into the search box just as Max arrives in the doorway wearing silver shades and carrying two glasses of Red Bull. For some reason, I think, Never trust a man in aviators.

I take the iced energy drink without saying a word.

“My mouth tastes like Bigfoot’s ass right now,” Max says.

I stop typing, hands floating a half inch above the dusty keyboard. I look up at Max, and his tongue is moving inside his mouth like Joby’s when he’s trying to eat peanut butter. “Jesus,” I mutter, and I dial the first number that pops up on my screen.

I hold the receiver in my right hand and pick up my Red Bull as the phone rings. I take a sip, and it ain’t Red Bull. It’s Red Bull and vodka, and I’d say the ratio is about fifty-fifty. “Max!” I spit the concoction on my desk just as a high-pitched female voice says, “Hello, it’s a beautiful day at Stella Salon.”

“Hey,” I say, wiping booze from my chin. “Hey, I was wondering, do you wax balls?”

Max sounds like he sucked water into his lungs, and the high-pitched voice on the phone sounds like she’s the one choking on liquor. I hang up when she says no, but I’m ready with a follow-up phone number. I dial, and Max grabs my hand.

“Come on, I was kidding about the bet.”

“I wasn’t,” I reply, pulling my wrist out of his grasp, but he doesn’t let go. His hands are strong from years of spinning bottle caps off beer bottles.

When Max interviewed for a bartending job, he admitted he wasn’t a big guy. He explained he’d spent his life staying out of fights by being funny, and James and I agreed; we liked that trait. We had enough big dudes around; why not hire a funny guy? Plus, women liked Max, even if he was what I called a “short narcissist.” On top of that, I liked Max from the start, and well, that never happened.

“Nolan, come on, give it up,” he says, and he lets go of my hand as an answering machine beep echoes in my ear.

“Hey, my name is Nolan, and I need someone to wax my buddy’s balls. If your salon offers this service, please call me back,” I say, and I leave the bar number and repeat my name before hanging up and glaring at Max. I see myself reflected in his aviators, and I resemble a Charleston homeless person. My dingy brown hair is in a frizz-ball on one side, and there’s old mascara smeared under my blue, bloodshot eyes. “You made the bet, and the Steelers won. The guys will think you’re a wuss if you don’t go through with it.”

“They won’t think I’m a wuss when I tell them I kissed you last week.”

“Moron.” I yank Max into my office, slamming the door behind him. “You won’t say a damn word.”

“Of course I won’t,” Max says, looking like I kicked him in the nuts. “I was just messing around. Speaking of…” he says, and he puts his drink down long enough to kiss me again. I let it happen, and it’s not messy or drunk, even though we’re both messy and drunk.

I remember the time he found me a cab on my birthday because I was about to be sick at the bar. He ran a block down King Street and shoved some chick in platforms out of his way to do it. Another time, a man resembling an ex-basketball player grabbed my ass, and Max got the crap kicked out of himself trying to defend me.

He pulls away. “You taste like stale cigarettes,” he says, but he’s smiling like the Cheshire Cat if he’d eaten Alice.

“Whatever,” I say, tumbling back into my vintage desk chair with the broken front wheel and sagging left armrest. “Regardless of your kissing me, there’s still the note on the chalkboard.”

“What note on the chalkboard?”

“The one that says, ‘Ask Max about his balls.’”

“Bull.”

“You don’t believe me? Go see for yourself.”

He turns around, knocking me and my chair into the wall with the side of his knee. I hiss like a pissed off mammal, and Max goes running back into mid-day bar dark. I wait for it. Wait for it. Then, “Hey! Who wrote that?”

He’s back yelling at me. The aviators are in his right hand, his morning cocktail in his left, and Max is pissed. I’ve seen it before—the way his brow wrinkles in the middle and his mouth hangs half-open. He juts out his chin, curving his upper spine like an old woman with osteoporosis, and his posturing reminds me that the Steelers won the Super Bowl.

“Who wrote that?”

“James.”

“James? When?”

“Last night after the game.”

“So people saw that?”

“The whole bar saw that. Can you say…wuss?”

“Aw, hell,” Max says, and he puts his aviators back on. For a moment, his “Aw, hell” reminds me that Max is a Southern boy—something he tries to hide because he thinks the accent makes him sound dumb. Max never went to college, and I think he resents that I know this.

There’s rustling down the hall from my office, and sunlight reflects off Max’s sunglasses and into my face. “Jessica, you gotta help me,” Max says, and he disappears from view.

I take a sip of my Red Bull, vodka. I hear Max talking to our waitress, Jessica, and I take another sip. James appears in the door and says, “What’s going on with you two?”

“What?”

“Nolan,” James says, because James knows me better than anyone.

“Nothing’s going on. Just tired. And drunk.”

“Go home,” he says, and I think it’s funny that when James is sad, his afro seems to shrink.

“No. I have to find a salon. Max is not getting away with this shit.”

“I agree, but it can wait until you both get some sleep.”

I won’t be able to sleep.

“Nolan!” I hear Jessica yell my name. “Somebody’s messing with your dog!”

“It’s probably Byron,” I say and shove past James.

*          *          *

The End. Part 2. More to come…

This year, Esquire Magazine’s Fiction Contest featured three prompts: “Twenty-Ten,” “An Insurrection,” and “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again.” Something about the final category spoke to me. Who knows? Maybe it was the start of football season. Maybe it was me, reminiscing about my college days of drinking at sun-up. I can’t say for sure. What I can say is that a story came from this prompt—a story that I consider very much ME.

Yes, I’m always ME. However, I do like to try new things with my writing. I like to go somewhat off the Sara Dobie path to see what else I can do. However, there are also times when I stick to my guns. I write from my insides, out, pouring my sense of humor, my sense of life, and my penchant for cussing like a sailor onto the page, and in those moments, I feel free. I feel happy. I feel most like myself, and with the prompt, “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again,” I was quite at home.

So I’ve decided to share this story with my readers. As I mentioned last week, November is National Novel Writing Month. I’m not writing a novel this month. However, in homage to National Novel Writing Month, I submit the following short story—crude, honest, and inappropriate as it is. I will be posting segments over the course of this week. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I present, thanks to the Esquire Magazine Fiction Contest, “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again.”

Never, Ever Bring This Up Again

Max and I made a bet that if the Steelers won the Super Bowl, he would get his balls waxed. Well. The Steelers won the Super Bowl. Now, it’s the day after my victory. Max and I stand in a salon two blocks from my sports bar, and this chick with fake blonde hair stares at me like this is all my fault. I guess it is my fault; I’m the girl who initially joked about the bet the day before. Max merely agreed, and even then only after I’d fed him beers—the high gravity kind that’ll mess you up faster than a bull at Pamplona.

“So you’re telling me you won’t do it,” Max says, and the chick chews her green gum and holds it in the side of her mouth. She chews a couple times then uses her pink tongue to swoosh it to the other side. It’s a green gum dance, and I’m drunk enough from the day, night, and morning to be entertained.

I blink when Max groans, because it reminds me of a sound he made during our unexpected make out session a week before.

“Max,” I say, and I take hold of his arm, “let’s go back to the bar.”

“No, they should be able to do this. If they can wax a woman down there, why not a dude?”

It occurs to me that it’s strange Max is the one fighting to have his balls waxed. I’d suggested the bet, and my team had won the Super Bowl the night before. I should be angry that these salon wenches won’t do it. Instead, my eyes dart back and forth from the green chewing gum and Max’s Atlanta Falcons jersey.

“I’m sorry, sir,” says gum girl, rolling her eyes. “We don’t perform those services.”

“Well, who does?”

“I don’t know, sir,” she replies, and I get lost as her tongue does another loop over the tops of her bottom teeth. It’s about then I notice we’re making a scene. I’d been distracted by Max and bubble gum, but as I look around the sunlit foyer of the posh salon, I realize there are a number of raised eyebrows and headshakes.

I glance at Max. He isn’t talking loudly. The attention is fully based—I think—on the fact that we are two people wearing football jerseys who have been drinking since noon the day before. Oops. My bad.

*          *          *

“Well, that was a bust,” he says after we leave, but I’m not listening. I’m checking out the scene on King Street—working folk dressed in business casual bustling about in front of retail stores and palmetto trees. I can’t remember the last time I woke up this early. We get a few strange looks as we walk aimlessly north, and then this one dude in a tie and khakis lifts a fist.

“Go Steelers,” he says, and I hear Max cuss at my side.

I nod at the khakis man and throw a fist up, too. Yeah, I’m a chick, but when you own a sports bar, you adapt.

“I hate you,” Max says.

“No, you don’t,” I reply, “you want to shave your balls for me.” But I understand his frustration. I hate it when my team loses, too.

I glance over at Max, and he doesn’t look as tired as he should after staying up all night. He still looks eighteen years old, even though he’s twenty-six. He’s short—my height in flats—and he’s blond with blue eyes. More than that, he’s funny. He doesn’t take anything seriously, which was why I figured letting him kiss me last Sunday didn’t matter.

“I guess we can’t fulfill your bet,” he says, putting his hands in his jean pockets and glancing left to right as we jaywalk across Calhoun Street.

Next to us is Marion Square—a block-size grass park that houses the Charleston Farmer’s Market every Saturday afternoon and sunbathing college girls throughout the spring. On this Monday, I see a few ladies wearing their Sunday best. I wonder if they’ve been drinking since yesterday, too.

“I was gonna do it, you know,” Max continues. “But that crazy chick wouldn’t let me.”

I glance at Max again, and I realize he’s smiling. That’s when I understand. His ambitious bargaining with the gum chewer was a front. He knew she was going to say no when we’d asked about waxing his balls. I grabbed his shoulder, “Oh, hell no.”

“What?”

“I’m sure someone in town waxes balls.”

“She said no.”

“That was one salon. I’m looking it up online at the bar,” I say, walking now with the purpose of a drunk chick.

Max grabs my wrist and spins me around. It’s moments like this when I remember he’s stronger than me, despite his stature. I felt as much when he pushed me against a brick wall to kiss me only a week before. “Nolan, she said no.”

“Well, I’m sure we can find someone who will say yes.”

“Damn it.”

“You agreed to the bet, dude.”

“I didn’t think you were serious.”

“I’m always serious,” I say, and his blue eyes crinkle around the edges. For the first time since I’ve known him, Max shuts the hell up.

*          *          *

The End. Part 1. More to come.

When A Serious Man ended, the theater was silent for a good twenty seconds. I mean, it was a silence that would have been awkward...if it hadn't been so deserved. The opening scene in this Coen Brother’s flick is randomly set in an undisclosed time in some snowy Jewish community. I say undisclosed, because there’s no actual date. You know that the dude in this opening scene was travelling by horse and the wife was cooking with fire, so that should give you some idea. The husband and wife have a little tiff about a soon-to-be-arriving guest. The wife thinks their guest died years ago; the husband says that isn’t possible, because he JUST TALKED to the guy. Unbeknownst to the audience, I think this scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie. You have to question: what is good; what is bad? Who deservers punishment; who deserves mercy? Is there good and bad? And does any of it matter anyway?

The viewer is then transported on a Jefferson Airplane. Well, at least the viewer starts hearing Jefferson Airplane, “Don’t You Want Somebody to Love.” In other words, you’re transported to 1967, America, where we’re introduced to our protagonist, Larry Gopnik. Larry is your basic nice guy. He has a wife. He has kids. He has a job. He has glasses. And he’s perpetually stepped on by those around him. He’s taken advantage of by everyone, from his wife who wants a divorce, his kids who don’t listen, to his neighbor who mysteriously always mows part of Larry’s yard, to his brother with no home and a draining neck cyst. Need I go on? I could. I mean, this guy is a living, breathing doormat, and yet, he’s endearing. You like Larry Gopnik. You want him to win. But of course, this is a Coen Brother’s movie. Therefore, you know the protagonist can’t win.

Personally, I’ve been following the Coen Brothers for years. YEARS. I’ve even rented movies they made before I was old enough to watch movies, okay? And I know they derive the majority of their laughs from a protagonist’s pain. Look at Barton Fink. Look at Fargo. Look at Raising Arizona. Just like all these others, in A Serious Man, we laugh at Larry’s awkwardness. We laugh at his misfortune. As his life devolves into that of a modern-day Biblical Job, we keep laughing, and it’s a Coen Brothers signature—they make audiences laugh at the terrible and unfortunate.

I can tell you they take this on a religious jaunt. Larry is, after all, Jewish. As things get worse and worse, everyone wants to know, “Did you go to the Rabbi?” As Larry’s son’s Bar Mizvah approaches, people continue to ask, “Did you go to the Rabbi?” Of course, being Jewish, yes, Larry goes to the Rabbi. He asks, “Why is this happening to me? What have I done wrong?” Does he get his answer? Well. I feel as if that would be giving too much away. I will tell you this: at the conclusion, when the theater went silent, after I finally got up and walked to the parking lot with my brother, after we started discussing the film, I realized we could have been talking about completely different movies. My brother—a self-admitted and respectable film buff—had missed what I felt was the cornerstone and reason for the existence of A Serious Man. And the TERROR underlying the message of this film.

If you want to go into this film with no idea how things will end up, stop reading. I just can’t help myself. I have to say more. In A Serious Man, the Coen Brothers do all they can to make you think that nothing has meaning. They make you believe that nothing happens for a reason—they make you think that everything, in fact, happens for no reason at all. However, blame it on my Christian upbringing… I feel like the conclusion of this movie was sneaky. I feel like the Coen Brothers bated their viewers with this idea of uncertainty and lack of reason so that they could fist your face in the last five seconds. I think this film proves that there is, in fact, reason. There is a God who still tests us, just like in the Old Testament. And, in the world of Joel and Ethan Coen, this God is still ANGRY like in the Old Testament. Maybe I’m wrong. You’ll have to see it and let me know. I’m just saying, A Serious Man—in its own screwed up Coen Bros. way—reminds us that life does have meaning.  That we do have control over what happens to us. That we can make good and bad decisions, and that those decisions can have grand implications.

Or. Maybe it’s just a really funny, dark movie about nothing at all.

The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. Well. You up for it? Huh? Sound impossible. Well, it’s not. From their website…

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2008, we had over 120,000 participants. More than 20,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

Still confused? Just visit the How NaNoWriMo Works page!

Will I be taking part this year? Unfortunately, no. If I’d known about this LAST year, it would have been perfect, since I was actually writing a novel last year. Instead, I will be posting another short story in pieces over the coming week or so. I entered this little ditty in the Esquire Magazine Fiction Contest. The complete guidelines to this fun (and challenging) contest are HERE. I went for the “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again” option. As I said, I’ll get to posting segments soon. Until then, you should go over the National Novel Writing Month website and sign up!

I saw the Blair Witch Project. Within the first two minutes of Paranormal Activity, I was scared of the same thing. Not so much the horror movie aspect but the motion sickness—shaky camera angles from a hand-held camera. Nothing worse than trying to watch a movie and just ending up nauseous. However, I was wrong. Paranormal Activity is nothing like Blair Witch. Sure, it involves a hand-held video camera and no-name actors. Yes, there’s the paranormal aspect. Yeah, you’ll be pretty dang scared. However, Paranormal Activity one-ups Blair Witch in that it stays with you long after you leave the theater. It makes you scared to go home. It makes you scared to sleep, because it’s about two people just like you and me. And it takes place in your basic suburban home. And things go really, really wrong, to the point of making grown men say, “Well, I’m sleeping with the lights on tonight.”

It’s about a young couple, moving into a new place, after three years of dating bliss. I say bliss with a hint of sarcasm, because it’s the bliss we’ve all seen a million times. This couple reminded me of couples I’ve met and befriended over the years. They’re happy. They’re funny. But they’re not perfect. They’re not a “movie” couple. They’re a real life couple next door, and that’s what makes the movie even more terrifying. It’s back to the Blair Witch dichotomy. Blair Witch happens in the woods to weird college video nerds. Paranormal Activity happens in a house just like yours to people you know and love. So this couple moves into a new house, and freaky stuff starts happening. Like any young dude, out to protect his woman, the lead male decides to set up a video camera in their bedroom to try and capture whatever’s going on via videotape.

Again, this worried me. I had flashes of the alien scene in Signs when you see way too much, and it takes away all the terror. However, the beauty of Paranormal Activity is that you never see too much. You see enough to make you curl into fetal position and cover your eyes. I’m not here to be a spoiler. I’m not going to give you too many details. I will tell you there’s this part with POWDER. Not the super duper pale dude from that sentimental 90s flick, but actual powder—the kind you put in your shoes when it’s hot outside. It was this powder scene that made me want start crying and never, ever sleep alone again.

The fact is they made this film in a week. They spent about fifteen grand. The director used his own home as the film’s setting, and yet, it’s number one at the box office. It made over nine million its opening weekend. It’s because when one guy sees it, he tells his buddies. His buddies tell their buddies, and soon, an entire city has seen Paranormal Activity. I will tell you this: there’s no reason to see the movie twice. It is great. It is terrifying. However, once you’ve seen it, I just don’t think the terror will be the same. You’ll know what’s coming, and I imagine, the pithy couple dialogue will get old a second time around. Yes, yes, yes, you should see it once, though. You should see it in a group, because Lord knows, I wasn’t walking to my car alone after that movie. And yeah, when I got home, I was looking over my shoulder and locking my bedroom door. As if that would help. As a serious horror flick fan, I know that never helps. But I’m human, so I did it. Don’t judge me. Because I know, once you see Paranormal Activity, you’ll be doing the same thing.

And I swear, you’ll never look at powder the same way again. Happy Halloween…

Holy City Idol Worship

By Sara Dobie, for the Charleston City Paper

One of Pecha Kucha’s taglines? “Thinking and drinking.” Standing at the Music Farm in a crowd of beer-holding, Buddy Holly glasses-wearing, demographic-defying participants, I’d have to say that yes, there was much thinking and drinking going on. There was also the embracing of our fair city and the celebration of the artists, authors, musicians, and doggone talent Charleston has been known to encompass. I’d say the centerpiece of this event was, in fact, the city itself, while the presenters formed a talented worship circle, idolizing The Holy City and all her historic glory.

“Pecha Kucha” is Japanese for “the sound of conversation,” and when I was asked where I would be spending my Wednesday evening, it took three tries for me to say it right. It’s a high class open mic slash happy hour, where creativity is discussed like an old friend you’ve known since kindergarten. Presenters get only six minutes, forty seconds to present, while 20 slides flash above their heads — images that make you want to believe what each presenter is saying. The event occurs in over 135 cities worldwide as an informal celebration of intrinsic creative talent, buried in the participants and perhaps, the onlookers, as well.

As I said, the centerpiece of Pecha Kucha 4 was Charleston, and this was apparent immediately, thanks to one of the only man in a tucked-in shirt, Bill Eubanks, from Urban Edge Studio. The mission of Mr. Eubanks was to make us laugh. The mission of Urban Edge Studio was slightly more important. They want to keep Charleston beautiful and not just down Broad Street (which was paid at least thirty precious seconds of hero worship from Eubanks over the course of his pitch). No, they want to go after the horrendous Rivers Avenue, turning it from a nondescript line of fast food joints into a quaint neighborhood with palm trees, without drunks and prostitutes. Of all the presenters, Urban Edge definitely made the best use of their slides.

Other highlights included painter Michael Gray, who may have missed his calling as a stand-up comedian. When he discussed “The Greatest Mud Painting Ever,” I just about dropped my notebook. DJ Natty Heavy added a live crowd sample to an impromptu mix and made even the most corporate of corporate men want to get up and dance. Children’s book author Jonathan Miller embraced the association of artists as poor and yet triumphed the profession, highlighted by a hand-written note from an elementary school kid who told him to keep getting that “cash money.”

Pecha Kucha 5 is January 21, 2010, location as yet to be identified. It is an event that embraces Charleston, and it embraces the talent inherent in this beautiful city. We all owe a lot to The Holy City, and Pecha Kucha might as well be Japanese for “Charleston is the best place on Earth.”

For more things Chucktown, visit the Charleston City Paper website. And have a thrilling weekend, people. Enjoy that weather!

I’m admittedly a “Yankee.” I’m from Ohio, and I didn’t know the word “Lowcountry” until I moved here. (I still didn’t really get it for months, however, and I still get lost if I leave downtown.) Anyway, my neighbor upon my arrival in Charleston was Sullivan’s Island, born and raised, and she still makes fun of my Northern roots. However, it was this neighbor who made me truly appreciate the art and culture of the South. My victim…er…interviewee for this H and Five Ws is a Lowcountry icon. As a fellow writer and newbee Southerner, I am happy to introduce author Dorothea Benton Frank…

Dorothea Benton Frank is the New York Times bestselling author of BULLS ISLAND (William Morrow 2008), THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS (William Morrow 2007), THE CHRISTMAS PEARL (William Morrow 2007), FULL OF GRACE (William Morrow 2006), PAWLEYS ISLAND (Berkley 2005), SHEM CREEK (Berkley 2004), ISLE OF PALMS (Berkley 2003), PLANTATION (Jove 2001) and SULLIVAN'S ISLAND (Jove 2000). Ms Frank has appeared on NBC's Today Show, Parker Ladd's Book Talk, and many local network affiliated television stations. She is a frequent speaker on creative writing and the creative process for students of all ages and in private venues as the National Arts Club, the Junior League of New York, Friends of the Library organizations and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. She has also been a guest speaker at the South Carolina Book Festival, Novello, North Carolina's festival of books and the Book and Author annual event in Charleston, SC, sponsored by the Post & Courier. The author, who was born and raised on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina and has been married for 25 years to Peter Frank, currently divides her time between New Jersey and South Carolina where their children attend college.

So here we go! An H and Five Ws with Lowcountry Author Dorothea Benton Frank

How did you become a best-selling author?

I had a great publisher who loved the story of SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, and they sold the dickens out of it.

Who is the writer you admire the most?

Dickens.  Just kidding.  Dumb joke, duh.  I like a lot of writers.  Too many to choose but one.  Among the dead?  Shakespeare, Wilde, Austen, the Brontes, O’Connor, Conrad, blah, blah, blah – who doesn’t love them?  In today’s world?  William Trevor takes the award for Great Britain and Old Man Conroy made the South rise again.  Although Harper Lee helped.  And even though Meg Wolitzer is a Yankee, she’s a heckuva writer.

What was it like appearing on The Today Show?

Intense, unnerving and terrifying.

Where is your favorite place to go in the Charleston, SC area?

Bob Ellis Shoes on King Street.  Ask for Richard.  And the beach on Sullivan’s Island, obviously.

When have you had the most trouble finishing a novel?

When I don’t have a deadline, which was only with my first book.  After that, I had to discipline myself to make deadlines, and you are never finished with a book.  I could always rewrite.

WHY are you a writer?

This is a much more complicated question than you might imagine.  The short answer is I write to entertain, to learn and to express my deep and abiding love for the Lowcountry of South Carolina. 

For more about Dorothea Benton Frank, visit her website: http://www.dotfrank.com/index.html. Thanks so much for this interview, Dorothea! I wish you continued luck and prosperity! (See we Yankees CAN be nice!)

I felt like the oldest person in the room. I also felt extremely untalented, surrounded by artists of impressive caliber who were barely old enough to buy beer. I’m talking about Friday’s Righchus Renaissance, hosted by Eye Level Art at their Warehouse Gallery on Heriot Street. The Warehouse Gallery is high up on the far reaches of the peninsula, and you’d miss it if you didn’t know it was there. However, it was an ideal location for the grand, colorful paintings of 22-year-old Fletcher 3 (a.k.a. Fletcher Williams III), who modestly stole the show.

Seemingly, this young artist does not paint small portraits. His portraits were each at least three feet high, two feet wide, with colors that echoed as loud as the bass beats from hip-hop artist and event coordinator, Righchus (a.k.a. Matthew Bostick). On display were different eras of Fletcher 3’s artistic career. Half the murals were on the abstract side, making use of bold hues and strong lines. The more recent — and in one case, brand new — pieces featured realistic subjects, twisted into Dali-esque contortions and scenarios. I had a chance to talk to Fletcher 3’s mom, and she told me that all his art means something; he just won’t tell her what.

Other artists at the Righchus Renaissance included Dalia Dalili of Mock Couture, whose Nintendo-themed jewelry took me back to the days of Super Mario Brothers. There were the Brwn Drby crew, screening T-shirts for the crowd. Then, of course, there was the music. DJs Joeski and John Kutter did a good job of warming up the crowd. Spoken word artist Rasheen Maliek (a.k.a. RaRa) carried the frenzy forth.     Finally, Righchus made his way on stage, with a distinctly Rage Against the Machine meets Jay-Z feel, and got the crowd moving.

The event outgrew its planned space at 103 Spring at the last minute, which turned out to be fortuitous for the event; the bareness of the warehouse walls made Fletcher 3’s art pop, and you could practically see the music pumping through the high ceilings and melding with the emotive faces and bold backdrops of each painting.

Mock Couture reminded me what it’s like to be a kid. Brwn Drby made me a T-shirt and introduced me to Eye Level Art’s Mike Elder. (“They’re all solid people,” Mike said of his featured artists.) Righchus showcased his music videos, projected floor to ceiling behind his three-man band. Through all this, an unassuming Fletcher 3 happily wandered the floor. He only looked uncomfortable once, and that was because I made him pose for a picture.

See additional images on the Charleston City Paper website: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/fletcher-3-rocks-the-righchus-renaissance/Content?oid=1460348.

My friends have freaky nightmares. Some involve stolen cars and dome lights. Some involve me with a shaved head. There was one about Optimus Prime (don’t ask). Even I’ve had a couple that would scare a Twilight Zone fan into a Golden Girls addict. Now, it’s Halloween time. The days are gray. Leaves are changing color. There’s something distinctly creepy in the air. Being that I am a Halloween fanatic, I get into this time of year. I do the pumpkin carving. I wander through haunted cornfields and the occasional cemetery. Most importantly, I watch tons and tons of horror flicks. Which is what I did last night. I drank my pumpkin ale. I lit my cinnamon candles. And I watched A Nightmare on Elm Street.

I’ve seen A Nightmare on Elm Street before. I like to think I’ve seen it many times, but this assumption gives me pause. Because honestly, if I’ve seen this movie so many times throughout my childhood and into adult life, why was I still terrified last night? It’s an eighties flick, released back in 1984, when I was two years old. The tagline is, “You’ll never want to fall asleep again.” Yeah. No kidding. If you do, Freddy Krueger and his knife-fingers will be waiting for you.

Nightmare was directed by Wes Craven. I recently saw the original Last House on the Left, a 1972 “horror” flick, also directed by Craven. I put quotes around “horror” because I hated Last House on the Left. I thought it was slow moving. The characters were dumb. There was nothing scary about it. In fact, the best part involved a woman biting a man’s…well, YOU KNOW, and that wasn’t scary so much as hilarious! However, A Nightmare on Elm Street gave Wes Craven some time to grow, released twelve years after this initial “horror” flick debacle. And the growing is evident.

First off, the storyline is better. This is the tale of Freddy Krueger—a child murderer, killed by a clan of suburban parents for revenge (and named, by the way, after a bully who terrorized Craven as a kid). Well, revenge is Freddy’s in the end, as he haunts the dreams of said parents’ kids. And the dreams are icky. They’re the kind of nightmares you hope and pray you never have. The kind where you’re being chased but feel like you’re walking through knee-high oatmeal. The kind where bloody corpses speak to you and call for help. The kind where you really, really think you might die if you don’t wake up, and of course, the kids in A Nightmare on Elm Street do. They die, and it’s in disturbing, gory ways. Ideal for a horror movie; unwise for right before bed. I mean, 500 gallons of blood were used in the filming of this movie! Five-HUNDRED! That’s what real nightmares are made of, people.

Of course, the movie has its pleasantries. For instance, it’s Johnny Depp’s first movie. He got the role because the producer’s daughter thought he was “dreamy.” And he is dreamy, all young and buff with a pompadour even Elvis would have appreciated. Then, there’s the moral lesson: DON’T HAVE SEX! If you have sex, you will immediately be tortured and killed. (I swear, a parent wrote that part to teach high schoolers a lesson…) But the foundation of A Nightmare on Elm Street is its serious creepiness that caused me to almost fall off my couch and stop breathing when my roommate came pouncing into our apartment last night. It’s why I love horror movies. It’s why I love Halloween time. Every day during this time of year, I entertain the prospect of my own horror movie. What would I do if a psycho came after me in the night? I like to think I’d survive. I’d like to think I wouldn’t run up the stairs when I should be running out the door. I like to think I won’t say, “Who’s out there?” But how do I know for sure? Maybe I’d be the first to go…

If you love horror flicks, check out A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s a classic, just like Halloween, Friday the 13^th, and The Shining. It’s Halloween time. It’s the time of year to light a candle, turn off all the lights, and scare yourself silly. Just don’t go to sleep. Freddy will be waiting for you.

From The Charleston City Paper:

Back from the Grave side shows took center stage: Poe would have approved

by Sara Dobie

The setting was ideal. The weather was threatening. And the performances, high caliber. However, that being said, we think that Edgar Allan Poe would have been most attuned to the female talent and the side show entertainment that made Saturday night most memorable.

Thanks to the Creative Spark Center for the Arts and the Sullivan’s Island Park Service, Edgar Allan Poe: Back from the Grave did not disappoint. Standing in a slow moving and lengthy line before the show, attendees were mystified by projected images on the front of the decrepit yet creepily charming Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island. What made the wait worth it? Belly dancers, casting their undulating shadows on the backdrop of moving flames and the ghostly image of EAP.

Inside this tomb of a fort, voices echoed like screams of soldiers long dead, thanks to the talented participants from Contemporary Theater Lab. A Poe look-alike greeted us at the door, and things just got more freakishly uncomfortable as actors addressed the audience like old friends. The spectators were close enough to the actors and actresses to make eye contact and feel as if each performer told secrets for our ears alone.

Highlights from the actors included a bloody Pit and the Pendulum, a haunting Fall of the House of Usher, and a full-on dance and sword fight to celebrate the terror of The Masque of the Red Death. However, the side shows truly stole the spotlight. Whether it was the undulating hips of the coin clad belly dancers outside, the haunting vocals of Cary Ann Hearst (a woman I deem the creepy gothic version of a modern day Billie Holliday), or even the blood-sucking mosquitoes terrorizing onlookers,  it was an event Poe could have organized himself. Or at least, it was an event Poe would have attended, enjoyed, and haunted, to the terror and fascination of a Halloween happy Charleston mob.

(See images at the Charleston City Paper website.)

My friendly neighborhood banana spider did not move for the first three hours of my workday. And I was terrified. If you’ll recall, I introduced the banana spider to you before, back in July, when I first met MISS Banana Spider and mistakenly referred to her as a MISTER. Many apologies, MISS Banana Spider. That first entry is HERE. Now I know that the monster outside my window is actually a chick and that she brings boys home to mate with and then eat. (Smart spider.)

Anyway, this morning, she wasn’t moving, and some part of me wanted to curl into a tiny ball and sob like a 5-year-old with a broken toy. Take pause, readers, because it made me wonder, too. Wonder: have I gotten attached to the ugly thing? Embarrassing but true. I’ve become attached to her. Ms. Banana Spider with her ever-expanding yellow ass and her hairy knuckles. Ms. Banana Spider who most recently caught a moth the side of a silver dollar. I watched as she chowed down and then, saved some for later. And I sighed and said, “Awwww,” like I was looking at a damn puppy.

WHAT’S HAPPENED HERE?

It could have something to do with the note I received after my initial Banana Spider post, from a dear friend who was born and raised in Sullivan’s Island, SC, entitled “In Response to Sara Dobie’s Hating of Banana Spiders.” And I quote: “Instead of murdering that fascinating mosquito feasting female that lingers outside your window, open it, and thank her that you are not suffering from Malaria… and if you don’t like it… GO BACK TO OHIO!!!” (Ah-hem.) Okay. Sorry. Beyond the chiding, this note also taught me that the MISTER was a MISS, for instance, and that MISS loves mosquitoes, which we all know were created specifically to torture me. Therefore, “In Response…” writer, I do thank Ms. Banana Spider, for possessing such an excellent palate.

But maybe the attachment has nothing to do with the note. Maybe the attachment has to do with everything repetitive in life—you get used to it, so when it’s gone, it leaves something lacking. It leaves a hole that you never even knew it filled. And that is Ms. Banana Spider. I’ve watched her since July. She’s crawled around. She’s stared at me through the window. (I swear I could see her beady eyes judging my hairstyle.) She keeps her web nice and clean, and she has yet to kill a bird or a poodle. I can barely admit to it, but dang it, I like her. And this morning, she wasn’t moving. I told my coworkers. I made them look at her, and they all shook their heads, hopeless.

I hunched over my computer and tried not to think about having to watch Ms. Banana Spider rot and disappear into the overgrown bushes below my office window. But then! Then, she started moving! I sat up straight and yelled “She’s ALIVE! She’s ALIVE!” I think I heard someone mutter “nerd,” but I didn’t care. My little friend wasn’t dead. In fact, she was climbing all over the place, waving her creepy eight legs as if to say, “Hello, world, I’m ready for another day of blood-sucking and slow prey asphyxiation. Woooooo!” 

Okay, yeah, so I’m a nerd. But at least I have my little friend back—a companion who protects me from biting bugs and terrifies a guy in our shipping department. How many of you can say the same?

(Dedicated, of course, to Freddie and Bowie.)

If I turn down happy hour because “I’m writing,” my friends know something is wrong. It’s not because I turned down a beer. I do that. Sometimes. Okay? It’s the “writing” part that makes them squint their eyes and ask, “Are you okay?” Don’t get me wrong—I write constantly. I’m always writing something: good, bad, and otherwise. However, if I disappear for long periods of time because “I’m writing,” there probably is an emotional glitch. Maybe I had a rough day at work. Maybe I remembered that I once believed I’d be published by twenty-seven. Maybe I need to create a fictional healthy relationship on paper because I can’t seem to do it in life. Who knows? Sometimes, I just need to lock myself in a room and write. For hours. For days. I once did it for an entire holiday break—five days of typing, laughing, and crying, and when it was done, I felt like I’d lost the ability to communicate with fellow human beings. After about a week, I regained the ability to speak, but I will permanently be awkward in social situations involving long-term intellectual stimulation.

If you follow my blog, you realize that I recently joined Twitter. The updates scroll along the right side of the screen, so you know when I say weird things at all hours of the day. I didn’t want to join Twitter.  My friend made me do it, because he said it would help build my writer rep. Fine. I did it. Begrudgingly. And it was okay for awhile. I could post little snippets whenever I updated my blog. I could check out what was happening around Chucktown. Whatever. I rolled with it. I quite recently discovered that building my writer rep IS actually possible on Twitter. It’s possible via about a half-dozen short-short story listings, and every day, I am further impressed by my fellow creative writing “Tweeters” who tell entire stories within the span of 140 characters.

For instance:

·        @staedtler: And God spoke to Adam, saying: "You don't appreciate Eve." Adam shrugged. "Who's she going to run off with?"  

·        @veryshortstory: I held her pretty hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Enjoying the moment, then putting it with the rest, in the freezer.

·        @exodusrex: Crying down the interstate. Tears speeding.

·        @drnels: "A third baby shower this month. What is up with everyone?" I reminded him of the snowstorm in January when the power went out.

AMAZING! Those are under 140 characters. Full stories. Make your mind swirl at the prospect of what was happening behind the scenes when these short-short stories were born. And of course, I’ve gotten involved.

The ones that have caused the most stir from Sara Dobie:

·        Since when could he grow a beard? She could still remember him as a toddler, throwing up in the toy box and blaming the family cat.

·        Facebook says your boyfriend is “Single.”

·        “Of course, we were on acid then,” he says, as if this should make me nod and say, “Oh, right.”

·        She didn’t realize soup could be sexual ‘til she caught a cold. He came over with Campbell’s. The soup wasn’t as warm as his skin.

This Twitter thing ideal for me, you must understand. Since the discovery of these 140-character creative mental vomit opportunities, I haven’t had an “I’m writing” situation. I mean, I’ve been writing, because if I didn’t, I’d be a nutcase. But I haven’t been obsessively writing lately. I feel like these mini-purges tide me over. How? Why? Dunno for sure, but there’s something cleansing about telling a story—quick and to the point—whenever you want to and faster than most visits to McDonald’s.

So how do you get involved? Unfortunately, you have to join Twitter. Not hard. Go to http://www.twitter.com and do it. Then, find Sara Dobie and start following me: http://www.twitter.com/SaraDobie. (See what I did there? I just brainwashed you.) Then, you gotta learn the ropes a bit. Once you’re sort of familiar with what’s going on, you can start searching for these mini-contests. A couple of the ones I post to everyday: #TCTC (Times Cheltenham Twitter Competition), #cnftweet (Creative Nonfiction), #sixwordstories (Six Word Stories), and #vss (Very Short Story). There are tons more, but I haven’t had time to look around much yet. If you have any suggestions, please let me know! And remember: these gotta be under 140 characters. Not words. CHARACTERS. That means every space, period, and exclamation point counts. (Six Word Stories is even crazier—a whole story in six words!)

Maybe I’m enjoying my time on Twitter. Dang it. Stupid social media…Happy TWEETING. (URG! AHH! I SAID IT!!! AHHHHHHHH!)