Fiction Associations

Friends,

This is a post in two-parts. The first, I was reading this article in the NY Times about possible plagiarism by Cassie Edwards, romance novelist. And there was this interesting nugget at the bottom that Ms. Edwards belongs to the Romance Writers of America. Yes, romance writers have a gild, a union, a mafia, or at least some kind of organizational framework. Here is the link to the RWA (it looks quite snazzy). And that got me thinking about other genres of the written word, and some of them also have organizations: Mystery; Sci-Fi & Fantasy; Erotica; Westerns (this website isn't working properly so here's a link to the award this organization puts out: Spur Awards); ChickLit (in association with the RWA); Thrillers; Dog Writing; Bowling Writers (this is for bowling journalists); Children's Books; Poetry (I think this is right, I could be wrong).

I can't seem to find one for Young Adult fiction (though I may just not be using the correct search terms), and there doesn't seem to be one for literary fiction. And if there are not organizations for literary and YA...then by god, someone needs to start them. I don't know who, and I don't know how, but I think there's a need to be plugged there, and someone needs to step up, be the Dutch boy, and put your finger in there.

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I recently received The Future Dictionary of America. It's one of those precious McSweeney's books...but I paid 9 bucks for it (and that children's short story collection) so it was a good buy. (The best part about this Future Dictionary, at least to me, is that it was written prior to the 2004 election, so there are so many statements to how the Bush adminstration ends in 2004, and so on...now, I wish it had ended then too, but it's kind of funny to see so much of it). Anyway, in that dictionary, they made reference to this term called a "Wordversary" in which you give presents to children in celebration of the day where they started reading.

I started kicking that idea around in my head, and I got to wondering about when I knew I wanted to write. Like was there one moment where I just fell head-over-heels for words, and knew that writing is something that I truly wanted. For a point of reference, for those of you have have seen that movie Wit (you should, it's amazing...but you will cry...I do, every time) the Emma Thompson character recalls the precise moment when she fell in love with words (it was the word soporific in a Beatrix Potter book).

And, I don't know if I have a definitive moment. I remember once in junior high reading Needful Things by Stephen King and thinking "I can do this." But I was writing, well trying to write, before then. So, what about you, BOMM readers? Was there a precise moment that you can recall where you fell in love with words or fiction or writing? Leave a comment and tell your story if you got one (or on your own blog, if you'd rather do it there, that's cool too).

Viva el mustache & don't forget to vote in the head shaving poll!