Bragging on the Amazing, Dancing Emo Boy: Part Infinity

When school bells rang in late August alerting California area students to the first day of class, Allen Free wasn’t among their ranks. The 14 year old California resident wasn’t playing hooky, however; he was at home packing his bags, preparing to leave for the greatest adventure to date of his young life. In early September, Allen travelled to downtown Philadelphia where he’s currently enrolled in the Rock School for Dance Education, the premiere school for young dancers aiming to make ballet a career.

Allen spent the summer at the Rock School in their six-week summer intensive before opting to enroll in their year round program. After auditioning for the school’s directors, he was offered a merit scholarship to help defray tuition expenses. In addition to studying dance for roughly five hours a day, he is continuing his general education studies in the school’s Rock Academics program. He lives near the campus in a townhouse style dormitory with other young dancers, sharing space with roommates who came from as far away as Japan to attend the prestigious training institution. He will remain at the school for the entirety of the 2012-2013 academic year, returning to California only on holidays.

Understandably, Allen’s mother, Carla Anderton says she already misses him terribly. Still, she is quick to point out this opportunity is the culmination of over a decade of hard work, determination and dreams.

“Allen started taking dance lessons when he was five years old and basically never looked back. He knew then, just as he knows now, that his life’s goal is to become a professional dancer. He has spent countless hours learning and practicing his craft, and attending the year round program at the Rock School is the next logical step in his artistic development,” Anderton said. “When he graduates from high school, he’ll be able to write his own ticket, career wise, not to mention he’ll likely qualify for a college scholarship so he can continue his study of dance.”

Over the years, Allen has studied ballet at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Shirley Dean’s School of Ballet and Modern Dance, Pennsylvania Southern Performing Arts Academy, the Mon Valley Performing Arts Academy and the Fayette School of Ballet, among others. He has appeared in about a dozen ballets, dancing in progressively advancing roles as his skill level increased. He has also performed in a number of musicals including repeat appearances on the stage in California University’s Steele Auditorium.

While Anderton explained Allen has reached this stage in his development on the strength of his, well, toes, she gratefully acknowledges the support he’s received over the course of his burgeoning career. 

“I can’t say enough good things about Shirley Dean as a teacher, nor can I thank Brianne Bayer Mitchell enough for generously donating her time to give Allen private lessons and to otherwise support his efforts. Kelly Jenkins of Fayette School of Ballet was instrumental in training and encouraging him early on and, finally, Dr. Michele Pagen of the Mon Valley Performing Arts Academy seemed to recognize Allen’s potential and cast him a number of roles that I believe helped him grow as a dancer and as a performer,” Anderton said.

It’s difficult to say what’s next for the young dancer but if his past efforts are any indication, he’s headed in the direction of greatness. In the meantime, his mother is busy counting down the days until Thanksgiving break when she’ll get to see him again, if only for a few days.

Was this Jack the Ripper's Knife? Well, maybe... Then again, maybe not...

Sir John Williams and his now infamous blade

As you may recollect, last week(ish), I weighed in on the subject of whether or not Jack the Ripper was a woman. Specifically, I examined the notion that “Jack” was one Lizzie Williams. Today, let’s climb into the Slightly Wayback Machine and discuss another theory: Was this Jack the Ripper’s Knife, and if so, could the hand that wielded it have belonged to Lizzie William’s husband, the surgeon Sir John Williams? Is it worth noting Sir Williams was surgeon to Queen Victoria, herself a fixture in many Ripper conspiracies? Could the autumn of fear have been precipitated by Sir Williams’ frustration with his wife’s infertility? Is there anything at all, well, suspicious about the fact that in the past year, Sir William’s great-great-great nephew has found himself linked to not one but two potential Rippers?

Writer Jesus Diaz, who penned the aforementioned, linked Gizmodo article on the subject, makes a fatal error in his opening paragraph. He suggests there were “eleven Whitechapel murders.” This sort of misinformation does little to establish credibility. Most serious Ripperologists insist Jack was only responsible for five “canonical” murders, with some believing there were six if you include Martha Tabram.  But, I digress. It is not our task to get caught up in details… or is it?

Moving on. According to this particular theory, Sir Williams’ previously mentioned nephew, Tony Williams, stumbled upon the knife and three uterine cell slides in his late relative’s possessions. The knife is believed to be a match with the description of the weapon outlined in case pathologist Dr. Thomas Bond’s postmortem reports.  Allegedly, Sir Williams was so distraught about his wife’s inability to bear children that he took to murdering random prostitutes so as to discover a cure for infertility.

Or at least that’s the story Tony Williams is trying to sell. He claims his ancestor left London after the final Ripper murder, which would of course make sense if he were in fact Jack.  But, again, as in the case against Lizzie Williams, is there any evidence?

Owning a knife similar to that which was believed to have been used in the murders (as documented by Dr. Bond) is quite damning, assuming there was only knife of its kind ever produced. Post Industrial Revolution, however, we know weapons were mass produced like any other commodity. We also know that owning a weapon isn’t necessarily proof that the owner personally used it in the commission of crimes. Owning three uterine slide cells is evidence of nothing, particularly when one is a surgeon.

The connection to Queen Victoria is worth remarking on. In last week’s post, I debunked the idea that the Queen’s physician, Dr. Gull, would have had the physical strength to carry out these crimes, whether he was part of a far-reaching Masonic conspiracy or simply liked hacking up hookers for kicks. So, with Sir Williams, we have a loose thread tying him to another potential conspiracy. Unfortunately, it’s a conspiracy that’s been more or less dismissed by serious scholars of the case.

Sir Williams’ so-called motive is rather dicey as well. Certainly, there have been no shortage of men throughout history who’ve despaired of getting a child/heir on their lawfully wedded wives. Case in point? Paging Henry VIII, who had two wives beheaded for this “crime” (among others conjured up to assuage his conscience). But to opine a man with no other history of violence suddenly decided to start carving up perfect strangers for “research purposes” is quite ludicrous.

Speaking of motivation, we can’t fail to examine the motives of Tony Williams, who – naturally – has written a book on this subject: Uncle Jack: A Victorian Mystery. He can’t possibly be hoping to profit from “exposing” his long dead relative as a cold blooded killer, can he?

In a nutshell, just as in the case of Sir Williams’ spouse, there are simply no facts to establish this theory as remotely credible.

Was Jack the Ripper a Woman? Deconstructing this Latest Myth

Lizzie Williams

A couple of months back, several of you sent me links to an article featured in the UK version of The Huffington Post announcing a new addition to the Ripper canon, another “non-fiction” tome purporting to reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper. This particular book – Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman – alleges the infamous and elusive killer may have been a woman. It isn’t a new idea, it’s certainly been floated before, but as an amateur Ripperologist, I felt compelled to address the specific claims made by both the book’s author – one John Morris – and the blog post’s author, Sara C. Nelson.

Ms. Nelson’s words/text are in bold, my responses are not. You can find her original post here.

“They’re among the most famous unsolved murders in history, and the mystery continues to deepen.”

No, it does not. The mystery is no more or less mysterious than it was in 1888. The mystery, which in the case of Jack the Ripper is “whodunit” to at least five prostitutes from the East End of London, remains the same: Who killed these women and why?

“Suspects for the shadowy figure who came to be known as Jack The Ripper have ranged from an itinerant Polish labourer to the eminent Victorian doctor Sir William Gull, and even the painter Walter Sickert.”

Allow me to weigh in on two of these. Sir Gull, a Victorian era physician, was SEVENTY-TWO YEARS OLD when these violent crimes were committed. I’m not saying 72-year-olds can’t be evil. I am saying a 72-year-old man, particularly one living in the late 1800s, wouldn’t have been physically capable of carrying out these murders.

As for Walter Sickert, famously fingered by the writer Patricia Cornwell, there is no evidence of any kind to support her claims. Still, it makes for a nice story and there may be a small nugget of truth to the idea that Walter Sickert might have known one of the victims. Serious Ripperologists Andy and Sue Parlour put forth the notion in The Jack the Ripper Whitechapel Murders that Mary Kelly may have accompanied Walter Sickert on a trip to Paris before she met her untimely demise. Hmmm… he was an artist, she was a prostitute, perhaps she WAS an artist’s model. Let’s take it a step further and imagine he fell for her like Professor Henry Higgins fell for Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. Now THAT is a good story. I can’t believe no one’s written it down. Wait… I did, and it’s due out soon from New Libri Press. I’ll keep everyone posted. But, back to Jack and the fact that there is no concrete proof of the allegation that the Ripper murders were carried out by either Sir Gull or Walter Sickert.

“But another theory has emerged – that is the chilling suspicion the person who carried out the 1888 murders was actually a woman.

Author John Morris puts forward his suspicions in the book Jack The Ripper: The Hand Of A Woman. ”

One wonders how the murderer’s sex influences whether or not the suspicion is “chilling” but that’s merely a quibble. So, let’s keep an open mind and see what evidence author John Morris found to support his now “chilling suspicion.”

“As a result of extensive research by Morris (and his late father, who was equally fascinated by the riddle) he believes the only satisfactory conclusion is that Jack was, in reality, a woman.”

So far, all we’ve established is Morris isn’t the only fruitcake in his genetic larder. But I’m still listening.

“In a well-argued case, Morris names the key suspect as Lizzie Williams, wife of Royal gynecologist Sir John Williams - later considered a suspect himself. Trapped in an unhappy and childless marriage, Lizzie’s only route of escape was cut off when her family fortune was lost.

Dependent on her husband for wealth, reputation and security, Morris argues that Lizzie would have done anything to defend her marriage.”

Wow, the leap from defending your marriage to viciously dissecting prostitutes who may have posed some general, unspecified threat to it is practically boundless. And the tale of hapless females forced into marriage after losing their family fortunes is one I’ve certainly seen before. Victoria Holt built a career on this theme.

“The story of Morris’s research includes many twists and turns as he examines the principle players, the killer’s motivation, and modern day cases that bear some similarity to the Ripper murders.”

I’m really unclear how examining modern day cases for similarities to the Ripper murders is remotely productive. A modern day killer did not commit the Ripper murders, and whoever he/she/it was, wouldn’t be alive to commit modern day crimes. Seems like spinning your wheels, no?

“The Ripper victims were all prostitutes, murdered and mutilated in the foggy alleyways of Whitechapel. By the surgical nature of the wounds, the killer was assumed to have some surgical knowledge.”

Here we have one of the great fallacies of Ripperology, that the killer possessed anatomical knowledge. Again, there is no proof of this and all claims to the contrary are pure speculation. When you have a sharp blade and the intent to kill someone, you don’t need a medical degree. You just need either the element of surprise or good aim.

“Morris's theory is supported by the findings of an Austrian scientist who in 2006 used swabs from letters supposedly sent to police by the Ripper to build a partial DNA profile of the killer.”

Fantastic. Another crackpot theory based on “findings” from letters which – and here’s where the author of this post gets it right – were “supposedly sent to the police by the Ripper.” It has a good beat and you might even be inclined to dance to it, but again we must return to our own now familiar tune: there is no concrete evidence of any kind that proves these letters were penned by “Jack the Ripper” or any other of his infamous monikers. In fact, there’s no real basis for the very existence of Jack the Ripper, but that’s a different song I’ll save for another set.

“The results suggested that the person who murdered and mutilated at least five women from 1888 onwards may have been a woman.

Ian Findlay, a professor of molecular and forensic diagnostics, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he had developed a profiling technique that could extract DNA from a single cell or strand of hair up to 160 years old. Conventional DNA sampling methods require at least 200 cells.

Dr Findlay, who is based in Brisbane, travelled to London, where the evidence from the still-unsolved murders is stored at the National Archive.

The material, which was kept by Scotland Yard until 1961, includes letters sent to police at the time, some of them signed "Jack the Ripper". Most are believed to be fakes, but a handful are thought to have been written by the killer.

Dr Findlay took swabs from the back of stamps and from the gum used to seal envelopes, and possible bloodstains. He took his haul back to Brisbane, where - concentrating on swabs from the so-called "Openshaw letter", the one believed most likely to be genuine - he extracted the DNA and then amplified the information to create a profile.”

I don’t even know where to start with deconstructing this. Wasn’t this more or less the plot of Jurassic Park?

“The results were "inconclusive" and not forensically reliable, but he did construct a partial profile and based on this analysis, he said, "it's possible the Ripper could be female".”

Yes, Mr. Morris, it is “possible” but – wait for it – is there any evidence to support this? No? Well, there it is.

“Last year a retired British murder squad detective put together what he claims is an image of Jack The Ripper.”

Last week I saw the face of Mary Magdalene on a slice of tomato, but you won’t catch me writing a book about it.

“Trevor Marriott created an e-fit of the man he believes was the responsible for the Ripper murders, a German merchant named Carl Feigenbaum, for a BBC television program.

Feigenbaum was a suspect at the time of the murders, and reportedly told his lawyer that he had a desire to kill and mutilate every woman who falls in my way." He was later convicted of killing his landlady in Manhattan, and died in the electric chair in New York's Sing Sing prison.

No photographs of Feigenbaum exist, so the e-fit (an electronic artist's impression) was based on eyewitness descriptions.”
 

Right, because eyewitness descriptions from the late 19^th century were notoriously accurate, especially when you added alcohol to the mix.

“There are hundreds of suspects who have been investigated by sleuths through the years, but no-one has ever been able to conclusively prove the killer's identity.”

In my opinion, the Ripper crimes will never be solved. However, the legend of Jack will endure and, as I opined earlier, it’s a good story with no end of potential twists. Mr. Morris has and will continue to sell books, shoddy premise aside. As a fellow author, my hat is off to him. As a Ripperologist, my concern is not whether he can spin a fine tale, it’s that he’s calling a work of fiction factual which muddies the already murky waters of investigating these crimes.

Just my two cents. As for my own very fictional take on our boy Jack, stay tuned for further updates on the release date.  

"Our Continued Fascination with Jack the Ripper" - Originally presented at Drexel University on October 29, 2011

The year is 1888, the place London, England. The last halcyon days of summer draw to a close. Victoria is queen, with thirteen years left in her 63-year long reign, her consort Albert long dead. The gulf between the haves and the have nots – much like today – is expansive. It’s yet another example of the 99% versus the 1%, if you will. While there are those who exist in luxury, there are even more living lives of quiet desperation, doing whatever it takes to secure their next meal and to ensure they have lodgings for the night.

Still, regardless of class, the people of London have no idea what awaits them in the Autumn of Fear, and of the terror that will unite them in spite of their vast differences.

A nameless, faceless killer begins stalking the streets of the Whitechapel section of London, preying on the area’s most downtrodden residents: the poor, “Unfortunate” women who sell their sexual favors on the mean, cruel, unforgiving streets. From seemingly out of obscurity, he emerges and begins killing the prostitutes who ply their trade in the East End.

Before his fiendish work is done, the murderer dubbed “Jack the Ripper” will claim the lives of at least five women, the generally accepted “canonical’ victims. Though it’s questionable just how many women Jack killed, today I’d like to focus on those five.

Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols is first to meet her end at the hands of the “Ripper”. On August 31, she is discovered with her throat severely cut and multiple stab wounds to her abdomen in Buck’s Row.

Eight days later, Annie Chapman becomes the Ripper’s second victim. She is found around 6 a.m. by John Davis with her throat viciously slashed open, her intestines resting on her shoulder and her uterus missing.

The Ripper’s next victim, Elizabeth “Long Liz” Stride, suffers only the indignity of having her throat cut but she is no less dead. It is thought Jack was interrupted before he had a chance to mutilate her body like her predecessor Annie Chapman.

This theory gains credibility when the body of Catherine Eddowes is discovered roughly an hour later. Eddowes is the first of the victims with extensive facial mutilations. In the words of an old English proverb, Jack “cut off her nose to spite her face.”

Mary Kelly is murdered in her own bed on November 9, murdered most foul, virtually dissected in what should have been the safety of her own lodgings. It would take less time to mention what about her was intact than what wasn’t. The Ripper took his time with her, took the time he wasn’t able to take with the others. The end result is the stuff of nightmares. Gruesome as it is, her death perhaps marks the end of the terror. Or does it?

There are many suspects, and multiple theories as to why the crimes were committed, but despite the efforts of the police, the killer is never apprehended.

The legend of Jack the Ripper endures. Why, you might ask? Circumstances then and now contributed to the public fascination with the Ripper.

Today, I’d like to talk specifically about that fascination, and why it’s stood the test of time.

Many decades before Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony, Jack the Ripper quickly becomes a media sensation, a century before the advent of Court TV. This begs the question: What medium is responsible for spreading the word?

The answer can be found in the answer to a simple riddle: What’s black and white and read all over?

Newspapers. Newspapers, the medium that led to the coinage of the phrase “If it bleeds it leads.” And, in the case of Jack the Ripper, there was no shortage of blood. I’ll refrain from passing judgment on the ethics of the industry as a whole, but there’s no question the Jack the Ripper murders were a veritable goldmine for the press, particularly after they began publishing the letters allegedly written by the killer. Of course, they weren’t the only industry to profit from the crimes, nor would they be the last.

Thus, the legend is born. Further, an enduring record is left in the form of “letters” and newspaper articles, cementing the myth of Jack the Ripper.

Fast forward to the present day, when our continued fascination with the Ripper has become a science of sorts, Ripperology.

For the laymen among us, according to the Urban Dictionary, “Ripperology is defined as being the study of the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper. Though the term has not made its way into the mainstream, those who study the case, or are simply enthusiasts are referred to as 'Ripperologists'. This does not simply refer to finding out who the killer was, but who all of the victims were, along with various "evidence" such as the highly debated credibility of the Ripper letters.”

The popularity and even the existence of Ripperology can be explained by a host of factors.

There’s the obvious. We don’t know who Jack was and as much as we might not want to admit it, we likely never will.

Having said that, why do we keep banging our heads against this impenetrable wall? Why keep puzzling over this elusive enigma?

There’s a simple answer. Speaking personally, as a writer and reader of fiction, it’s a good story, with compelling elements like graphic violence, sex and romance and celebrity.

Anyone who doubts we as a society glorify violence clearly has never borne witness to an execution or a dramatization of the same. Though in the present day it’s a mostly sanitary affair, executions in the past were gory spectacles that drew large audiences. Audiences that included men, women and children. The Ripper murders were no less a spectacle, and discounting the death of Liz Stride, the graphic violence he (or she) visited upon the victims escalated with each new murder. Jack was the ultimate performance artist, always raising the bar and tragically enough, his work made people sit up and take notice. It made the general public take stock of their own mortality. It was common enough to die from disease or malnutrition or from overindulging in alcohol or drugs, and now people – particularly women and specifically women - had to contend with the notion that they could be the next to meet a violent, random, horrific end.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Ripper is an indisputably a romantic figure, whether it plagues our conscience to admit as much or not. He’s the ultimate tall, dark, possibly handsome stranger. And the crimes are often used as a backdrop for love stories. In recent history, for example, the 2001 film From Hell, starring the swoon worthy Johnny Depp and the drop dead gorgeous Heather Graham, suggests a romance existed between Inspector Frederick Abberline and Mary Jane Kelly. While that seems laughable in view of all the facts serious and even amateur Ripperologists know to be true, the storyline of From Hell resonated with audiences.

I have my own theory on why we romanticize the Ripper murders, particularly in regard to the violent death of Mary Kelly, and why stories like From Hell, where (spoiler alert) she actually escapes her terrible fate: the details are just too horrible for us to most of us to accept. It seems so random, and yet so very personal. Just as we’ll probably never know the identity of the Ripper, we’ll also never know whether there was a connection between killer and victim.

Romantic love aside, the very nature of the Ripper murders was highly sexual. Though it’s true nearly all reports reference “no evidence of connexion”, the Ripper still doubtless violated the “personal space” of all his victims. Among the accepted canonical victims, only Liz Stride was spared the indignity of the killer attempting to remove and/or removing sex organs.

Harkening back to Mary Kelly, not only were the aforementioned so-called organs of generation horribly mutilated, but the Ripper also took her heart as a souvenir. Dr. Bond’s postmortem reports concludes with that chilling phrase “the heart absent” (which in the interest of full disclosure is the name of the novel I just wrapped up.) Still, this phrase conjures up not only the image of the absence of Kelly’s heart but also the apparent lack of heart the killer possessed to commit such atrocities in seeming cold blood.

Jack the Ripper was a celebrity in his own right, but there are also many celebrities among the ever widening pool of suspects, including a royal prince, a famous artist and a beloved children’s artist.

The Royal Conspiracy. One only has to look back to the recent royal wedding to know that the Royals – now as in then – are a hot topic in the press and in the public imagination. Take a dull witted prince looking for love in all the wrong places, add a dash of Masonic conspiracy and you’ve got a story that’s guaranteed to enthrall audiences.

Even Lewis Carroll, author of the children’s classic Alice in Wonderland and Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass – has been suggested as a Ripper suspect, though there’s no real evidence of any kind to support this rather farcical theory.

Ripperology has spawned a cottage industry of sorts. Case in point? Just look around you. We gather together because of our commonalities, because of our mutual and continued fascination with Jack the Ripper, and also because in many instances we stand to profit from exploring these crimes. And, I think if our motives are pure, if we approach the study of the Ripper’s handiwork with the overall goal of finding him out and holding him (or her) to account, it’s a noble venture, whatever we stand to gain from it.

Outside of this room, and out of the realm of those who “study” the Ripper, there are also those who’ve built commercial enterprises on the back of this mysterious figure. I can’t speak to their motives, but their success is quite evident.

Even a cursory search of the Internet reveals dozens of tour companies offering “Jack the Ripper Walking Tours” including the one run by London Walks with often times guide and noted Ripperologist Donald Rumbelow.

There are books, movies, even video games about the Ripper crimes.

Finally, why do we study these hideous crimes? We do so to honor the memory of the women who perished at the hands of Jack the Ripper, if for no other reason than so that their lives were not given in vain. These “Unfortunate” women weren’t just Ripper victims, they were wives, girlfriends, mothers, sisters and friends. These women weren’t just Ripper victims, they were victims of their own respective circumstances and of the times they lived in. They deserve to be remembered in life as in death. While justice may never be served and their murderer may never be taken to account for his horrible deeds, as long as we don’t give up the search for the Ripper, I think they’ll continue to rest easy in their graves, just as we continue to be fascinated with their killer.

To view the entire October 29, 2011 presentation at Drexel University via Microsoft Silverlight, click here. To view the individual slides from the presentation, click here. (To ensure the slides play in the proper order, please select "Play Backward on This Computer" from the Options menu on the upper right.)

The SHU WPF January 2012 Commencement Speech: "The Women of Popular Fiction"

Greetings and good afternoon. On behalf of the Writing Popular Fiction Class of January 2012, I’d like to welcome you to Seton Hill University, and to thank you for taking the time to be with us today as we prepare to respectively cross this stage and accept our degrees. I know that many of you came a long way to witness this important ceremony, to support this graduating class as we revel in this moment.

As a class, we’ve also come a long way. We’ve travelled a great distance in pursuit of this Master in Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction. I think I can safely assume I’m not alone when I say it’s been a dynamic and life changing experience.

Speaking as a woman and a mother, after you give birth they tell you your memory of labor and delivery will fade with time. I think the logic is otherwise no one would ever go through the process more than once, and we’d have a world populated by only children. I’m not sure if this is true or not, though in the interest of full disclosure I’m the parent of an only child, but I know what won’t fade: my memories of the time I’ve spent in this program, and the invaluable knowledge I’ve gained from it.

As “ones”, we entered this program, each of us at varying points in our writing careers, with varying levels of proficiency. Somewhere along the line, somebody – whether it was a parent, a teacher or a friend – told us “You ought to be a writer” and we believed their pretty words. What they didn’t tell us was it isn’t as easy as it looks at first glance. It’s all very well and good to have the desire to write, it’s another entirely to do it.

As an aside, what I’d like to tell the “ones” is this piece of advice. See the gentleman in the front row in the jeans and the zombie tee shirt? His name’s Scott Johnson. Get to know him. Take his modules, enroll in his genre readings courses and – if you’re truly fearless – request him as a mentor. Cultivate a relationship with this man, buy him a drink in the Marriott lobby. Whatever else you do, hope against hope he likes you enough to write you into one of his books. You’ll doubtless die a slow, lingering death in the pages of one of his horror novels, but it’s NOTHING compared to the torment you’ll suffer at the hands of Dr. Arnzen in the purgatory that is his Teaching of Writing course. Talk about medieval torture.

Moving on. By the time we arrived at our second residency, we’d accepted a vital fact of life. If we wanted this degree we’re about to receive, we were going to have to write a full length novel. And while it seemed like no less a daunting process than it did when we were “ones”, we’d begun assembling the tools we’d need. We’d learned from our mentors, from our fellow students, and from our own experiences about the importance of time management, of making time to write regularly. We’d started drafting outlines and penning synopses. We’d created and fleshed out character descriptions.

As “threes” we’d been at this process of writing and editing long enough that we’d begun feeling a little superior. After all we’d discovered the secret only “pros” knew, that a plus b equals c or – as it pertains to writers – rear plus chair plus fingers on keyboard equals page count. We knew that no one was going to publish the book we didn’t write. By that point, we’d all made adjustments and in some cases terrific sacrifices to ensure the sanctity of our creative time and space. We’d stressed the importance of the same to our friends and lovers, our spouses and children. We’d all had “that conversation”. You know the one, when we strongly cautioned them not to bother us when we were immersed in our fictional worlds. We warned them not to interrupt us when we were spending time with the characters we’d created and grown to love, lest they too ended up with an ice pick in their skull. (Maybe that was just me?) Finally, our loved ones had learned this business of writing was just that, it was a business. It was our life’s work, an overwhelming, all consuming passion that was to be valued and respected.

As “fours”, we felt like full-fledged club initiates, made men and women who’d paid our dues and earned our stripes. See how I just mixed up my metaphors there, not to mention resorted to cliché? Yeah, don’t do that. That’s in the manual right after Tim Esaias’s oft repeated gem: “Never use the word ‘grimace’ unless one is referring to a gargoyle. And Tim thought all I got out of his modules was malted milk balls! (I’ll miss the malteds, as I’m certain my fellow graduates will as well, but I’ll always treasure the sentiment behind their distribution: If you want people to pay attention? Make them an offer they can’t refuse. See, I just did it again!) But seriously folks, all kidding aside, by our fourth residency we’d learned much about our writing and how to improve it. We now felt qualified to judge the work of others, to advise our fellow wordsmiths. We’d heard the phrase “show, don’t tell” so often we thought we’d punch the next person who said it square in the kisser. Still, having said that, that doesn’t make it less true!

But, by the end of the day we stood as equals. We’ve all accomplished what so many people spend the whole of their lives striving to achieve: We’ve written a book, and whether it was our first book or our 40th, we set a goal – to write 60, 80, even 100 thousand words – and we did it. We overcame self doubt and told self loathing to take a hike. Mostly importantly, as one of my personal heroes writer and blogger Chuck Wendig would say? We made the words.

Fellow graduates? Give yourself a round of applause. You’ve done a remarkable thing. You’ve shifted from the camp of people who say “I’d like to write a book someday” or “I’ve got a great idea for a novel” to the community of writers who’ve penned that most eloquent of phrases: “The End.”

Yet even in our similarities there are differences, just as there are distinctions among all the writers here today. Gathered together today, part of this very special program, are romance authors, mystery writers, science fiction and fantasy writers, horror novelists, even chroniclers of historical “fiction”.

There are differences not just in what we write, but in why we write, even in how we write.

Some writers are organizational wizards, able to plot out to the most minute detail the story they plan to tell, to pinpoint precisely when they’ll tell it, even who they think might publish it and what type of reader will be interested in it. Other writers, myself included? Not so much. While I envy those of my fellow writers their ability to create according to a schedule, and I certainly admire their work ethic and their convictions, I’m one of those writers who writes in bursts like I’ve got a gun to my head, like if I don’t write X amount of words by X time, the earth will cease to rotate around the sun. What drives me, what compels me to put my derriere in the chair and produce, is PRESSURE. And I think this is true of many, many writers.

While one method may seem preferable to the other, and I’ll let you all be the judge of which is which, the most effective method for completing a novel is the one that works for the individual writer.

Aside from the differences which set one writer apart from another, our class of wordsmiths is unique in that we are all female. While that’s not unusual for the graduating class of what began as an all girls college, it is no less an honor to say I’m part of this distinctive group.

My fellow graduates are an eclectic bunch. We can count among our number a wide gamut of talents. We’ve got writers of fiction and non-fiction, editors, a veteran and best-selling romance novelist, a life coach, an expert on international terrorism, a nuclear physicist and couple of teachers. And then there’s me, the authority on dead hookers. We are the newest members of an unofficial society. We are the women of popular fiction.

Popular fiction or rather the writing of it has always been a fairly inclusive field. Still, it’s traditionally been a male dominated profession. Even today, only five of the top 20 selling novelists of all time are women, though it’s notable that the books penned by Agatha Christie, who is third on this list, have been outsold only by the Holy Bible and the collective works of William Shakespeare. Not too shabby for Ms. Christie or the so-called fairer sex.

In recent years, more and more women are successfully writing and publishing, and not necessarily in the genres you might expect. Genres that were once the literary equivalent of the Old Boys Network are evolving and expanding to include more female authors. Notably, the science fiction and fantasy sections of the local bookstores are home to a plethora of titles written by women. The same is true of the shelves populated by horror novels.

A professor, mentor and friend I had during my undergraduate studies had a saying he often repeated that I’m in total agreement with: “Good writers borrow. Great writers steal.” He trumpeted this advice so frequently it’s permanently lodged in my psyche, and I think it’s particularly apt of the women of popular fiction.

That’s right ladies, we steal. Not only do we pilfer from our literary predecessors, we pillage our personal lives for stories worth telling. We steal hours away from our children to give birth to our novels. Our affection for our spouses and significant others is oft displaced – nay, eclipsed! – by our passion for our characters. We form relationships with people for no other reason than to strip mine their very existences for literary gold.

But it’s not just us gals in the den of thieves the greatest writers of our generation have called home. Nor does our gender preclude us from borrowing from our male counterparts, or keep our brother writers from emulating our individual voices and the voices of our sister writers.

And there’s no shame in borrowing first before you buy or, in this case, steal. What else do we do each month in this program, when we ask our critique partners and mentors for their objective response to our work, but borrow? We borrow their knowledge of the mechanics of our language. If writing is the process of finding verbs, and I believe that it is, then editing is discerning whether we’ve used the right verb with the right noun, followed up by the proper object, modified by the best adjective. We lean on them for the expertise they can provide. We ask for their insight as to whether our stories – though fictional – ring true.

Because – whatever your politics, it seems appropriate in a speech related to women to quote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – it really does take a village to write and sell a novel. Particularly a first novel, which is what many of us graduating today have written. It takes the guidance of the early reader to help us focus our story and find our voice. It takes the honesty we come to demand of our mentors and critique partners. It takes the wisdom of the writing instructor to encourage us to craft prose that is clear and concise, to phrase our words so our readers will understand and appreciate them, even be inspired by them.

Finally, the process of writing and publishing a novel takes readers, for without them our words lack meaning. And, well, I don’t know about any of you, but I didn’t just spend two plus years writing a book for it never to see the light of day.

And for that reason, I am so glad to be part of this village, this community of writers, for I know as I move forward with my professional career, I am far from alone.

I am also so proud to be one of the women of this graduating class. Each of us is dear to someone, perhaps even to someone in this very auditorium. We are wives, we are sisters, we are girlfriends, we are mothers. We are also dear to each other. We met as strangers at our first or second residency and forged bonds of friendship. We promised to support each other on this journey, even when we weren’t entirely sure where we were going ourselves. When it was called for, in workshops or as critique partners, we lent each an objective eye or an encouraging word. In the online classes, we learned from each other as surely as we learned from our teachers. Outside of the program, we traded Facebook posts and responded to each other’s Tweets. We shared writing tips, passed along news about conferences and contests, asked for insights on agents and publisher. Finally, we formed friendships I feel confident will stand the test of time.

Apart from each other, we relied on other women in this program, on the women of popular fiction who came before us. We looked to teachers like Dr. Lee McClain and Dr. Nicole Peeler for their guidance and considered them examples to emulate. We patterned ourselves after mentors like Anne Harris, Barbara Miller, Lucy Snyder. When they pointed out the flaws in our work and suggested changes, we listened to them and, in the process, we became better writers ourselves. And, of course I would be remiss if I didn’t pay tribute to the woman of popular fiction we’ve ALL come to love, lean on, and even at times to frustrate and outright harass, Wendy Lynn.

In closing, I’d like to address those we’re leaving behind, those of you who will someday cross this stage as we’re about to. Learn from the matriarchs of popular fiction, those I’ve had the privilege of mentioning and those I have not. Respect those who’ve given birth to this notion of genre fiction, to those who’ve nurtured fellow writers just as surely as they would their own children. Take heed of their knowledge and treasure their wisdom. They did not come by it easily, and it’s a great gift they’re giving you. Appreciate it. When they tell you that, as a writer, you must learn to crawl before you can walk, know this: Some day in the not too distant future, they’ll cheer you on as you run and, above all, they’ll always believe in your ability to fly.

Thank you.