Meet Jerry Finkelstein

In May 2013, I (your editor) started looking into writing group opportunities in the area and not only discovered there was one held monthly in my own library, but that many of their stories were posted on the library's website. It was important to learn what I would be up against, so I read them all before showing up in June. Most impressive was a piece called "There's No Place Like Home" - (Click this link to read it:  http://dplmondaywriters.blogspot.com/2014/11/theres-no-place-like-home.html.  Oh me, oh my -  I just HAD to meet the guy who wrote it. Long story short, over the past two plus years we've become friends. From day 1 he supported my ideas, my writing, the formation of Plotters Ink, these blogs and most of the other schemes I've concocted along the way. The only thing I've not been able to convince him to do is to provide me with a photo of him on this feature. A small price to pay....

When the previous facilitator of the Monday Night Writers Group retired, Jerry stepped up and has been leading us - with exuberant panache - ever since.  A while back Jerry suggested we write some six word stories. We crafted some interesting ones ( see them here: http://whitesboronywriters.blogspot.com/2014/06/my-life-in-six-words-our-stories.html ) and  Jerry's is a perfect lead-in for the following verbal self-portrait:

“Learned the steps…then I danced.” 

Some Things You Should Know About Me 

I’m old enough to remember the sounds of a typewriter. Index cards were the files of a library. I grew up at a time when movies just turned to talkies and Clark Gable and Jean Harlow were the cat’s meow. The books of my youth didn’t come from the children’s section, they were tough adult stuff until I found out that all my friends were reading them too. Studs Lonigan, the James T. Farrell trilogy, shook me up and not because of the dirty parts. The Steinbeck books were a big part of my life then, and then I dropped everything for Dickens. Through Dickens I discovered the American writer John Irving. Even now I read his stuff, he never fails me. I skipped Hemingway, his minimalist style bothered me. What teenager wants to be bothered?

The music of my life were the pop tunes of the day. It was the Swing Era, the songs were from the American Songbook. Some of these songs lead me to Bernstein and Blitzstein and somehow I caught on to Copland and the classics. So, I moved on. But I still can’t quit the melodies of Kurt Weill. I found out that musicians, composers, also had stories to tell, they had words put to their music.

I was fascinated, I was slowly catching up with the times. Opera! Not just Mozart. Or Puccini, Or Wagner. Or Strauss. Contemporary books and plays were put on the stage as musical dramas. Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, more, a lot more.

Plays and the musical adaptations made from them became important to me and inspired me to think of stories, of short pieces of this and that, to be sung. Life as opera. Life as a music score.

Our writing groups at the Dunham Library offer us a chance to write some of those short pieces, without the music but stories to tell nevertheless. It also helps keeping the mind active. Some reference points in my stories may be lost on some members of the writing group, they are after all old fart expressions of another time. They are also of a place that may not be familiar to them. If you don’t know the neighborhood some of my stories may come off as strange. The writing group is great with the feedback - you always know how your writing is being received. Thanks to Carol for keeping us all on the writing path.  I am grateful for her leadership and being captain (captain?) of the Blog.

Ha ha ha,  said Captain Blog...aren't you sweet, kind and nice. 

You can read more of Jerry's  original and entertaining stories at these links: Monday Writers Group- Jerry's Stories  and also Plotters Ink - Jerry's Stories.  Enjoy!