Victor Hess: Bitten by the Writing Bug

Award-winning novelist Sonja Mongar chats with Darlyn about her novel, Two Spoons of Bitter, and explains why she always travels with a harmonica in her pocket. 

Laughing comes easily for this husband and wife creative team, who founded the LOL JAX FILM FESTIVAL in 2016 and more recently took over as Jacksonville city producers for the 48 Hour Film Project. But the work they're doing is serious business. Running film festivals, while both working full-time jobs, producing a vlog, and making time to be a couple, is hard work, but they wouldn't have it any other way. Although neither is a Jacksonville native, the couple met here and became high school sweethearts. They stopped by Scribbler's Corner at River of Grass to talk about living their best lives, and share their excitement about Jacksonville's active and growing film community. 

Ben Atkinson grew up in western Pennsylvania and currently resides in Jacksonville, Fla., with his wife and two young children. A poet with a PhD in wildlife ecology and conservation, he struggled to strike a balance between his scientific research and artistic pursuits. As a young father and husband, he set aside his passion for poetry for more than a decade, under the mistaken belief that he had to choose between a career in science and one in the arts. He rediscovered his poetic voice three years ago, and after reading his debut collection, Spider Lightning, you will be glad that he did. Ben stopped by Scribbler's Corner at River of Grass to kick off our second season, share a little poetry, and talk about his evolution as a polymath. 

"I was living in Key West, and there were a lot of writers there. When I decided maybe I wanted to become a writer, I didn't know anything about writing, so I asked my neighbor, Tom (Tennessee) Williams, for his advice . . . He said, well, 'Just write.'" So begins a fascinating hour with Sharon Y. Cobb, an accomplished screenwriter, former UNF professor, and generous mentor, whose career has taken her from Jacksonville to Key West, to Hollywood, and back to Jacksonville.  After "retiring" from the advertising business to become an artist in Key West at 31, she took old Tom's advice and reinvented herself as a successful screenwriter. She is a member of the prestigious Screen Writers Guild of America - West, and an active member of JAX Film Bar Mondays, a group of more than 1,200 local filmmakers who gather weekly at various watering holes to talk shop, and make movies, and has written innumerable short feature scripts for local productions. Cobb, whose accomplishments are too numerous to mention here, stopped by Scribbler's Corner at River of Grass to talk about Jacksonville's surprisingly prolific film scene, and swap stories about her writing life, and the movie biz. 

Emily K. Michael is a blind poet, musician, and writing instructor from Jacksonville, FL. Since 2016, she has worked as the associate poetry editor for Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature. Her poetry and essays have appeared in Wordgathering, The Hopper, Artemis Journal, The South Carolina Review, The Deaf Poets Society, Nine Mile Magazine, Bridge Eight, Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog, Barriers and Belonging, and AWP Writer’s Notebook. Her first chapbook manuscript Natural Compliance won Honorable Mention in The Hopper’s 2016 Prize for Young Poets. Her first chapbook, Neoteny is available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press.

Emily’s work centers on ecology, disability, and music. She develops grammar workshops for multilingual learners and delivers poetry workshops for writers at all levels. She regularly reads at Jax By Jax, a yearly literary festival celebrating Jacksonville writers. Emily is passionate about grammar, singing, birding, and guide dogs. Find more of her work at http://emilykmichael.com.

A forbidden love affair, a suggestion of magical realism, a collective of village women lifting themselves out of poverty, and a family of Bengal tigers struggling to survive; Katy Yocom's debut novel, Three Ways to Disappear transports readers to India, where they are surrounded by the sights, the smells, the sounds, and amazing people. A lot has been written about the India of cities and slums. Yocom writes about rural India, where villagers compete with endangered tigers for food and water. Yocom stopped by Scribbler's Corner at River of Grass during the Jacksonville leg of her book tour, to talk about the growing market for environmental fiction, and how her novel was inspired by a litter of cubs at the Louisville Zoo. Katy Yocom's books are available at https://www.amazon.com/Three-Ways-Disappear-Katy-Yocom/dp/1618220837

New Orleans novelist Victor Hess has been a lot of things, but he only came to writing recently. His first novel, Jesse Sings, was a finalist in the William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing competition in 2015. It was also recognized as a finalist in the Fiction: Inspirational category of the 2018 Best Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest. His short stories received Honorable Mention in a recent Glimmer Train competition and one made the shortlist for the 2017 Faulkner competition. He is currently working on a third novel featuring Jesse Hall, the main character of his first two books. A successful business executive, he has been an Army bomb disposal Instructor, and, for decades, has taught Bible study for children and adults.  He lives in Slidell, Louisiana with his wife and dog. Vic stopped by Scribbler's Corner at River of Grass on his way home from a book signing in South Carolina to talk about the day he was bitten by the writing bug and how he has managed to lead an almost normal life despite this incurable, and devastating affliction. Victor's books are available here: https://www.amazon.com/Victor-Hess/e/B076VQHK3G%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

A coach wouldn't be much good if they always agreed with you. Lynn Skapyak Harlin has been punching writers in the face to make them better since 2001. She likes to talk about how "mean" she is, but that's not how workshop participants describe her. And that's certainly not why they keep coming back, year after year. Jacksonville's favorite literary curmudgeon, The Shantyboat Lady, ties the ghost of her dear, departed shantyboat up to the dock at River of Grass, for an hour of poetry and tough talk from a tender heart.

Sometimes it's hard to know who your friends are, even when there aren't any cultural barriers to overcome. In his work, Sohrab Homi Fracis documents his experience as an Indian immigrant adapting to American culture—the good, the bad, and the ugly—in the 1980s. Fracis, who now calls Jacksonville home, has gone on to gain recognition for his excellent work, but he walks through life with a perspective inextricably tied to his Asian roots, and the hostility of some Americans to anyone who looks or speaks differently than them.

Fracis was the first Asian author to win the Iowa Short Fiction Award, which was for his 2001 collection, Ticket to Minto: Stories of India and America. The book was also a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction. A novella Adaptation of Ticket to Minto was a finalist in Screencraft’s Cinematic Story Contest.

Fracis’s 2017 novel, Go Home, was a finalist in the International Book Awards: Multicultural Fiction category, and it brought him the South Asian Literary Association's Distinguished Achievement Award. The novel was shortlisted by Stanford University for the 2018 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. His novel excerpt, “Distant Vision,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Hope McMath grew up in Jacksonville, so being named executive director of The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens was a dream come true. Her departure, in 2016, was a gut-wrenching inflection point. Opening her own gallery took even more courage. Anyone who has never been inside Yellow House, at 577 King Street, in the CoRK Arts District, need look no further than the backyard. The psychedelic school bus with Rosa Parks at the wheel tells passersby everything that McMath's Yellow House is about. The space, which doubles as her personal studio, was created to showcase provocative work on topics including racial and gender equity, human rights and environmental sustainability—controversial subjects that were often hard for her to sell to a board of directors. The Yellow House has become a haven for local artists and artistic collaborators of all ages and media, who cite the venue's reputation as a safe and welcoming space. If that's not your jam, however,  then be advised: Hope is a weapon.