If you haven’t done this already, click the Greenman face in the middle of my home page. A poem, The Greenman, should pop up. This little poem has been published in a number of places since it was first written several years ago. It was first published in The Journal of Speculative Poetry, a great place for fantasy poems, and then reprinted in Margins, a journal of magical realism http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/margin/ ,and collected in the WPA anthology Pontoon 8.

Yesterday I found out that The Greenman poem, along with another of my fantasy poems Wolfproof, won honorable mention for The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2006 Vol 18. Honorable mention means my name is listed in the book even though my poems aren’t printed there. I’m quite an admirer of this imaginative anthology. Just being mentioned in it, makes me feel like I’m rubbing shoulders with some of the most creative writers today. Greenman will be the featured poem on Endicott Studios’s wild and wonderful fantasy site on Sept. 24^th, http://www.endicott-studio.com/ If you’ve never visited Endicott Studio, you need to do so right away, for the art work alone!

Where story ideas come from

It’s funny, but the Greenman character from the poem refused to leave after the poem was written. He kept rustling in my imagination. I’ve always been a fan of fantasy, especially the kind that comes knocking at your door and won’t leave you alone until you answer. So, the Greenman became one of the first characters in Wolfproof, my soon to be released novel. And yes, the title Wolfproof came from a poem as well, a poem based on the story of The Three Little Pigs. When students ask me where ideas come from, one of the many answers I give them, is poems.

The character for the Greenman poem came from a carving in Oxford, England. I looked up, and his face was peering back down at me. Story ideas are all around; they’re in today’s newspaper, in the sentence you overhear on the bus, and in the face you glimpse in a crowd. A writer’s notebook and a sharp eye help. Keep asking what if, and you may find yourself with a character who refuses to let go!