For a recent assignment at the Golden Pen Writers Guild, I decided on something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time: write an homage to my favorite author P.G. Wodehouse in something like his style. While there’s absolutely no way I could ever even approach the work of the master, I had a lot of fun writing it and am generally quite satisfied and proud of the results.
This is the piece I submitted to the Center of the World Festival’s (Pine Mountain Club, CA) Art Speaks writing contest held Saturday, August 16th. It was “A competition for writers to bring a chosen artwork to life through stories, poems, or other writing genre.” There was a wide variety of local artists’ works to choose from in the gallery, and I selected a photograph of a derelict tractor by photographer Michael P. Frank (see image below). I had to read my piece twice on the day of the festival so the audience members could vote for their favorite.
This was the first time I ever participated in this festival—or any kind of competition with my writing for that matter—and it was a fun challenge. Though I didn’t bring home the prize, I hope you enjoy my story!
This was a homework assignment at the Golden Pen Writers Guild in 2013. We were tasked with creating some historical fiction and as I had been recently reading up on Manchukuo and the Japanese involvement in Manchuria, I chose that as my topic. Only one of the characters I used was an actual historic person (see notes at the end).
This was a lot of fun to write and an interesting challenge. Click over the jump to read more:
journey, not destination 