Among the Giants OR Moonlighting

Many moons ago, in my first creative writing class at BYU, taught by Laura Card, I was introduced to great local children's writers such as Rick Walton and Carol Lynch Williams. Rick's picture books, such as Once There Was a Bull...Frog, are always entertaining and clever, and Carol's My Angelica is one of the funniest books I have ever read. A while later, in preparation for a creative writing class taught by John Bennion, I read several of his short stories and his novel Falling Toward Heaven. I fell in love with his writing. At some point I realized that all these people I was beginning to idolize were in the same writing group. I feel silly saying so now, but at the time I fantasized about being invited to join their writing group. As far as I was concerned, and still am, these are the big guns of Utah Valley writing. I wanted to be one of them.

At the end of the semester, to my surprise, John invited me to join his writing group. I was giddy all over. I thought long and hard about what to bring that first night that would impress them, convince them that I deserved to be in such grandiose company. I ended up bringing a melodramatic little piece of crap, but I don't think that was why neither John nor Carol ever came to that group again after that first night I went. As it turned out, the group was in the process of splitting, with the fantasy-leaning authors going one way and the non-fantasy going the other. Somehow, I ended up in the fantasy group without the person who had invited me to join in the first place. At least Laura Card was in that group, who knew me and was very cool. And really they were all good people, but the truth is I never felt comfortable in that group. And I was not invited to join the other, the one John and Carol were in. So, slowly, I stopped going.

The good thing that came of this is that being in a group that wasn't quite right for me inspired me to form my own writing group, which is how Fob came about. And Fob, as we all know, is one of the most wonderful things to ever grace this or any other planet. The next Bloomsbury Group, really. Except with less casual sex between group members.

At any rate, I've been running a teen writing group at the library with Carol for the last few months. Last month she asked me to join her writing group. Actually, more like told me to. So tonight I went. John and Carol, who have become two of my favorite non-Fob-related people, were there. A couple other very nice and very talented writers were there. And Kimberley Heuston, author of The Shakeress and Dante's Daughter, was there. And she said very nice things about the first chapter of my book. Hee hee. Color me flattered.



***By way of disclaimer, if I had to choose between Fob and this other group I would choose Fob without hesitation. But I don't have to choose.***