Jeffrey R. Schrecongost

I was assembling my ENGL 112 course syllabus the other day, and, in reviewing Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener,” I was reminded that an argument for Bartleby as antiestablishment hero is not indefensible. The harmless, if not initially loveable, chap is curiously comedic in his hell-bent defiance and awkward introversion and can ultimately be viewed as a martyr for individuality. Conversely, an interpretation of Bartleby as individual-to-a-fault can be successfully supported as well.

Bartleby’s refusal to exist productively within society is neither admirably rebellious nor practical. By ‘preferring’ to do nothing, Bartleby makes no statement of consequence, advances no cause, and effects no societal change. Indeed, Bartleby’s lone achievement is dying a disconsolate, friendless death on his own terms. Honor in that particular venture is elusive at best.

After close consideration of both possible interpretations, one must conclude that Bartleby’s efforts to live his life based on personal preference alone results not in hedonistic bliss and spiritual enlightenment, but, rather, aborted dreams and retarded potential.

The “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn” Bartleby is the quintessential social outcast by choice. Aloof, with nothing “ordinarily human about him,” Bartleby charms the reader with his idiosyncrasies. His famously repeated response, “‘I would prefer not to,’” is an expression of personal freedom many readers wish they had the fortitude to express themselves.

This is why we cheer Bartleby on as he continues to refuse to work. He acts according to his choices. This is appealing, for most of us possess a deep psychological desire to be completely free and to live strictly by our personally defined norms and laws. By ignoring the norms of his society, by challenging the authority of ‘the man,’ Bartleby is an underdog, a radical, a martyr. But is his cause worth his sacrifice?

An opposing interpretation suggests Bartleby’s is a misguided conception of individual freedom that, when acted upon with zeal, results in “miserable friendlessness and loneliness […] [and] solitude” and a senselessly squandered capacity for personal growth. Bartleby’s image as proto-hippie hero tarnishes as his lack of self-discipline becomes more apparent. Initially pitiful, he becomes repulsive. His insistence upon alienating himself from would-be comrades leads both the narrator and the reader to accept Bartleby’s soul as one that cannot be reached.

Why is Bartleby’s soul unreachable? Because he has subscribed to the notion that being “a man of preferences [rather] than assumptions” is somehow desirable. He has, at some debatable point in his life, determined that egomania and self-imposed exile from society are ‘preferred’ conditions. His ‘conscientious’ decision to remain in the office building is absurd in its futility. When his death finally comes, it means nothing to anyone save for the narrator (though the narrator’s reliability can be challenged – itself a topic worthy of future exploration). Bartleby is not a champion of individuality. He is merely an “intolerable incubus” wallowing in a cesspool of effete self-pity. Bartleby says, “‘I know where I am.’” Indeed. I suppose one must at least acknowledge his honesty.

Thoreauvian philosophy holds that enlightenment and personal fulfillment can be achieved via the marriage of individual freedom and moral responsibility. Melville’s Bartleby, by denouncing sociocultural integration, by being an individual stubbornly defiant and self-destructive to the end, and, thus, ignoring his own moral responsibilities, is guilty of perhaps the greatest crime of all: a wasted life. Indeed, his is the fate of a dead letter in reverse: the flame of promise extinguished.

Jeffrey R. Schrecongost received his M.F.A. from Converse College and currently teaches English at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana and Spartanburg Community College. His fiction has appeared in Blood Lotus, BlazeVOX, and Gadfly. He lives in Muncie, IN, with his loyal Golden Retriever, Molly.

Our Fall / Winter 2014 issue is up and ready for viewing!

Creative Work

We are pleased to present work by the following contributors:

• Artwork – Eleanor Leonne Bennett
• Fiction – Jonathan Danielson, Rachel Moore, Frank Scozzari
• Non-Fiction – Matt Muilenburg, Sam Slaughter, Richard Tillinghast
• Poetry – Trish Falin, Ann Herlong-Bodman, Amaris Feland Ketcham, Daniel James Sundahl, Pia Taavila-Borsheim, Allison Thorpe, Donald C. Welch III

Reviews

Wondering what to read over the holiday?  Check out our reviews of these books:

•  Where You Can Find Me by Sheri Joseph (Fiction)
•  Margaret Fuller by Megan Marshall (Non-Fiction)
•  Postage Due by Julie Marie Wade (Poetry)
•  We Come Elemental by Tamiko Beyer (Poetry)

Special Thanks

South85 Journal is published by the Converse College Low-Residency MFA program.  Thank you to our staff of volunteers who put countless hours into making this issue happen.  We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together!

Jim Ross

I was recently in the audience of three successful authors from my alma mater. The first went to grad school in architecture, ended up becoming editor in chief responsible for selling the brand for of a major national publication, and recently became Chancellor at a University. The second dabbled in short stories, planned to author his first novel, but then won a fellowship in screenplay writing, so instead he wrote his first screenplay. He turned that into a successful film, and he now teaches screenplay writing at a major university and is in demand in Hollywood. The third was a failed stockbroker who was never able to figure out Wall Street’s formula. So, he decided instead to analyze his favorite thriller novels to figure out the formula underpinning them, began writing his own thriller novels, and has published ten, including a few best sellers.

When it was time for the Q&A, I ran to the microphone to be the first of several to ask, “How do I get published?” I explained I’d had a successful career based on the ability to get research projects funded and professional articles published, but I needed an alternative plan to submitting articles scattershot to many of the hundreds of literary journals across the country run largely by MFA students. Isn’t there a better way?

The Chancellor said to convene focus groups of my target audience.

The short story writer who morphed into a screenplay writer said he thought I should stick with my plan. “That’s what I did, and so did my idol, George Stephens. You need to pay your dues. But you also should go to conferences and join a writer’s group so you can meet people who are trying to do things like what you’re trying to do so you can get ideas from each other.”

Looking bored, the thriller writer said, “Talk to my agent.”

At the reception afterwards, I cornered the Chancellor, and told him his answer made no sense for my situation.  I’m sure focus groups helped him better understand his audience as editor of a major magazine; for me to accomplish the same result, I’d have to conduct focus groups of journal reviewers.

He agreed and said, “What I should have said was, you learned in your career that you rarely got anything funded when the client didn’t already want to fund you before you wrote your proposal. That’s where you want to end up with your writing. Focus on making connections. Network. Get to know people so they want you and you don’t have to run after them.”

The publisher of a major university press was listening to our conversation. “I can tell you want you need to do. Everything you did your entire career. This is no different. You’re wasting your time with the hundreds of little lit magazines. It’s okay to send things to them, and to publish in them, but that can’t be your main focus. If you really want to get published in major journals, you need to show up in places where you can see and be seen and get to know how to get access.” Then he handed me his business card.

Nearly everyone else in the audience asked pretty much the same question, but they were all in the third decade of life, and I’m in my seventh. They got answers like, “Go home, move back in with your parents, and write screenplays in your bedroom.”

My takeaway was, I need to get out from behind the computer and go to more events, across town or across the country. I need to find a writer’s group focused on creative non-fiction. At the right moments, I need to be bold and walk up to the editor of a major magazine and say, “Can you read this?” as I did a couple years back, with a positive outcome. I need to create moments of connection and access.

In the meantime, I will continue following a systematic approach in submitting articles to the hundreds of literary journals out there just waiting to reject my stuff. Until people know me and are asking me to write a piece for them, trying to get published is just going to be a numbers game.

Jim Ross is on quest to resuscitate his long-neglected right brain. He spent his career of successfully overusing his left brain to publish in professional research and practitioner journals related to health. His hope is that, by doing things he loved in his 20s, like writing creatively, his right brain will start functioning again. As a result, he’s gotten several articles published in a variety of journals in the past three years.

Kathleen Nalley

You wrote. You edited. You rewrote. You submitted your manuscript. Finally, the acceptance letter arrived. You celebrated. You high-fived. You fist-bumped. Then, reality hit. You now must promote your work. Before you retreat under your bed in terror, before you have an anxiety attack over the awkwardness of writing and talking about yourself in third person, check out these 20 steps for easing your transition from introverted writer to marketing maniac.

1. Forget that fear is primal. Forget that even the wild, magnificent cheetah is vulnerable to fear. In fact, cheetahs face competition with other cheetahs every day, as well as predation from larger animals and persecution by mankind.
2. Compose a press release about your work. Include nice graphics. Be sure to include contact information.
3. Remember that you are as magnificent as the cheetah. You type fast. You write furiously.
4. Send the press release to local media. Be sure to look up specific names of contacts and address them personally.
5. Embrace your spots, although they may offend some and turn off others. Some folks like plain cats, and you can’t change that.
6. Send an email to every close contact announcing your new work.
7. Keep telling yourself that change can happen.
8. Post your news on Facebook and Twitter.
9. Do not equate your self-worth to the promotion process. Keep a healthy distance when you write about yourself in third person. Don’t let you get in the way of you. Or her.
10. Made a video interpretation of your work using animoto or some other free video creation service. People like pictures.
11. Tell yourself everything’s going to be okay.
12. Share photos of your cover design on Instagram. Remind yourself constantly that people like pictures.
13. Chant, “I can write solely for my own sake!” 20 times while looking in the mirror.
14. Create business cards and — big step alert! — actually list “writer” after your name.
15. If you’re feeling low, change something up. Leave the computer for a while. Get a haircut. Haircuts always make you feel better.
16. Chant, “I don’t need anyone’s approval. I’m a freaking cheetah! And I have great hair!”
17. Prepare your freezer with three tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream. Cherry Garcia™ and That’s My Jam™ soothe the savage beast.
18. Call local bookstores to book future readings.
19. Pat yourself on the back for putting yourself out there. It takes guts to do what you do. And it really takes guts to promote it.
20. Remember, like the cheetah, every facet of your anatomy has evolved: to ward off, to emerge, to fight. You got this.

Kathleen Nalley has been hustling to pre-sell her latest collection of poems, American Sycamore, from Finishing Line Press, before the November 28 deadline. #20 above features a line from the title poem of the collection (subtle, huh?). She is the author of Nesting Doll, winner of the S.C. Poetry Initiative Prize, has published in various journals, and was recently featured in The Bitter Southerner. She has an MFA from Converse College. No surprise: she wants you to reserve your copy of American Sycamore by visiting finishinglinepress.com, clicking on the “Preorder Forthcoming Titles” tab on the right, and scrolling down until you see American Sycamore.

Richard LeBlond

Now 73, I am a late-comer to the thrills and chills of literary submissions. In November 2013, I sent out my first manuscript, by Amish wagon, printed and mailed with a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE to historians). The journal is one of the few left that doesn’t use the internet for submissions. I’m glad I did it, for old school’s sake. That’s how it was done when I first thought I might be a writer. But now it is a waste of postage and part of a pulp tree. A terse e-note of rejection, apologetic and uncritical, is enough. I don’t need to pay to have the work thrown back in my face (which it was).

It surprised me that payment for accepted submissions from the great majority of journals is either barter or ego-petting, not cash. (I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that “barter” comes from a French word meaning “to cheat.”) Instead of cash, I am offered one-to-few copies of the issue in which my love child appears, and/or a subscription. Online journals and blogs like this one think I’ll be satisfied with a note of acceptance. Pathetically, they’re right. I may not even have heard of the publication before, but now it is a god in my literary pantheon for recognizing and validating my work.

Many journals, maybe even a majority, require the purchase of an issue or an annual subscription to get a sense of what they are looking for. That’s nonsense. We’re talking – what? – maybe hundreds of publications. Who can afford that? And there goes a whole forest of pulp trees (or at least multitudes of megabytes on the harddrive). A journal should offer free online at least three examples in each genre it publishes, giving a sense of the range of its interests. It will reduce wasted time – for editor and writer – by improving the ratio of appropriate to inappropriate submissions. It might even boost subscriptions.

I was astounded that many journals charge reading fees, typically $30. It is as if creative writing not only has lost its value, but has become a nuisance, something we have to pay to have hauled off. Some journals have submission contests that require a raffle-like entry fee for the prospect of winning enough money – likely from the other submitters – to buy two months of beer. The field at least is narrowed by exclusion of starving artists, and principled tightwads like me.

Then there are the journals that charge an online submission fee of $3. These may be run by publishers and editors who spent decades mailing their own SASE manuscripts. They think it unfair that our internet servers don’t charge us for online submissions on top of our monthly fees (though lord knows they could). Some journals call the $3 a reading fee, which makes no sense – unless our submissions are being sent to a sweatshop in Cambodia. “Mealea! You only read 37 manuscripts today, and you know your quota is 50. I’m beginning to think we wasted our money and your time on that speed-reading course.”

Okay, okay, enough journal-bashing. They must rely on us for their validation, as we do on them. The majority are on institutional welfare, ducking the budget scythe. Journals out in the ‘hood are at even greater risk. My very first acceptance was rejected when the new journal went belly-up. “Sales for the first issue have been slow,” the editor told me in the rather depressing acceptance email, “and there is a lack of usable submissions for issue #2.”

For a while I believed the writing went better without readers and editors. I imagined Salinger in his Appalachian retreat writing for no one but himself. Sometimes I thought my writing so good that a Pulitzer nomination was inevitable. Then after I had set it aside for a while, I wondered how I could have been so vain and foolish over such an imperfect thing.

I realized I needed feedback. So I began sending essays to indentured readers – friends and relatives. But ultimately I thought they might hold back criticism for fear of hurting my feelings. It is a reasonable fear.

I now accept that editors can be useful. They are professional readers who combine a fresh perspective with a warrior’s willingness to draw blood. I now know that validation comes from the reader. My observations are meaningful only if they are meaningful to you.

I believe it was Tom Cruise who said: “The reader completes me.”

Richard LeBlond is a retired botanist living in North Carolina. He has been writing about life experiences, travels to Europe and North Africa in the early 1970s, and more recent adventures in eastern Canada and western U.S. First attempting to publish in winter-spring 2014, he has had essays published or accepted by Montreal Review, Appalachia, and Weber—The Contemporary West.

Debby DeRosa

If you’ve always been meaning to write a novel, you don’t have to wait until the New Year to make a resolution. You can start your novel tomorrow along with 400,000 other writers participating in the National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.

The goal of the project is to write 50,000 words during the month of November, which breaks out to a little over 1600 words a day. If you free write without editing and don’t get stuck staring at your screen for long periods of time, this task could take about an hour each day, a challenging but feasible goal for almost anyone. At the end of the month, you would have a rough draft around the length of The Great Gatsby. And you would be an official NaNoWriMo “winner.”

One of the best parts of NaNoWriMo is the community of writers who help you along the way. You can sign up for a region and participate in write-ins, which means you meet other writers at a physical location and write with them. Also, you can participate in forums and read scheduled pep talks from known authors. As you make friends, you can add these people as “Buddies” in your dashboard, and you can cheer each other along. Because let’s face it. Writing can be a lonesome activity, and we all need encouragement.

Then, in January and February, you can participate in the “Now What?” Months. During this period, you revise your novel for possible publication. Over NaNoWriMo 250 novels have been traditionally published.

However, NaNoWriMo isn’t just about getting published. For many people, writing a novel is kind of like running a marathon, a challenge worth undertaking for its own sake. And what you learn in the process of writing your novel it is far more important than the achievement of the final goal itself.

In a participant testimonial on the NaNoWriMo website, Deana Anker says, “Honestly, no one really ever told me I could be a writer. The first time I even considered it was NaNoWriMo 2010. A few friends had posted blurbs about NaNoWriMo and I signed up on a whim. It was the single most transformative and enlightening experience of my life.”

NaNoWriMo believes we all have a story to tell and that each person’s story matters. Participating in NaNoWriMo is about breaking away from the pressure and the feeling of being judged. It brings the writer back to his or her own creativity.

“Every year, we’re reminded that there are still stories that have yet to be told, still voices yet to be heard from all corners of the world,” says Executive Director Grant Faulkner. “NaNoWriMo helps people make creativity a priority in life and realize the vital ways our stories connect us.”

Are you ready to get started? Sign up today, and write your first words tomorrow.

Debby DeRosa holds a BA in English from the University of South Carolina-Columbia and an MFA in Creative Writing from Converse College.  In addition to being Editor-in-Chief of South85 Journal, she is the Marketing Manager of Five Star Plumbing Heating Cooling in Greer, SC, and she freelances as a copywriter and content developer.  She and her husband, Joe, live in Greenville, SC, with their two daughters, Aimee and Ruby.

Katrina Johnston

Recipe cards are my nemesis and my friend. They’re strewn all over my desk–but none hold recipes.

I tote around two hefty decks; these cards are my real efforts to track my written submissions. I’m carrying them to the coffee houses where I normally work and then I use the shop’s WiFi to submit my short fiction. One deck of cards lists the title of each manuscript and a further list of when and where and to whom I’ve submitted.

Another bundle is slimmer than the first, and it provides information about where I may submit in future. These include a list of publications that have previously looked upon my efforts–or perhaps they’re new. God forbid that I mistakenly submit the same manuscript two times to the same journal, submit in error, or submit when one of my stories is still undergoing the editorial digestive process.

I remember once that I sent a sweet, home-style essay to a place that wanted only the darkest cutting-edge of hard science fiction. That story didn’t launch my writerly career. I try for more suitability these days.

A bulging box of recipe cards is filed at home and more cards are haphazardly laying idle on my desk, the remnants of all the places that I have ever submitted manuscripts. A bit of shuffling from time to time reorganizes what I take to coffee shops. I make new cards as new publications pop up like literary blades of grass.

Yet another mess of cards has been bunched together and put aside. That’s the cards that I deem ‘sketchy.’ These cards include the places that have not bothered to respond; apathy devastates me most of all. I will gracefully accept any rejection if an editor is straight-talking and knows the drill, or even if it’s boilerplate. ‘Least then I’ll know.

Occasionally a literary contact has been less than joyful. More than a few definitive ‘never agains’ reside within the sketchy cards. But there are a few listings I can also celebrate and these include the kindest and most encouraging rejections, the ones that make sense and offer sound writing critique, or are so well thought-out and meaningful that I cannot help but agree and go back for a re-write and more editing. I send effusive heartfelt gratitude. Thanks for the advice. Thanks to these kind and wise and experienced publishers and to other writers. Several have helped me to become a better storyteller.

I know it’s ridiculously old school, this card system, and I should teach myself how to adapt a spreadsheet program, or a database that would better track a zillion submissions and rejections and help me highlight the occasional acceptance.

I am able to embellish a scattering of my manuscript cards with a fat blue pencil– marking these with a heavy-handed and definitive “A” for Acceptance, and a joyful star and a then a smiley face when the piece finally appears as published. Not many, but the odds fare better now.

Wouldn’t it be more efficient to actually use these recipe cards for recipes? Then again, there are many other things I’d rather do than cook.

Katrina Johnston is the winner of the CBC-Canada Writes True Winter Tale. She lives in James Bay in Victoria BC, Canada. Works of short fiction may be found at several online venues. Occasionally, she breaks into print. The goal of her storytelling is to share.

Larry Lefkowitz

A few years back I told somebody that I was a writer.

“Do you support yourself writing?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“So it’s a hobby,” he said.

Inwardly offended, I nodded in unconvinced agreement.

Later, I thought about it. Almost all of my stories, articles or poems appeared in “little” magazines that paid in copies. To be honest, considering mailing costs, paper, etc., as far as my writing went, I was in the red. Financially speaking, my writing was indeed a hobby.

When I was younger, I had aspirations of having my books published; or my plays, or a collection of my short stories, none of which I ever achieved. I succeeded in getting an occasional story, poem, or article published. Over the years they amounted to a repectable total. But individually, it was nothing earthshaking.

Back then, if I could have known what I know now – that I would have to be satisfied with occasional success – I would have been disappointed. I would also have been chagrined to know that I would be unable to support myself by writing and would have to work at a job and write on the side – another basis for characterizing my writing as a hobby. Today, I am satisfied with this situation. It is a matter of appreciating the success of the random and the lesser, rather than the permanent and the spectacular.

For me, then, as for most people writing, the occasional success is a reason for celebration, and not frustration. Not sour grapes, but pleasure from an occasional use another word—repetitive savoring of the vintage.

Sure, in the back of my mind remains the hope that perhaps one of my four novels will be eventually accepted for publication, or one of my six plays, or a book of my short stories, or a book of my poems. And if not, there will still be the satisfaction of, if not “less is more,” then “less is enough.” I do not say set your sights low. On the contrary, set them high. But if, with time, you achieve but occasional success, this, too, is something. Grasp the pen, not half empty, but half full.

The stories, poetry and humor of Larry Lefkowitz have been widely published in journals, ezines and online in the US and abroad. His literary novel, The Critic, the Assistant Critic, and Victoria, and his book, Laughing into the Fourth Dimension, 25 Humorous Fantasy and Science Fiction Stories, are available from on. He has also self published humor books including Humor for Writers.