One of our most faithful writers for RED! the breakthrough ‘zine is our East Coast correspondent, Brenda Huff. Let’s hear it for Brenda, her husband Rick, and the family: 38 days ago, at 2:59 p.m., Brenda gave birth to a son, Samuel James Huff. Born in Boston, Samuel and family reside at Hanscom AFB; his father Rick has recently served in Iraq, stationed on a small base north of Tikrit, as the medical supply officer for the 399th Combat Support Hospital.

      I’m personally very thankful for Brenda. I realized her gift and talent for writing three years ago in a creative nonfiction writing workshop of mine she attended. She brought it. She was determined. I admired her energy and newfound desire to plunge into several nonfiction projects she intended to pursue. The workshop in some way enlightened her. I could sense her seriousness. She sent attached writings in follow-up emails. Two years ago I told her of the vision I had for RED! How I realized that it would be the culmination of my own years of writing, editing, and publishing. Brenda took it all in.

     And Brenda still brings it. I’d told her, “I’ll want you as a writer, if you can squeeze in the time.” Squeezing in time - what time? - is laughable to Brenda. She is a mother of other young children. Helping raise her family is her “time”. Imagine, too, the anxiety she was feeling when Rick was in Iraq and she was depended upon to move the family from Cincinnati to Boston last summer. Yet, she was still writing. She still published feature stories in several local publications.

     When we tapped Brenda as East Coast correspondent, we knew she would deliver unquestionably. She finished her first story for RED! (in issue #1) just before she left last summer. Her new story, which will appear in the Fall issue, is perhaps the best piece she has ever written. It’s a magnificent and expansive story on arguably the most important - and most key - individual to work with inmates in a Massachussetts prison and with formerly incarcerated individuals. It will be the lead story for issue #3. This is the range that Brenda will bring to East Coast reportage for RED!

     Right now, she’s enjoying Samuel and his brothers and sisters. She’s enjoying the fact that Rick has not yet been deployed back to Iraq. The stories he brought back, though, are likely stewing in Brenda’s imagination. She’s a writer. In fact, she wrote me a beautiful letter on several of Rick’s experiences: his proximity to seeing Iraqis constantly traveling by camel; the colorless, sandy, excruciatingly flat desert that surrounded their confines; the makeshift shack Rick lived in, with an air conditioner unit “stuck through a hole in a wall”; and the way Rick’s tongue dried out just as he stepped outside and into 120-degree heat. And she wrote, “…he asked me to send his stapler gun to reinforce his leaking roof with a tarp (during rainy season).”

     A military man in Iraq, Rick Huff perservered. He saw enough.  As I read Brenda’s letter, I could imagine M.A.S.H.  Rick helped haul from the helicopters gurneys with patients. He saw a man on a gurney with his amputated leg next to him, and he witnessed patients dying just before they made it to the hospital. In another view, Rick is a marathon runner, a talented athlete. He got in his runs early in the morning. I can envision odd images of Rick controlling his breathing while running in the desert - that must have been something. I hope Brenda will eventually capture a few personal essays of her own, thus freezing these times in her wonderful prose.

     To newborn Samuel Huff: I’m sure your talented mother will be writing a lot about you very soon. That’s who your mother is, too: a writer.

Seventy-one days ago I lost my mentor, one of my closest friends. You could say RED! the breakthrough ‘zine exists because of the counsel I received from him over the years. His innate desire to write and publish and share words was instilled in me, as I observed all he did as an artist and teacher.

It happened on Wednesday, May 1. In the morning. I can remember his daughter’s call to me. My friend - her father -hadn’t struggled fretfully in exhaling his last breath. He seemed to simply stop. “He went quietly.” I remember his daughter Ericka sharing those last moments with me. He was 78. He was a writer, a teacher to the very end. He was still knockin’ out the words. One of the last things Ericka took home from the hospital was her father’s stenographer’s notebook. On the cover: “If found, please return to Dallas Wiebe,” address and phone number underlined. There were a few last scribbled notes in the notebook. Always the observer. Always studying the details.

That ought to tell you right there what kind of vigorous mentor I had. Fearless, too.

Dallas Wiebe, who’s largely responsible for teaching me the craft of writing and editing, was my professor in college, too. We collaborated for 29 years. When he died May 1, part of my own work, I feel, died with him. I know that’s far-fetched. I know that’s illogical. But, we’d co-edited Cincinnati Poetry Review, book anthologies, co-directed a small press book fair, co-founded a unique local writer’s group, brought into the Cincinnati area any number of high-profile writers to speak, to sign books, and to schmooze with the community. We talked to each other many times each week. 29 years. He championed my own work and never failed to remind me to use any writing skill I might have to maximum effect, no matter the task. Make sure the world sees it. Work hard at it. “You write for an audience. Don’t forget that. You write to be read,” he said. “You write to get it out there.”

The world is taking notice of RED!

I’m his literary executor; so, translated, that means I’ll have the privilege of always handling, reading, and re-absorbing his stories, poems, novels, essays, and translations. I’ll be at the epicenter of his productivity.

Dallas is arguably the most important writer of fiction in Cincinnati literary history. A good case could be made that Dallas and the novelist Thomas Berger (Little Big Man, Neighbors, The Feud, the Carlo Reinhart series) are the two best Cincinnati has produced. We’ll overlook the fact that Dallas was born and raised in Newton, Kansas, though he’d lived in Cincinnati since 1963. They are certainly two genuises whose work is original, wildly comic, and depictive of some of the boldest characters in American fiction. Make it through their books, and you can’t forget these characters: They climb around in your mind for days.

I miss Dallas. I can’t say otherwise. What is it I miss outside of the usual learning experience? I miss calling him and his calls to me. “Jeff, did you hear the story today about the ton of pumpkins that fell out of the back of a truck on I-75?” he say. “No, I missed that; haven’t watched the news.” The story would trigger a comic description from Dallas. It would spin off into more stories we needed to share.

Dallas would also tell me about some new fictional character he was creating. His last great creation was a character named Abraham Nofziger. Nofziger created sayings, quips, one-liners. Hundreds of them. Dallas created several short stories around the sayings and Abraham. These were his final stories. Dallas always got in the last word, even through the mouthpiece of a character.

I think about his advice every day. His stories. His range of reading. His encyclopedic mind. His interest in our writer friends’ lives and work. Dallas was unselfish, and he constantly wanted to other writers he knew well to thrive. In the 71 days since his death, I’ve thought about him innumerable times. He’s looking over my shoulder. He’s ready to say something. Each day my mind is shuffling those images.

You can do a google search on Dallas and find plenty. I urge you to do so. Take an hour. Print out some of the material. I wrote a lengthy Cover Story/profile on Dallas for the Sept. 23, 1999 issue of Cincinnati CityBeat (www.citybeat.com).  Dallas also knew I was doing serious work with inmates and formerly incarcerated individuals. He supported my new developments. He knew my writing would always carry me in the direction I’d planned to go. He knew my priorities. He knew that he’d taught me not to stop or kick back too nonchalantly. And he knew the work mattered to me.

Just today, his first posthumous collection of short stories arrived in the mail. A chapbook (small book) of stories, it’s entitled, Home on the Range. Paul Rossheim, publisher of Obscure Publications, has come out with several of Dallas’ chapbook stories in recent years. Paul R. is still giving Dallas’ voice the platform, and Dallas is still knockin’ around in the literary world.

I can hear Dallas now: “I may not be with you all now, but I’m still publishing.”  That’s a good one. Dallas was never not publishing. Seventy-one days ago that thought came to me. That one-liner.

Oh, that voice - this writer I was close to - is always going to be knockin’.  Don’t worry about that.

I am blessed to have my vision of RED! the breakthrough ‘zine shining here because of the work of Christine Grote, RED!’s web (and senior) editor. She is a reason you’re reading RED!

I wish you could know the work she put in to helping launch our inaugural issue. She was the total behind-the-scenes action. She worked closely in conjunction with the brilliant web guru, Joe Kruessel of U.S. Digital Partners. You can imagine the anxiety level among staff working on a first-ever issue of a major publication. But, we made it into the zone. I argue that it was Christine’s poise and determination that even offset my own anxiety.

So, yes, we got it done.

I could not go into the next blog (this week) without publicly acknowledging Christine’s work. It’s not only her editorial prowess that is remarkable, but, as a former teacher, I was able to read her own writing. Fiction, non-fiction essay, journalism. Christine is a highly gifted writer, with an especially shrewd journalistic eye.

Fortunately, RED! readers are going to read more of her journalism as the months go.

For now, you can read a superb magazine story that she recently wrote for St. Anthony Messenger magazine, the February 2008 issue.

In January, I had the pleasure of working alongside ten women inmates in an Ohio prison as, one last time, they carefully passed around, studied, discussed, and stacked the chapters and individual writing of their forthcoming book.

Wait a minute. Did you catch that?

How about that topic sentence again, revised: I had a fascinating time collaborating with ten inmates at Franklin Pre-Release Center on the final eager editing of their forthcoming book, which elaborates on how they have experienced transformation during their incarceration. Their writing cuts deep. It’s writing I would share with any of my writing students.

It may be May already, but I remember the long table around which 14 or 15 neat stacks of chapters were passed from woman to woman. Two of the 12 authors had been excused to participate in choir rehearsal. The women, grouped in pairs, identified any last-minute changes needing attention. There were moments of silence. They are serious editors. There was an occasional exclamation, “Ah, that’s an amazing story.”

In the book, the women write about forgiveness (of things weighing down the past), reconciliation, empowerment, faith, tolerance, abuse, acceptance, lost love, self-love, love for others, motherhood, sisterhood, and life-outside-in-the-past vs. life-inside-now. Their writing speculates on the positive impact they are going to make on others when they are released.

It is a seminal book. It is bold, original and unique. I’d go so far as to say that it may very well be the most important anthology ever written by women who recently were or are currently incarcerated at one prison. (A few of the writers have since been released on parole.)

Exactly when was the last time you heard of twelve inmates gathered around a table pre-occupied with ordering chapters, sifting through possible last edits, and arriving at a collegial consensus about the Table of Contents? When, exactly? I thought so.

RED! associate editor and The Psychology of Incarceration co-facilitator at FPRC, Khalil Osiris, presided over the editorial meeting.

I read most of the manuscript again that evening. I’d read many of the essays and reflections in spring, 2007, when I helped the P.O.I. teaching team assess the writing and journal entries that the first P.O.I. class at FPRC undertook.

I sat next to Dawn, reading pages she finished verifying. The choir-like depth of voices within these narratives compelled me to read them again as if they were entirely new. The honesty. The depth. The courage. The sense of story. Of how to really convey story, without the benefit of having taken a writing workshop.

The book is titled, THE TWELVE. The title refers to the authentic power behind 12 “Needs Domains” that inmates explore and grasp in the P.O.I. coursework. A person will deal intimately in writing and talking with these Needs Domains while undergoing true transformation in spite of incarceration.

Also, twelve women residents at FPRC – graduates of P.O.I. – gathered writing for and edited the volume. The anthology will be published this summer as a companion book in The Psychology of Incarceration curriculum, and as a tribute to the engaging writing that has profoundly touched other inmates and staff at FPRC and even a number of (male) inmates at Richland Correctional Institution. “Irish” Johnny Harvey, an inmate, mentor and pro-active peer leader extraordinaire at Richland has written the Introduction to the anthology. The women insisted that Irish Johnny’s brilliant words grace the beginning of their anthology. Truly, RED! Webzine hopes to feature Johnny Harvey’s essays and reflections in the near future; you’ll see one of the most gifted writers in any prison anywhere.

THE TWELVE’s publication date is soon. I will update you on the progress toward the book’s publication. Because I know the urgent writing the anthology contains, and because I know writing heals, I’m going to be one to promote it to the max.