Author Eric Jerome Dickey visits Books & Company

Culture Works presents Doug Borwick at Loft Theatre

Martha Moody’s dystopian vision of Dayton in “Sharp and Dangerous Virtues”

By Tim Walker

Imagine: the year is 2047. In Dayton, Ohio, in a future not so far away, the United States has had to adapt in order to survive.

After hundreds of years reigning as a global superpower, the U.S. is still recognizable, but times have changed. A series of wars, global climate shifts and an overloaded health care system have caused the economy to collapse, forcing Americans to endure years of food shortages, disease and poverty, years referred to as the Short Times. In a radical response to the situation, President Brandee Cooper and the U.S. government created an area now called The Grid, a twenty-five million acre rectangular-shaped agricultural zone that stretches across the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. The major cities inside the Grid – Toledo, Ft. Wayne and Chicago – were spared, but all of the small towns were leveled and the citizens forcefully relocated. The area is now farmed and occupied by Gridians, clannish people who work the land and distrust outsiders.

Food is plentiful again thanks to The Grid, but a multi-national army known as The Alliance, made up of South American, African and Canadian forces, has the United States under siege. The Alliance, led by a charismatic Gambian general known as Nanonene, has already occupied Cleveland, and now has its sights set on seizing The Grid.

Dayton, Ohio also still exists – towns like Tipp City, Lima and St. Henry were all destroyed, as the Grid’s southern border lies just to the north of Dayton – but the streets of Dayton have changed. Packs of feral dogs roam the streets. Poverty is evident.

It is into this vividly-imagined world that Martha Moody places her novel’s characters, all of whom have endured difficult times and are now trying to survive and negotiate their various conflicts. Tuuro is a black church custodian in flight after being wrongfully accused of murdering a young child. Chad and Sharis are a married couple with two sons who are holding out for a normal life in a decaying suburb their friends all seem to be abandoning. Lila is Dayton’s aging Commissioner of Water, and dreams of being part of the “pure” existence of the Gridians. Charles and Diana are trying to preserve the nature center in which they’ve been trapped.

“Sharp and Dangerous Virtues” is an excellent novel, and definitely a departure for writer Martha Moody who, at 57, is best known as a writer of bestselling literary “chick lit.” Moody’s previous novels, which together have sold close to a million copies, include “Best Friends,” which was a 2001 Washington Post national bestseller, “The Office of Desire,” one of Kirkus Reviews “Best Books of the Year” for 2007 and “Sometimes Mine,” published in 2009.

Packed with local references and Dayton-area details, the novel is obviously the work of someone very familiar with our city and its people. Martha Moody has stated in interviews that her inspiration for the book came from various sources, one of which was the often-repeated drive between Dayton and Lake Erie, where her family vacations, and from her having worked in a satellite medical office.

The setting of “Sharp and Dangerous Virtues,” in a dystopian near-future world ravaged by strife, may put off potential readers as being too apocalyptic or too science-fictional for their tastes. That would be a mistake. Moody’s obvious skill in handling the setting, her vivid detailing of her characters lives and struggles in a world not so different from our own, makes for an exciting and interesting experience. Settling into the book, the reader realizes early on that they’re in the hands of a skilled writer, someone who knows and understands people and who has something interesting and unique to say about the human condition.

Dayton writer Martha Moody was born and raised in Ohio. She graduated from Oberlin College and received her M.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where she also completely her residency training in internal medicine. Moody was a private practice internist for 15 years in the area. She then volunteered her services in a clinic for the working poor for ten years before retiring from medicine to write full time. In March 2011, in recognition of her philanthropy, Moody was honored as a “YWCA 2011 Woman of Influence.” She lives in Dayton, Ohio with her husband and their four sons.

Martha Moody’s “Sharp and Dangerous Virtues” is available in hardcover from Ohio University’s Swallow Press. For more information, go to www.ohioswallow.com.

Author Bill Roorbach visits Books & Co.

By Stacey Ritz

Giants come in all forms. Some giants develop in the physical sense, while others achieve the bigger than life status from within. Bill Roorbach, author of the newly released novel “Life Among Giants” shared, “I’ve been dreaming these characters for nearly 40 years. And having written and published a number of other books, I felt I was ready to tell their story, which is very layered and complex, dark at times, joyful too.” The two characters who take center stage in Roorbach’s latest novel are seven-foot David Hochmeyer (aka “Lizard”) and the petite Sylphide- a giant in her own way.

The story begins in 1970 when tragedy strikes Lizard, then a high-school football stand-out.  Lizard’s parents are brutally murdered right before his very eyes. Heading to Princeton and then to the National Football League, his life is forever changed. How do you deal with the murder of your parents while trying to build a life for yourself? How do you live with such a big unanswered question?

Lizard begins to suspect that the murder of his parents has a connection to his neighbor, Sylphide. In his attempt to bravely press forward in life and forget his past, he continues to be led over and over again back to Sylphide – but he just can’t quite figure out why. He is being led by his heart and his hormones and doesn’t know where to turn next. His older sister, Kate, is also entranced with the murders and wants answers but she, too, has other relationships that make for foggy judgment. Both Kate and Lizard feel uneasy about the court’s decision and know there’s someone out there who must have the missing piece of the puzzle.

While Lizard matures and morphs from a football star into the owner and chef of a high-end restaurant, to the outside world he shows every sign of normalcy. But on the inside, Lizard continues to be torn apart by the mystery of his past. His inner heart begs him to find answers and obtain revenge, but what that revenge will be is yet to be seen. This is a true coming-of-age story that proves that the events from our pasts build upon each other to make us who we are today. Lizard’s story proves that no matter how much we might like to, we cannot forget our past or where we come from, but rather we must embrace our history and build upon it to create the best life possible for ourselves and for those around us. And when you have a murder mystery in your past, it’s not something that you can just forget. Instead, it’s something you must solve – or die trying.

“Life Among Giants” brings a diverse array of emotions- with its mystery, suspense, love, spirit and at times humor- this novel is a must read. If you are in search of a story with a psychological twist- you’ve found your novel!

As part of his 16-city book tour, Bill Roorbach, the author of eight books of both fiction and non-fiction will be at the Dayton Books ‘N Company store on Nov. 30.  His work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, and Harper’s Granta, and Roorbach’s story “Big Bend” was an O’Henry prize winner and was read on NPR’s Selected Shorts.

Roorbach developed the characters for “Life Among Giants” with much thought and consideration. Roorbach shared, “I’ve known people like these people, certainly hung out with athletes, dated dancers (back in the day!), worked in restaurants. All of these worlds have tremendous, colorful casts of characters!” Bill Roorbach loves to tell stories and he has done just that with his most recent novel.

If you’re reading the reviews about Lizard being an NFL football star and thinking this is a book only for athletes, think again. “It’s a book about a brilliant young man who evolves away from football to more rarified realms. He loves dance, he loves food, he loves a certain woman – maybe a little too much. Also, he has a terrible mystery to solve, and he must find his revenge.”  “Life Among Giants” reaches a diverse set of readers as it touches on so many concerns that we all share.  “I think the reason ‘Life Among Giants’ appeals to such a wide range of readers is that it touches a wide range of lives…And while Lizard’s problems and talents are greater than most, his gentle nature and kindness in the face of all horrors finds the best in all of us. He’s an appealing guy, I hope as satisfying to read about as to write!”

Sadly, Roorbach’s own mother passed away while he was creating “Life Among Giants.”  “ … And what I learned from that sad experience really changed the book,” Roorbach said. He learned, as his characters did, that the real giant inside of each of us emerges when we least expect it. Sometimes when we suffer the most, that is when the true test of our character becomes present. In the novel, Lizard, like Roorbach, pressed forward the only way he knew how and learned an unbelievable amount about himself and those around him along the way.

Bill Roorbach will be at the Dayton Books ‘N Company, 4453 Walnut St. in The Greene, on Friday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. For more information, visit www.billroorbach.com.

Reach DCP freelance writer Stacey Ritz at StaceyRitz@daytoncitypaper.com

Dayton native Joseph Remnant illustrates Harvey Pekar’s best-selling posthumous novel

By Leo DeLuca

Cartoonist and illustrator Joseph Remnant grew up in Dayton and graduated from Oakwood High School in 2000. Remnant recently illustrated “Cleveland” – the 2012 New York Times best-selling graphic novel by famed comic book author Harvey Pekar.

Pekar is best known for his autobiographical “American Splendor” comic series and the award winning 2003 film adaptation of the same name. In addition to “American Splendor,” Pekar’s jazz writings and appearances on “Late Night with David Letterman” moved him into the public eye.

“American Splendor” began as a unique collaboration between Harvey Pekar and renowned cartoonist Robert Crumb. Along with earning numerous awards, Crumb illustrated album covers for the Grateful Dead, Big Brother & The Holding Company (Janis Joplin’s first group), collaborated with Charles Bukowski and more. It was clear that working with Pekar would be a coup for Remnant. When contacted in 2009, he gladly accepted the offer.

Harvey Pekar discovered Joseph Remnant by way of a two-page illustration in Arthur – a Los Angeles-based underground arts publication. Remnant’s work piqued Pekar’s interest and he was commissioned to illustrate “Cleveland” – an autobiographic tale set in Pekar’s hometown.

Detailed in his 1994 graphic novel “My Cancer Year,” Pekar struggled with the aforementioned illness on-and-off for years. He suffered a relapse and died on July 12, 2010. His death occurred while Remnant was still working on “Cleveland.”

Fortunately, “Cleveland’s” narrative was complete and the graphic novel was published in the Spring of 2012. This meant that Joseph Remnant had the honor of illustrating Harvey Pekar’s posthumous novel.

With “Cleveland” published, two new works – “Blindspot” and The Expositor – currently occupy Remnant’s focus. The former is a comic series he started in 2008. The latter is a webcomic and collaboration with Denver-based illustrator Noah Van Sciver.

I had the opportunity to speak with Remnant and ask him a few questions:

How did the Pekar camp first get in touch with you? Was it Pekar himself?

Yeah, I was doing comics for Arthur Magazine, and this comic I did about the underground comics scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s got some attention from those cartoonists that I was writing about. This guy Jay Lynch, who was part of the original wave of underground comics in the ‘60s, called me one day to tell me that he liked what I was doing and somehow we ended up talking about Harvey. He knew him and asked if I’d like for him to send my stuff to him. I said “yes,” of course. I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but a couple weeks later, Harvey called me on the phone.  –Joseph Remnant

Harvey Pekar grew up in Cleveland – another Ohio city that saw a decline in industry and population. Do you feel this played into Pekar’s decision to have you illustrate “Cleveland”?

I don’t know. He initially gave me a bunch of short little strips to try out and he really liked those, so that was the main thing. I think he saw in my drawings that I really understood a certain tone he was going for, and I’m sure that having grown up in a very similar city helped with that. I remember first seeing the “American Splendor” movie and feeling an instant connection to his experience and that whole Cleveland landscape and the people that he was writing about felt so familiar.  -JR

DCP: You fronted the musical group Sallow and later joined Dayton band Captain of Industry. Was there a time when you found yourself choosing between music and comics?

JR: Yeah, there was. Music was my first love really, and I spent more of art school in my basement making homemade recording than paintings. I guess the part that I loved the most though was creating songs and overdubbing parts and just making something from nothing. When it came time to book shows and promote stuff and get on stage, I realized that the whole thing might not be for me. When I was playing with Captain of Industry, I started wanting to just go back into my basement and drawing in my sketchbook and that part of me just took over ultimately.

DCP: Can you elaborate on The Expositor? How did you get hooked up with Noah Van Sciver?

JR: The Expositor is a website that I started with my friend and fellow cartoonist, Noah Van Sciver, where we are both posting chapters of our new graphic novels as we finish them. Noah is somebody who I initially contacted because I was such a big fan of his “Blammo” comic. We’re inspired by all the same people and are two of the last people putting out these comic books that I feel are an extension of what people like Daniel Clowes and Adrian Tomine were doing in the ‘80s and ‘90s. It just made sense for us to combine our efforts and do something together.

DCP: What are your plans for the future? Will there be a “Dayton” graphic novel?

Well, I’m working pretty hard on “Cartoon Clouds,” which is my comic on The Expositor, and that will probably take another year to finish. Then hopefully somebody will publish it. The French edition of “Cleveland” just came out as well, and I’m getting to go to France in January to help promote that, which should be pretty amazing.

Reach DCP freelance writer Leo DeLuca at LeoDeLuca@daytoncitypaper.com

Horns up for Heavy Metal and Globalization at University of Dayton

By Gary Spencer

Over the summer I read an article on The Atlantic’s website about a metal artist known as Janaza, a one woman anti-Islamic black metal project based in Iraq and how project founder Anahita was in hiding over in her native country in fear for her life because of her blasphemous, anti-Islamic art and rhetoric.

Curious, I tracked down a copy of the Janaza EP and put it on my stereo. My speakers soon erupted into thunderous eardrum-clubbing blast beats, sick and noisy guitars and blood-curdling banshee vocals screaming “Burn the Quran! Burn the Fucking Quran!” The music alone was jarring enough, and when paired with the overtly anti-religious lyrical matter coming from what many perceive as a strict holy mecca where blasphemers are beaten, arrested or worse, it really touched a nerve.

But it goes to show a couple of things. First, that extreme metal music, one of the most distinctly Western styles of world music, is embraced and is being created in religious and even third world countries all over the globe that many music aficionados might find surprising. And it also represents a growing phenomenon where metal artists in such off-the-musical-grid parts of the world are using metal music’s template of loud, down-tuned guitars, pulse-quickening drums and alternately screeching or growling vocals to reflect their unique experiences being from a country outside the status quo of where metal music is thought to reach. Artists such as Janaza are using metal as a platform for expressing or dissenting against their native country’s culture, history, religion, folklore and general way of life.

In the past decade, the subject of heavy metal music and its influence on global culture has been a hot topic of scholarly study and intrigue. Ever since Canadian anthropologist/filmmaker Sam Dunn released the documentary “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey,” it seems that every closet-metalhead-turned-academic has been going out of their way to show other intellectuals the cultural influence and significance of heavy metal not just in the Western world but all over the planet. The University of Dayton is all set to join in on the academic mosh pit this coming Friday with a free symposium entitled “Heavy Metal and Globalization.” This scholarly headbang fest was the brainchild of UD Associate Professor of English (and metalhead) Bryan Bardine, who thought Dayton was ripe and ready for a University-sponsored event to display how heavy metal music has influenced different peoples and cultures all over the world for multiple reasons, and the powers that be gave him the green light to produce such an event.

“The idea arose from an honors’ course that I teach, ‘Heavy Metal Music: Its History and Culture,’” Bardine says. “Because heavy metal music has expanded beyond traditional strongholds like Britain, the U.S., Canada and mainland Europe, it has shown that there is more to the music than loud noise, long hair and spandex. The fact that metal has moved into third world countries and in regions most would consider unwelcoming to this type of music, like the Middle East, Far East and North Africa shows that it is a type of music and culture that needs to be studied.”

Bardine has lined up a supergroup of writers and researchers who have plenty of notches in their metal and academic belts to speak at the symposium.  The bill consists of Dr. Mark LeVine, author of “Heavy Metal Islam;” Dr. Jeremy Wallach, author and editor of “Metal Rules the Globe;” Dr. Deena Weinstein, author of “Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture;” and Esther Clinton, author of “Who has Access? – Comparing the Moral Panic About Gothic Literature in the Late-18th Century and Heavy Metal Music in the 1980s.”  The symposium will be followed by a masterclass on “The Heavy Metal Guitar” at the Kennedy Union Pub where Dr. Mark Levine will lead a group of UD musicians in a heavy metal guitar jam session. Overall, there are several reasons that Dr. Bardine sees this endeavor as a way to present heavy metal culture as a significant cultural movement that has spread like a fungus to nearly every point on planet earth.

“My goal for the symposium is for attendees to see that metal music and culture is in part, at least, a reflection of society,” Bardine explained.  “It is not the devil that the religious right and music critics make it out to be. Furthermore, just the fact that it has lasted for more than 40 years and continues to expand, I think, says something about the passion of the fans and especially the power of the music to bring people together. There are more than 20 genres of heavy metal – each with different musical innovations or emphases, and that is what makes the music so important. I think it is important for attendees to see that metal studies is a legitimate scholarly field, and a fairly new one that is growing around the world. Because the research is so new there is a great deal to learn about the music, culture, people and the impact it has across the world.”

And it should be noted that this exposé isn’t just for the tattooed, long-haired, obscure-metal-band-shirt-wearing few. Dr. Bardine believes that the subject matter should be of interest and appeal to anyone curious about how music influences lives.

“If you are interested in music in general this will be a great night  – one that will open a lot of eyes to a growing and important scholarly field,” Bardine said.  “For its history, metal has been a curiosity for many people, some because they don’t understand it, others because it is their passion. The culture itself is fascinating to examine. Also, globalization has become important here at UD and across the world, and by connecting metal and globalization it adds to the interest level of the symposium. The research is so new there is a great deal to learn about the music, culture, and people.  It is really a burgeoning field and I want the UD community (and Dayton in general) to recognize the role that this music and its culture plays for millions of people worldwide.”

“The Influence of Heavy Metal on World Culture” symposium will take place Friday, Nov. 9 from 3-6 p.m. at the Sears Recital Hall in the Jesse Philips Humanities Center on the University of Dayton campus, 300 College Park Dr.  Admission is free to the public.  For more information please visit www.udayton.edu/arts. 

Reach DCP freelance writer Gary Spencer at GarySpencer@daytoncitypaper.com

Making Poetry Public

By Jordan Mills Pleasant

For the most part, the term “poetry” falls on deaf ears — even for the average reader in 2012, the term is less significant than it once was. Over the course of the last 50 years, poetry has in many ways been relegated to a very specialized part of academic society in America, in stark contrast to other cultures’ embrace of the “art of words,” where poetry often plays an integral role in the daily comings and goings of even the least educated classes.

The reason?  While there are a myriad of different reasons for the relatively recent decline in public interest in the poetic arts, one of the main reasons is perhaps the “academicization” of poetry, which carries along with it a host of complications, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

The acadmicization of poetry refers to the process by which poetry has become an accepted topic for academic study in colleges and universities, generally couched in “creative writing” programs, which are in turn couched within English departments.  This process began with the University of Iowa’s Iowa Writer’s Workshop program, which formally opened its doors in 1936.  The greater trend in academia didn’t boom until the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, when many universities adopted similar programs.  Today, there are hundreds, if not thousands of creative writing programs, and each program is populated by any number of poets.

This process has enabled some really positive progress to the art of poetry.  If nothings else, poets in America now have a better chance of avoiding the starving artist stereotype by being accepted into honorable careers in universities.  In many ways, the move from the wandering troubadour type poet to the professor poet has also created its own book boom, having established a network of academic poets, both professors and students, to fuel the market.

Perhaps the bad effects of academia accepting literary artists into its traditionally more cerebral environment outweigh, in important sense, the good effects.  For example, when poetry is relegated almost exclusively to academia, it tends to become very cerebral, niche and often difficult to understand.  When super-literary intellectuals fuel the poetry market, those are the minds to which poets naturally must cater, only to exclude and alienate the general reader.

It is with some of these points in mind that Dana Gioia, former Poet Laureate of the United States, composed his now canonical essay Can Poetry Matter?, published by Graywolf Press in 1992.  Regarding how to make poetry an integral part of American culture again, Gioia writes, “All it would require is that poets and poetry teachers take more responsibility for bringing their art to the public.”  He then suggests six “modest proposals for how this dream might come true,” all of which have, to some extent, gone unnoticed in literary circles.  These are his suggestions, in a nutshell:

Poets that give public readings should spend part of each program reciting other people’s work.  This would help expose audiences to more of a variety of poetry.

People who plan events that center on poetry should make sure to avoid including poetry at the exclusion of the other arts.  Mixing in other forms of art and integrating new genres with poetry can perhaps liven up the normal, and sometimes boring, reading or lecture.

Poets should write critical work about poetry more often, yet make it more candid and more accessible for the common reader, in order to defuse some of the shyness with which many readers naturally approach poetry today.

Anthologists should be sure to include only poetry and poets they admire in anthologies, and be sure not to bow to the expectations of publishers, academia or other poet peers.

Poetry teachers in high schools and colleges should spend less time on critical analysis and more time on actually performing poetry.  Recitation was once an admirable art.  Whatever we can do to revive the respect that recitation once held as an art will help contribute to making poetry more accessible.

Finally, poets, critics and events coordinators can do a lot to help expand the waning audience that poetry currently holds simply by making poems more prominent: include poetry in public events, on the radio, on television or even in ceremonial events or as a part of any formal address.

While Gioia’s suggestions are all very helpful, there is a lot that the common reader can do to slowly acquaint him or herself with the amazing and vibrant art of contemporary poetry in America.  My own suggestions include visiting poetryfoundation.org and browsing their admirable database of poetry, resources, critical analysis and virtual programs.  Also, visit poets.org and sign up for their “poem a day” program, which emails subscribers a new poem each day and helps introduce those interested to the art.  Finally, check out the resources that the Poetry 180 program, sponsored by the Library of Congress, has to offer by visiting loc.gov/poetry/180/.

The debate about the “academicization” of poetry has long been a hot topic in and out of universities, and is very dear to the hearts of many poets, critics and interested readers.  The debate has also blown up a lot of dust.  Is the academicization process ultimately good or bad? Not for me to say. If you’re even the least bit interested in either acquainting yourself with the art or helping to engage and acquaint others with the art, I hope this article serves as a useful guide.

Reach DCP editor Jordan Mills Pleasant at Editor@DaytonCityPaper.com.

The Short Life of Paul Laurence Dunbar

By Tim Walker

“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, –
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.”

From “We Wear the Mask”,
by Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1896

Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first African-American poet to make a living from his writing, the first African-American writer to receive both national and international acclaim for his work, was born and raised here in Dayton, Ohio. The son of two former slaves, he was educated here, wrote and was discovered here, and he died here from tuberculosis at the young age of 33. His work, already praised during his short lifetime, has been studied, reprinted and read ever since, and has influenced countless writers from all walks of life. Upon his death, he was referred to as the “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race”.

Great writers can and do come from any race, any gender, and any place, and a number of 20th Century black American writers have certainly left their mark on our modern literary landscape. Authors such as Alice Walker, who won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for her epistolary novel The Color Purple, Langston Hughes, poet of the Harlem Renaissance, and the list goes on: Richard Wright, Walter Mosley, Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison, a brilliant writer who was awarded the ultimate accolade, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

All great writers — not great black writers, mind you. Just great writers, all of whom are black men and women, all of whom talk and write eloquently about the shared experience of being human, of being black, of being alive. Without the influence of Paul Laurence Dunbar, their careers and today’s literary landscape might have been markedly different. Maya Angelou’s groundbreaking book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings even takes its well-known title from a line in the poem “Sympathy,” written by Mr. Dunbar.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was born at his grandmother’s home at 311 Howard Street in Dayton on June 27, 1872. According to Felton O. Best’s book Crossing the Color Line: A Biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Dunbar’s great-grandmother, Becca Porter, had been manumitted, or emancipated, by a Dayton abolitionist back in the 1840s and her daughter, Dunbar’s grandmother, came to Dayton in the 1850s after being released from her master — a Kentucky slave holder. Dunbar’s father had escaped from slavery in Kentucky and traveled to Canada via the Underground Railroad, and was also a veteran of the American Civil War, having served in both the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and the 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry Regiment.

Dunbar’s mother, Matilda Glass, was born in 1844 in Shelbyville, Kentucky, and was owned by David Glass, a wealthy planter there, until the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. While a slave, she married, and later gave birth to two children. After separating from her husband she and her two boys moved to Dayton in the spring of 1866.

It was in Dayton that Matilda met and married Joshua Dunbar. Dunbar’s parents had been married for six months when he was born, and they began having marital problems a few months later. After the birth of their daughter, whose arrival wasn’t embraced by her father, Matilda took the four children and left him. Dunbar’s sister, Elizabeth, died a couple of years later at the age of 2, and his father Joshua died in 1884 when Paul was only 12 years old.

Dunbar’s mother felt that, from an early age, he was destined for greatness. Dunbar was the only African-American student during the years he was attending Dayton’s Central High School, and he was very active in the student body. He was the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, the “High School Times,” in 1891, and he was class president, and was president of the literary Philomathean Society — the first black man to hold any of these positions. He wrote his first poem at age 6 and gave his first public recital at age 9.  His mother Matilda assisted him in his schooling, having learned how to read expressly for that purpose. She often read the Bible with him and hoped that he might become a minister.

Dunbar’s first professionally published poems, “Our Martyred Soldiers” and “On The River,” were published in Dayton’s The Herald newspaper in 1888 when he was 16. In 1890, Dunbar wrote and edited Dayton’s first weekly African-American newspaper, The Tattler, which was printed by the fledgling company of his high school acquaintances, Wilbur and Orville Wright. The paper lasted for 6 weeks.

When his formal schooling ended in 1891, Dunbar found that no one would employ him in a job that required him to use his intellectual ability, so he took a job as an elevator operator in the Callahan Building in Dayton, earning a salary of four dollars a week. This was substantially less than that earned by his white co-workers. The next year, Dunbar asked the Wrights to publish his dialect poems in book form, but the brothers did not have the facility to do so and Dunbar was directed to the United Brethren Publishing House which, in 1893, printed Oak and Ivy, his first collection of poetry. Dunbar subsidized the printing of the book himself, earning back his investment in two weeks by selling copies to people personally, often to passengers on his elevator. The larger section of the book, the “Oak” section, consisted of traditional verse, while the smaller section, the “Ivy”, featured light poems written in the black dialect of the times.

Dunbar’s participation in the 1892 Western Association of Writers Conference in Dayton brought him into contact with James Whitcomb Riley, the “Hoosier Poet” who was the most popular poet in the United States at that time. Both Riley and Dunbar wrote poems in Standard English and dialect. Despite frequently publishing poems and occasionally giving public readings, Dunbar had difficulty financially supporting himself and his mother. Many of his efforts were unpaid and he was a reckless spender, leaving him in debt by the mid-1890s.

On June 27, 1896, the novelist and critic William Dean Howells published a favorable review of Dunbar’s second book Majors and Minors in Harpers Weekly magazine. Howells’ influence made Dunbar famous overnight and brought national attention to his writing. Though he saw “honest thinking and true feeling” in Dunbar’s traditional poems, he particularly praised Dunbar’s dialect poems. With his new-found international literary fame, Dunbar collected his first two books into one volume, Lyrics of Lowly Life, for which Howells wrote an introduction.

Dunbar maintained a lifelong friendship with the Wright brothers. He was also associated with Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Brand Whitlock (who was described as a close friend). He was honored with a ceremonial sword by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Dunbar wrote a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, five novels and a play. He also wrote lyrics for “In Dahomey” — the first musical written and performed entirely by African-Americans to appear on Broadway in 1903.  The musical comedy successfully toured England and America over a period of four years — one of the more successful theatrical productions of its time. His essays and poems were published widely in the leading journals of the day including Harper’s Weekly, the Saturday Evening Post, the Denver Post and a number of other publications.

Dunbar traveled to England in 1897 to recite his works on the London literary circuit. He met the young black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who set some of his poems to music and who was influenced by Dunbar to use African and American Negro songs and tunes in future compositions.

After returning from England, Dunbar married Alice Ruth Moore on March 6, 1898, a teacher and poet from New Orleans whom he had first met three years earlier. Dunbar called her “the sweetest, smartest little girl I ever saw.” A graduate of Straight University (now Dillard University), her published works include Violets and Other Tales and The Goodness of St. Roque. She and her husband also wrote books of poetry as companion pieces. An account of their love, life and marriage was depicted in a play by Kathleen McGhee-Anderson titled Oak and Ivy.

Dunbar took a job at the Library of Congress in Washington in October 1897. He and his wife moved to Washington, D.C.  However, at the urging of his wife, he soon left the job to focus exclusively on his writing, which he promoted through public readings.

In 1900, Dunbar was diagnosed with tuberculosis and his doctors recommended drinking whiskey to alleviate his symptoms, and he moved to Colorado with his wife on the advice of his doctors. Dunbar and his wife separated in 1902, but they never divorced. Depression and declining health drove him to a deepening dependence on alcohol, which further damaged his health. He moved back to Dayton to be with his mother in 1904, and then died shortly thereafter from tuberculosis on February 9, 1906, at the age thirty-three, and was laid to rest in Woodland Cemetery in Dayton.

Much of Dunbar’s work was authored in conventional English, while some was rendered in the African American dialect of the time period. Dunbar was always suspicious that there was something demeaning about the marketability of his dialect poems. One interviewer reported that Dunbar told him, “I am tired, so tired of dialect,” though he is also quoted as saying, “my natural speech is dialect” and “my love is for the Negro pieces.”

Though he credited William Dean Howells with promoting his early success, Dunbar was dismayed by his demand that he focus on dialect poetry. Angered that editors refused to print his more traditional poems, he accused Howells of “[doing] me irrevocable harm in the dictum he laid down regarding my dialect verse.” Dunbar, however, was continuing a literary tradition that used Negro dialect and his notable predecessors included Mark Twain and Joel Chandler Harris.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American poet to earn nation-wide acknowledgement for his work. The New York Times called him “a true singer of the people — white or black.” In his preface to his 1931 The Book of American Negro Poetry, James Weldon Johnson criticized Dunbar’s dialect poems for fostering stereotypes of blacks as comical or pathetic and reinforcing the restriction that blacks write only scenes of plantation life.

Writer Maya Angelou titled her groundbreaking 1969 autobiographical book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings after a line from Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy,” at the suggestion of her friend, jazz musician and activist Abbey Lincoln. Angelou named Dunbar an inspiration for her “writing ambition” and uses his imagery of a caged bird like a chained slave throughout much of her writings. In 2002, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante listed Paul Laurence Dunbar on his list of the 100 Greatest African-Americans.

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s work has been an inspiration for countless writers and poets, both during his life and after his death. A proud son of Dayton and one who struggled during his lifetime, his work and legacy remain something for which all of us should be grateful.

“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, when his wing is bruised and his bosom sore; when he beats his bars and he would be free, it is not a carol of joy or glee, but a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core.” — Paul Laurence Dunbar

Reach DCP freelance writer Tim Walker at TimWalker@DaytonCityPaper.com

NaNoWriMo: Inspiring the aspiring novelists in the Miami Valley

By Tim Walker

The NaNoWriMo kickoff event for 2011

It should come as no surprise that novelists, like other writers, can be a bit … well, eccentric. They sit, after all, for hour upon hour, struggling to fill empty notebooks and blank computer screens with the thousands of words necessary to advance their plots and bring their characters to life. They create entire universes inside their heads, and then populate them, all in manuscripts of not less than 50,000 words. They attempt, through their art, to capture nothing less than life itself in cold black and white on a printed page. And they do it all alone.

Until November, that is.

In addition to Black Friday, the coming of November each year brings with it an intriguing literary event: National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo by the writers who frequent www.NaNoWriMo.org, proudly emblazoned on its splash page as “30 days and nights of literary abandon!” What the website provides is a forum for those aspiring novelists who participate in the annual event to commune, network, inspire each other and publicly track their word counts for the month – their goal being a seemingly impossible 50,000 words in 30 days.

Over the years, Dayton has produced its share of celebrated writers. Past literary giants from this area such as Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Natalie Clifford Barney, Erma Bombeck and Virginia Hamilton continue to be read and to inspire, as do current greats like Katrina Kittle, the brilliant and talented author whose five books include “The Kindness of Strangers.” Paul Freeman Wexler is an amazing writer who deserves a wider audience – his surreal “In Springdale Town” is a treasure. Gina Penn is another talented local author – her just-released horror novel “The Dark Layer,” like her short story collection “Learning to Fly,” are not to be missed. Both can be purchased at your favorite online e-book retailer (the novel is $2.99 and “Learning to Fly” is only 99 cents, so do a local lady a good turn and check them out).

Now, also stepping forward to join in the Miami Valley’s longstanding literary tradition, are the wonderful writers I met through the 2011 NaNoWriMo event. All are talented and committed, all approaching their work with absolute seriousness. I’m speaking from experience when I say this, folks – you may think this a gimmick, but trying to write 50,000 words of any damn thing, let alone fiction, in 30 days is no easy task. I take my hat off to anyone who can manage it.

This is Meg Overman’s second year as the NaNoWriMo municipal liaison for the Dayton region. She is 25 and from Piqua, and has hit her November goal for three years in a row now. She is also raising a one-year-old, and is currently in graduate school, going for her master’s degree in literature.

“The story is about political and elemental upheaval in a fantasy world,” she said recently when asked about her novel. “It’s told from several perspectives as different groups work to gain the upper hand and push their own agendas. The main characters are four young women whose decisions affect and ultimately change their world.”

“The novel I worked on this year is the first in a series of four,” she continued. “I’ve been working with the story on and off for about seven years and am finally novelizing it. I was incredibly excited to hit 50K on November 15. By the [November] 30th, I had 70K. The book still isn’t finished, but I’m still working on it.”

70,000 words in 30 days. In graduate school. With a one-year-old. And you can’t find time to write? Really?

Chelsea Gibson is another NaNoWriMo participant, and a nursing student at Wright State.

“When I write, I typically write science fiction, but this year I’m trying out my first foray into fantasy and it’s really fun,” she explained. “To me, the best thing about NaNo is that it just challenges you to write, at least a little bit, every day for a month. It’s really great for people who tend to get discouraged about writing — it just challenges you to keep trying.”
Chelsea’s November word count was 50,025. She describes her novel as a hodgepodge of genres she finds interesting: fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, superhero, western and samurai.
“My novel is about an immortal whose task it is to hold all worlds and dimensions in balance,” she said. “When he is poisoned by his evil nemesis and can no longer complete this task, the different worlds begin to crash together – so samurai and dragons appear at 21st century Harvard University, spaceships appear in the sky over the Pacific during WWII and intelligent dinosaur species appear in a Victorian London populated by superheroes.”

Cyndi Pauwels, of Yellow Springs, is another “winning” NaNoWriMo participant – “winning” being hitting the 50K goal for the month. Cyndi, who has written several novels and been published in a variety of venues, ended up with 50,023 words for the month, completing a 78,408-word first draft of a novel entitled “Fatal Error: AYBABTU (All your base are belong to us)”. Cyndi’s blog at cpatlarge.blogspot.com is well worth your time, and has some great posts on the November event.

Celebrate reading, and writing. Enjoy and support the work of our local writers. National Novel Writing Month takes place annually each November, so prepare yourself for next year.

For more information, visit NaNoWriMo.org.

Reach DCP freelance writer Tim Walker at TimWalker@DaytonCityPaper.com.

By Tim Anderl

K.W. Taylor and her newest book, “We Shadows Have Offended”

In 2008 a challenge from a friend inspired K.W. (Kathleen) Taylor to put pen to paper and by October 2011, Taylor’s first horror novella, “We Shadows Have Offended,” was reaching Barnes and Noble store shelves and Amazon’s electronic book shop.

“The prompt was supposed to be centered around the word ‘shame.’ I remember just typing out the phrase ‘The beginning of shame’ at the top of a document, and I kept that the working title long after the story meandered into directions,” said Taylor.

The primary plot of “We Shadows Have Offended” follows the story of four boys who witnessed a neighbor appear to turn into a demon. The consequences of resulting events challenge and haunt the boys into adulthood. Taking cues from horror-fiction godfathers like Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft, Taylor’s characters witness unspeakable horror and grapple with their own humanity to the novella’s climactic, twist ending.

Taylor’s passion for writing began at an early age when as a child she wrote her first short stories. By the time she was studying creative writing in high school and college, Taylor was confident that she’d like to pursue a professional writing career

“After being in the workforce a few years, I took one long vacation where I did almost nothing else but write short stories. That’s when I really knew this was my main love,” Taylor said.  “I quit my job to get a master’s in English, and I haven’t looked back since.”

A longtime resident of Dayton, Taylor set “We Shadows Have Offended” in the Midwest, although the era in which the story takes place is a bit more ambiguous – set anywhere from the 1940s to ‘60s.

“Some of the characters are from Ohio, and that’s partly because I know Ohio like the back of my hand,” she said. “But some of the characters are from outside Chicago, and that’s due to some of the historical unrest going on (during the mid 1900s when events of the novel take place).

“There were race riots. There were struggles between different socioeconomic groups. There were issues with corruption and immigration. Everything about the time and place are uncomfortable,” Taylor explained. “The Midwest is even today this almost grey area where red states and blue states coexist, where it’s kind of a microcosm of the entire country.

And so ultimately, the fact that it takes place in this grey zone in an undefined era … the point is, evil can happen any time, any place. We’re always at the precipice of disaster, really.”

Though the novella wasn’t Taylor’s first rodeo – she’s previously published several pieces of shorter fiction in Quarterlife Quarterly, Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine, Iron Bound, Theory Train and Aoife’s Kiss Magazine — when Taylor completed the novella she anticipated disaster in finding a company interested in publishing it due primarily to the story’s word count.

“It’s a strange length,” Taylor said.  “A lot of traditional publishers won’t touch it unless you have a collection of several (stories) that they can package into a book. The novella is too long for magazine publication, but usually too short for traditional publication by itself.”

While she initially collected rejection letters in her pursuit of publishing “We Shadows Have Offended,” she stumbled upon her eventual publisher, Etopia Press, while researching markets willing to take novellas.

“The fact that they’re primarily an e-book publisher was interesting; I’d never really considered that for longer works before, so I took a chance,” said Taylor.

While on vacation at the “happiest place on earth,” Disney World, Taylor received the news that Etopia was interested in the story.  “It was sort of surreal to get such good news like that! Etopia’s editors have been fabulous to work with, so the whole experience has been like a dream,” she said.

Currently working as a lecturer in the Wright State University English Department faculty, Taylor uses her own experience as encouragement for students who are also budding writers.

“I took a lot of courses in college and grad school in both literature and creative writing. A lot of writers only take the writing courses, and I think that’s a bit of a mistake,” Taylor explained.  “It always baffles me when students tell me they love to write but not to read!

“If you’re not naturally a reader, you need to develop those literary criticism muscles if you want to actually be a good writer,” she said. “It’s kind of like only doing abstract painting without knowing how to draw and paint realistically. Young writers need to learn from the masters and grasp the basic literary conventions before they break those rules they’ve learned and observed.”

When Taylor isn’t sharing advice with students, she may be seeking it from her husband, who is also a writer.

“He’s tremendously supportive. And yes, he’s a writer, but he’s also a very voracious reader, almost more than anything else. This is always helpful when I want another pair of eyes on my work,” Taylor said.  “I fear we’re a little too enamored of each other’s works to be super objective, so I run things by my writers’ group, too.”

Though Taylor isn’t sure where “We Shadows Have Offended” will lead her, her experience as a former television writer for the Dayton City Paper’s predecessor publication, Impact Weekly, leaves her with fingers crossed that the work may see adaptation to the screen someday.

“I’m a huge TV and movie nerd. But I’ve also never tried my hand at screenwriting,” Taylor said.  “I’d enjoy seeing what a director’s imagination could do with casting and evoking a certain atmosphere. I’d find the whole process fascinating.”

For more information about “We Shadows Have Offended,” visit www.facebook.com/kwtaylorwriter.

Reach DCP freelance writer Tim Anderl at TimAnderl@DaytonCityPaper.com.