AUTHOR! AUTHOR! INSIGHT TO THE MIDS OF LOCAL WRITING GREATS

JEAN BELL MOSLEY

Author and newspaper columnist Jean Bell Mosley lives in Cape Girardeau. Her fifth book, "Seeds on the Wind," will go on sale this month. The book is a collection of vintage columns, written primarily for the Southeast Missourian.

Writing, when pursued for a long time, gets to be a way of life. It infiltrates your circulatory, glandular and nervous systems. If it becomes a chore I'm sure all these systems would react violently. For me, it has been a pleasure, so my body and mind, so far, are happily contented. The only little quirk I've developed is that I tend to even think in phrases and sentences. Down at the river bank with a towboat going by, it doesn't just register as a pretty picture, it registers in my mind as, "That white towboat moving so slowly against the background of graceful green willows gives me a sense of peace and a plenitude of time."

If words are things with which one works best, think how many there are and how many combinations one can make of them. Free raw material that will never become depleted! And rules for putting them together have loosened so that one is not bound my stern, demanding subjects and predicates. Consider my previous statement. It is not a bona fide sentence, only a phrase, yet accepted. It is the way we talk. So why not "unstilt" writing? See, a person can even make up new words and be understood.

Choosing the exact words one wants to use from the great everlasting and renewing pool of them, and placing them as carefully as a jeweler would set a precious gem should be the aim of every writer. Says I, somewhat loftily.

Addison, the English poet and essayist, said, "Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of the things themselves."

This choosing words so carefully sounds super lofty and conjures up visions of the writer spending hours over a thesaurus. Not so. Usually the simplest words are best, written with what the writer, in his mind, considers to be his mission. If reporting, report. If preaching, preach. If entertaining, entertain. If to share your feelings, the sights you see, the things you hear and smell, the emotions you feel, to persuade that it is good to find joy along the way in little everyday happenings, then write to make your reader see, hear and feel, as in emotion.

But this is not a lesson in writing. I have no academic training or certification for that, rather it is a confession of the happiness I have found in sharing my little essays, homilies, reports of a reporter without portfolio of the things I see, hear and feel while walking in the woods, in the fields, along the hedgerow, cooking in the kitchen, waving at the school bus kids, and observations of life as seen from the back porch swing.

Such reports are like a visit with unseen and unpresent friends. In an upcoming book, "Seeds on the Wind," I will have eighty such little visits with these friends who sometime call or write to say, "I know what you mean. I've felt that way too. Ain't it so."

ROBERT HAMBLIN

Robert Hamblin is professor of English and director of the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University. He is co-editor, with Louis Daniel Brodsky, of eight scholarly books on William Faulkner and author of a volume of poems, "From the Ground Up," and a sports biography, "Win or Win: A season with Ron Shumate." He is currently working on a second volume of poems, "The Pole Vaulter land Other Heroes."

"There is no Frigate like a Book/To take us Lands away." Though I didn't read those lines until college, I had already learned the truth of Emily Dickinson's poem years earlier, when my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Rogers, ended every school week by encouraging each of her pupils to choose a book from the huge bookcase in the corner of the room to take home and read over the weekend. Soon I was requesting two books, and I seldom failed to finish them both by Monday. To paraphrase Thoreau, another writer I would not meet until much later, I traveled a good deal in Baldwyn, Miss., that year -- mostly in the company of such juvenile heroes as the Hardy boys, Tarzan, the Lone Ranger, and Chip Fisk. I've been hooked on reading ever since. And though my reading tastes have become more sophisticated over the years, in many ways, I'm sure, my motives for reading are still much the same as they were in 5th grade.

If you grew up in provincial, racist, sexist, class-conscious Mississippi in the 1950s (as in how many other places and times?), you needed to escape every now and then. And if you family was poor so that you couldn't actually travel, you did the next best thing: you read books. You traveled to the western frontier with Zane Grey, to the antebellum South with Margaret Mitchell, to New England with Robert Frost, to London with Charles Dickens, to France with Victor Hugo, to the royal castle of Elsinore with Shakespeare. With Richard Wright (if you were white in those segregationist days) you traveled even farther, though it was just to the other side of town, where the "coloreds" lived with their separate lives and thwarted dreams.

I think we never completely outgrow the uniquely human need to play make-believe, to imagine and pretend, to exit, if only briefly and vicariously, our ordinary, nondescript, black-and-white existence and enter a world of color, excitement, adventure, romance. In moments of exasperation, sometimes parents say to children, "Grow up!" But I say to all who will listen, "Never grow up. Always keep alive the child-in-you. Play with your imagination. Let it teach you to invent and dream, to give, as Shakespeare said, "to airy nothing/A local habitation and a name'."

What is a great actress except an older child who still likes to play make-believe? Who are professional athletes but people who still love to play children's games? Who are the visionaries among us except people who can see worlds that never were, but ought to be? Who are the novelists and poets but eternal children perpetually saying, "Let's pretend." (Historians, too, since, as Wallace Stevens pointed out, the only way we can enter the past is through an act of the imagination.) And what did Jesus Christ, one of the greatest teachers who ever lived, do to convey his messages? He told stories. Was there a real Good Samaritan? We'll never know. We know him only as a fictional character in one of the most famous short stories ever written. But it doesn't matter, since fiction, while it is not factual, is always true.

For some of us, after living so long with books, it is not enough anymore merely to read; we must write our own stories and poems. Some people carry cameras and camcorders on their journeys; others of us take notebooks. And when we return home and begin to shape our impressions and insights and memories into stories, essays, or poems, we discover what the books were trying to teach us all along: that all of the vicarious escapes from our narrow worlds have been preparations for the longest and most necessary journey of all -- the journey toward self-discovery. Reading can prepare us for that journey, but only writing can take us there.

LINDA LADD

Linda Ladd of Poplar bluff is a former high school teacher who writes romance novels full-time. Her most recent project is~"The White Rose" series of books.

When I was a little girl, my family didn't have a lot of money but we made up for that financial woe with plenty of love, caring, and laughter. In particular my mother was surely the most loving woman alive, and she made sure that my two brothers and I knew that the really important things in life have little to do with wealth.

Since Mom was also an avid reader, from early ages on, she would lead us kids on a weekly Saturday afternoon jaunt to our local library where each of us were allowed to choose an armload of books. I loved to read more than anything and never failed to check out the six books allotted to me then bribed a few more off my little brother's card, usually with a stick of Juicy Fruit or one of the square-tipped red cinnamon suckers we loved so much. When I was in the fifth grade that weekly excursion encouraged by my mother won me the school-wide reading contest with a grand total of 106 books read!

Exciting childhood awards aside, however, as I picked up one novel after another, I quickly became a part of the action, traveling at warp speed into fantastic alien worlds on the far side of Pluto, visiting faraway, exotic lands of India or Egypt, or meeting the famous kings and queens who shaped the destiny of my world long before I was born. I was voracious, reading every book available as I made my way through shelves filled with the classics of Dickens, Austin, and Mark Twain then on to Melville, Hemingway and Margaret Mitchell.

From those early literary giants to Stephen King, every word I read continues to be a journey, a discovery, an odyssey into endless new adventures. Though I graduated from Southeast Missouri State University with a degree in business, there is little wonder that I ended up as a fiction author myself, visiting wonderful places alongside characters created in my mind and brought to life on the pages of my novels.

My latest project is a trilogy chronicling the exploits of the Delany family, and my research swept me first into the fascinating world of extra sensory perception with the clairvoyant heroine of WHITE LILY then into the second book, WHITE ROSE, which dealt with the dangerous world of civil war espionage. I just finished the last book, WHITE ORCHID, which is an exciting sojourn into Maharaja India of 1865. Now I am off to ancient Scotland where the clanging swords of Highland clans echo off the windswept cliffs of that wild, untamed land.

Since my work is solitary and I often find myself sitting alone for hours in front of my office computer, it is a great joy to receive letters from readers who have joined me on the fictional tales that flow from my pen. I appreciate my readers very much because I feel they pay me a great compliment each time they give up their leisure time and hard-earned money in order to read one of my books.

So let me take this opportunity to encourage everyone to read, not just my books but every book you can get your hands on -- read to learn, read to enjoy a quiet moment by yourself, read to escape the everyday pressures of your life. Who knows, perhaps your love of stories will take you a step farther and you will become a published author, too! I hope so. I'm always looking for another good book!

NOLAN PORTERFIELD

Nolan Porterfield of Cape Girardeau is a professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University and author of "Way of Knowing," 1970, "Jimmie Rodgers: The life and Times of America's Blue Yodeler," 1979, and has a new book coming out in 1995, "Last Cavelier."

The British author John Fowles says that writers have many motives for writing, but only one motive in common: "We wish to create worlds as real as, but other than, the world that is." Fowles is referring to novelists, of course, but having written biographies as well as fiction, I tend to think that his statement applies in some way to everyone who sets out to compose words in some sort of order that will attract other people to read them.

I confess that I really don't know why I have the urge to read and write. Why does a dog chase a stick? If I knew exactly why I do what I feel compelled to do with words, I might quit doing it. Reading and writing are probably activities that are innate -- or at least genetically motivated. Some people have the urge, and some people don't. Having it is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because, if the writing is any good, it allows the author to understand what he (or she) thinks and perhaps -- just perhaps -- convey that understanding to someone else. It is a curse because the writing is never good enough.

The least we can do for those who have the urge to make reading and writing a central part of their lives is to encourage them -- and stand back.

ROBERT VAUGHN

Robert Vaughan of Sikeston is author of more than 100 titles. He can't remember how many books he has written. Vaughan is writing "American Chronicles," a series of books looking at the history of this century decade by decade.

Let us say that life is a football game, a game that has gone scoreless until the last tick on the clock. The home team kicks a field goal with the ball in the air as the clock runs out. The kick is good, and the home team wins. Using that analogy, we can say that man has been on earth for the time of that football game, but we have learned to read and write only during the time that final kick is in the air.

It is not hard to understand then, why all the advances made by man ... religion, philosophy, the arts, sciences, etcetera, have been all made in the last 4,000 years, for that was when we learned how to travel through time.

Wait a minute. Travel through time? What does traveling through time have to do with reading and writing?

The answer is, everything. Suppose your family has a copy of a letter that your great-great grandfather wrote when he was a soldier during the Civil War. You never met your great-great grandfather, but, while you are reading that letter, you and he are reaching across the corridors of time to communicate with each other. The images that formed in his mind as he wrote those words over 100 years ago, are being reformed in your mind today, as you read them. "... it was cold in camp, last night, so we built a fire and huddled around it for warmth." Can you not recreate in your mind, the sight of a group of men huddled around a campfire for warmth? And, if we write a letter which is read by our descendants who will be born over 100 years from now, will we not travel into the future?

Nothing that man has ever accomplished -- the refinement of our religious beliefs, the development of our political philosophy, our culture, television, computers, space-travel -- none of this would have been possible without the ability read and write. Because it provides me with a window that opens onto eternity.

PETER HILTY

Peter Hilty of Cape Girardeau is a former professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University, retiring in 1992. He is author of a book of poetry, "How Far is Far," 1991.

A certain truth hides in the absurd story of the illiterate man who, after long effort learned to write but found he could make no use of his new skill because he had not bothered to learn to read.

I assume that someone will read what I write, and although writing may be done for the writer alone, most of us hope for a larger and more enthusiastic audience. Indeed, if we discover that no one reads what we have written, we will probably soon stop writing. Literature affords some bizarre seeming exceptions to my claim that every writer is in search of a reader. What about Samuel Pepys, who kept his diary in a code tough to crack? Or abundantly gifted Emily Dickinson, who planned that her poetry not appear until after her death. I am convinced that both, in spite of their peevishness, were happy to be discovered.

A list of purpose served by writing must be lengthy. My mother wrote cryptic notes clipped to the kitchen wall to remind me to bring home a spool of number 40 black thread. She also wrote lovely letters to each of us when we were away from home. My father wrote "cutlines" of his speeches. My younger sister wrote poetry before prose and continues to write verse.

I sometimes write because I do not agree with certain others. A recent book review in TIME argues in defense of Elitism. I don't agree. Although something can be said for the position, much more can be advanced for an intelligent egalitarianism. I shall marshall my reasons, for writing will allow me to do this, and gallop into the attack like a seasoned cavalryman, stating my reasons well and overcoming my adversary (who is not dead anyway.) Perhaps I do enjoy argument, but I am convinced of the seriousness of my cause. I write to defend long-held principles and would feel craven if I did not.

But most of my writing is not polemical and these days little is of the "bring home baking powder" variety.

I write because I am alive. I happen to belong to the human race, a fact which brings up obligations and privileges. Before beginning this essay I sat for a time on the swing on the porch. Before that I had been downtown for breakfast with friends. Everywhere I went all of us praised the superb morning. September begins in two ways. A turtle dove called from the magnolia. It uses language too -- main verbs, I believe. A dog barked in the next block, answering other dogs. A hospital helicopter crosses the sky south of me. Friends will soon come and we will go for lunch. Tough life. Yet my writing will preserve it for a thousand years.

Everything is telling me that today is too nice to forget. If I wrote nothing, I might well forget, or perhaps cast about like Sullivan for the rest of my life in pursuit of the Lord Chord. "Our days are like grass." But how lovely is the grass, this late August morning.

Perhaps I shall write a poem about all of this. Others have. Today is a Worsdworthian "season of fair weather." Perhaps today we will have a glimpse of that immortal sea which brought us hither. Maybe I write so I can express how I feel about writing of others.

Writing ties us all together. John Shenk was an Old Mennonite minister who wore plain clothes. I recall how he stood 50 years ago beneath the mulberry trees that July night under the humming gasoline lantern and spoke from the Book of Daniel and described how "Those that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars, forever and ever." So I think of John Shenk and of Daniel imprisoned by the Babylonians and can see the stars of north Morgan County shining as they did for Daniel. And I am gratefully that someone wrote all of this down and preserved it and translated it for me.

Like the other arts, Painting and Music, Writing preserves beauty. Perhaps it goes beyond the others. That is what Alexander Pope believed. "Life's best art is in writing well."

GEORGE G. SUGGS, JR.

George G. Suggs Jr., professor of history at Southeast Missouri State University, wrote "Colorado's War on Militant Unionism," 1972, reprinted in paperback in 1992, "Perspectives on the American Revolution," 1977, "Union Busting in the Tri-State," 1986, and "Water Mills of the Missouri Ozarks," 1990, reprinted in 1993.

For historians, reading is absolutely essential if they are to remain current in the voluminous historical literature published annually by academic and commercial presses. It is therefore difficult for me to imagine anyone in my profession -- or any scholarly profession -- who does not enjoy reading. It is the source of renewal and new knowledge that undergirds my professional life. It is an aspect of my work that I thoroughly enjoy.

A part from the requirements of my profession, however, I enjoy reading because I am intrigued by the wonder and the mystery of the whole process. To be able to share the world of past generations, to discover the resilient and soaring vicariously the full range of human emotions, to enrich life with the differing perceptions of others, to take flight on the imagination of others, to appreciate the ebb and flow within the continuity of human existence, to understand somewhat better the human condition -- all are reasons why I take great pleasure in reading. Without a doubt, it is one of the most marvelous and extraordinary developments of the human mind. It is the key to all doors. I don't think it is a coincidence that the library is central to the life of every university and community.

As the author of five books, numerous articles, and many book reviews, I have often asked myself why I bothered to spend my time writing when I could have been doing so many other interesting things, like playing tennis or golf, or fishing, or selling or buying real estate. Certainly not for the money! Academic monographs are not usually bestsellers with huge royalties. And, in my case, certainly not for a promotion within the local university! I had reached the top professional rank there long before the publication of my first book. The why?

Part of the answer lies in my perception of the role of the historian. I had the good fortune to attend several major universities where faculty members were expected to research and publish. The historians that I most admired were publishing scholars who writings made them better teachers. I came to believe that professional historians, for a variety of reasons, were obligated to their students and to their profession to research, to write, and to publish the results of their work. For that reason, I have done so. I like to think of my professional writing as evidence that, although constrained by a heavy teaching load, I have been a fully engaged historian.

More recently, I have begun to more away from academic to more creative writing. I am finding this form of writing to be most interesting, enjoyable and less demanding that academic writing. It is fascinating to unleash the imagination and not be bound by the constraints of historical accuracy and methodology. I am now writing a series of short stories solely because of the pleasure that I derive from it. And, I suppose, I like to write because someday in the future, just maybe, someone will read what I have written, tap into my thoughts, and have that same wonderful feeling of awe and mystery that I now feel when reading the printed word.

TED HIRSCHFIELD

Ted Hirschfield of Cape Girardeau is a professor of English at Southeast Missouri University. He is author of "Human Weather," 1991, "German Requiem," 1993, "Orbiting God," which is under contract to be published in 1994, "American Exile," which is being accepted for review, and he is just finishing "Middle Mississippians," a book on prehistoric Indians of the region.

The trouble with writing is that one has to experience life before one can say anything about it. Experience before theory, and it takes a lifetime. I have had a hard time making a living teaching because, in academia, theory and form are more important than experience and reality. It's a kind of greenhouse atmosphere where strange things grow at night and look different by the light of day.

I'm not the best judge of what I do and have to say. My love affair with words began early on. I loved books because they summarized experience and pointed me in the direction of my own. I forget names but never a face or a place. Having been born with a gift for images, I have to struggle to match up the pictures with the words.

I chose poetry, or poetry chose me, because words have the most meaning in poetry. One can say more in fewer words with mathematical precision while, at the same time, building up whole rooms of stanzas in architectural form. A poem is a house of words. It has body, form and living extension like a rock or a tree or a body of moving water. And you can put your name on it.

Because poems have a life of their own, I'd like to quote one here and let it explain what I'm trying to say. I was ten years old, had just come to America, didn't know the language and was all on my own. School didn't really help, although the teachers tried. It's a poem from my fourth volume of verse entitled American Exile. Here it is:

ALL EDUCATION IS SELF-EDUCATION

There was a library across the street

And I got tired from sitting in class

Not knowing what was going on there

With all the kids busy around me.

So every day I went to the library

And looked for the big glossy books

With all the nice pictures in them

And I studied the pictures for hours.

And then I started looking for words

That seemed to have something to do

With the big bright glossy pictures

And when I found a promising word I

Was happy and held a pointed finger

To the word and looked at the picture.

(There were all kinds of animal stories

And the animals never looked real,

They always somehow looked human

And they had names like you and me.)

There was a picture of Robin Hood

Who I knew was something special

With a green hat and bow and arrow

And he was always in the trees

And I swung on a vine of words

Keeping up with him in the trees

And the words kept stringing together,

Following us swinging in the trees

And Robin Hood became my hero

In new words swinging in the trees.