Writers Groups I Have Known

Ok, so we were a little older than this, but not by much. I had written a short story in 10th grade about a kid that gets off work at the A & W and then goes to a party and gets drunk and moons over a girl that he wanted. Titled it after the Tandy story in Winesburg, Ohio. Well, the whole English Department told me I was a genius. They may have ruined my life, but I would accept what was handed me. That was the year I had Barbara Baum for English (I was in low general English, mostly sleeping and would have probably stayed there the rest of my high school years except for Ms. Baum.) She was tall and angular and smoked so her voice was always raspy and she was quite obviously gay, except for the heavy make-up. I think I caught her attention when she asked if anyone had heard of a book by James Joyce called Ulysses. I had and raised my hand. I had gone to the library to find a copy of the Odyssey and picked up Joyce's book by mistake- I still wonder at the fact that Joyce's book was in our high school library. She asked me if I understood it and I told her no. That year I found Sillitoe and Sherwood Anderson and Dylan Thomas because of her and Roger Pfingston, the Journalism teacher. Another teacher, who's name I can't even remember, sort of brownish hair and young and had freckles. (I remember every freckle I ever met.) wanted to start a High School Writer's Workshop. They asked me if there were any more of me around. I rounded up my buddy Jim, who was busy writing a novel and reading Shakespeare behind the books he was supposed to be reading, and Tom who loved SciFi and a couple of others that wrote deep and sorrowful poetry and we started a class. Jim and I were the only ones that finished and actually got school credit for the class. I don't know if it actually helped or not, but it encouraged us to write. And it is a very lonely past time. You have to be willing to sit alone in a room and think of yourself in some kind of manifestation for hours on end.