Charlene L. Edge - From the Porch to the Page: A Guidebook for the Writing Life

Praise For

From The Porch To The Page

A Guidebook For The Writing Life

This guidebook for writers is an absolute treatwith clean, lovely writing that draws you into vivid stories and meditations on family and on the natural world. Edge, a generous writer, weaves those storiesand illustrative poemswith writing advice that is both practical and reverent. As a writer and a reader, I came away inspired. Lyn Millner, MFA , Professor, Founder of Florida Gulf Coast Universitys Journalism Program, author of The Allure of Immortality: An American Cult, a Florida Swamp, and a Renegade Prophet.

Theres something for everyone in this mixed-genre guidebook for the writing life: short-short stories, poetry, essays on writing, and memoir. Throughout the book, Charlene Edge draws us into worlds both real and imagined, with the remarkable ability to capture the past in almost photographic detail. The selves in these pages absorb death and loss, contemplate religion in all its trappings, and find beauty and pathos in subjects ranging from the imagined life of earthly objects (an antique iron) to the stars (rolling jewels in heavens palm). The spine that holds the stories and poems together is the series of short essays about writing that highlight Edges creative process and offer useful advice on topics ranging from self-publishing to writing exercises. Rachel Newcomb, PhD , Rollins College Professor of Anthropology, author of The Gift ; Women of Fez ; and Encountering Morocco: Fieldwork and Cultural Understanding .

Charlene L. Edge writes from the intersection of love, life, and loss, and she does so in the front window, where readers and writers can see how she works her craft. I highly recommend this guidebook for writers. Susan Campbell, MS , Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Distinguished Lecturer of Journalism, University of New Haven, author of Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl , and other books.

A Guidebook for the Writing Life

Charlene L. Edge

new wi ng s p r e s s, l l c

From the Porch to the Page: A Guidebook for the Writing Life. Copyright 2022 by Charlene L. Edge. All rights reserved. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

This book is a collection of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Some names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover and interior design by Duane Stapp

Cover image GeniusMinus-stock.adobe.com

Cover author photo by Hoyt L. Edge

Author photo by Hoyt L. Edge

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022905437

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval systemexcept by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Webwithout permission in writing from the publisher at New Wings Press, LLC.

Permission requests can be made by contacting the author at
https://charleneedge.com/contact .

Because of the dynamic nature of the internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

ISBN: 978-0-9978747-3-0

Published by New Wings Press, LLC
527 Henkel Circle
Winter Park, Florida 32789

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please send a request to the author at https://charleneedge.com/contact .

In loving memory of Ruth Mullenactivist, writer,
and brilliant, good-humored copyeditor.

(June 22, 1953September 7, 2021)

Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment goes to the editors of the following publications in which these pieces in From the Porch to the Page: A Guidebook for the Writing Life originally appeared, sometimes in earlier versions.

The Florida Writer Magazine : Nocturnal Impositions, Melanies Sign, A Farmer Secret, Off the Cliff: From Manuscript to Printed Book.

The Florida Palm Vol. 6, No. 4 Fall 200 : Letter to the Editor. This poem was also read on Orlando, Floridas public radio station WMFE-FM in a segment of Poetic Logic hosted by Sara Schlossman, April 25, 2003. It aired within The Arts Connection program produced by Becky Morgan.

The Rollins Book of Verse, 1885-2010 : He Was the Grounded Grass.

Wordsmith 97, Anthology of the Tampa Writers Alliance (T WA): Chameleon One and A Shirt Not Her Own, which, under the title A Bar Iron, won second prize in the TWA contest judged by Rita Ciresi.

Wordsmith 98, Anthology of the Tampa Writers Alliance (TWA): From Hills Avenue and He Was the Grounded Grass, first prize winner in the TWA contest judged by Peter Meinke.

The Florida Writers Association website blog: s hort essays about writing, many in earlier versions.

ICSA Today Vol. 7, No. 2, 2016, 15-1 : Why I Had to Escape a Fundamentalist Cult. Reprinted with permission of the International Cultic Studies Association, P.O. Box 2265, Bonita Springs, FL 34133, Phone: 239.514.3081, Fax: 305.393.8193, e-mail: mail@icsamail.com, web: http://www.icsahome.com

Authors Note

W elcome to From the Porch to the Page: A Guidebook for the Writing Life . You may know my work because youve read posts on my website or journeyed with me through my award-winning memoir, Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International . New Wings Press, LLC. 2017.

Undertow , like an extra-wide semi-truck, dominated my writing life for many years, but it has turned a corner now, and the bicycles, cars, and taxis stuck behind it have revved up and are now moving forward on the road of this guidebook. They are poems and short-short stories to illustrate points made about writing in the short essays.

One essay, Writing Behind the Scenes in Kas, Turkey, first appeared on my website, along with the photo of me on the cover of this book taken at the Hideaway Hotel in Kas, Turkey, 2011. Most of the remaining essays (some in earlier forms) were first published month by month on the Florida Writers Association website during 20172020. Poetry in Solitude under the title of Writing Benefits in Solitude, published April 15, 2020, seemed relevant for angst-filled writers (like me) with heavy hearts overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which, unfortunately, continues as I write this note.

The six short-short stories, sometimes called flash fiction or sudden fiction, feature adventures of a character named Melanie Craven, the star of this guidebooks centerpiece story From the Porch, in Part VI: Writing Stories, and again in Part X: More Melanie Stories.

Some poems you find sprinkled throughout the book originate from my writing life in Tampa, Florida, during the mid-1990s, while others began later at Rollins College in a nurturing writers group called First Friday. I mention this because its easy to forget that all of our writing, no matter its age, imprints our creative body of work.

Whether or not you are a writer, I hope you enjoy reading this book. Its a genuine honor to offer it. Pour yourself a cup of coffee (or a glass of wine), pull up a chair, and mull over what you find here.