A bookmark on creativity

Local authors pen tales of art, space and more

Tales of space stations, historical accounts of slave ships and famous artists were woven out of the living room of a trailer on West White Street, as the Oasis Writers Guild met Nov. 6 for one of its twice-monthly meetings.

The time flew by as writers read off their 500- to 2,000-word short stories on a topic of the week, drawn out of a coffee can the week before. The topic this week was two cops paired as partners by their captain, who learn about each other's past. The subject for the next meeting -- a military veteran, late in life, finds out he fathered a child in Great Britain during the war.

"The fun thing with the coffee can stories is it gives everybody a chance to write something on the same theme," Oasis Writers Guild member Bill Lopez said. "It's fun criticism. Nobody complains that it really stinks. We all try to make it better."

Authors giddishly read off their compositions like schoolchildren. Lopez said he gets some of the ideas for the topics from reading movie plots listed in TV Guide.

"Members of our group have finished three novels. They're not available in print, but they are available on our Web site," Lopez said. "We're all working on writing, writing -- writing with plot, editing, grammar, character development. We all realize the toughest thing is getting an agent and getting your work read."

Robin Flinchum, the curator at the Shoshone, California Museum, said she's working on a book about the women of Death Valley, to coincide with an exhibit she recently opened at the museum. Gerry Ahrens held a science fiction book she printed out on computer, which begins with two members of the Space Corps Federation, who work for Sea Waves Intergalactic Research and Development (SWIRD) at Archimedes Station on the moon, talking about their homemade brew. Paschal Ryan wrote about Irishmen who were transported to America on slave ships.

Flinchum said she found out through an Internet site that November is National Writers Month. People who belong to the Web site have to write a novel every November, she said.

While some of the members may not have their works published by book companies, short stories from the Oasis Writers Guild members are published every quarter in a publication called The Pseudonym. For the $16 annual fee, writers can maintain associate memberships and still have their works published in The Pseudonym even if they move to other states, Lopez said.

The July through September 2002 edition of The Pseudonym lists stories that include "Antelope Awakening" by Joel Randall; "The Re-Birth of Justice" by James Pierson; "Walking the World in 1939" by Robin Flinchum; "The Goose Chase" by E. Kiston Southward; and "A Most Memorable Fourth" by Mae Ondracek.

The Oasis Writers Guild meets at 6:30 p.m. the first and third Wednesday of the month at the home of Edgar K. "Kit" Kitson, 700 W. White St. The phone number is 751-0305.

Brett Harriman

While most travel books like "Let's Go Europe" are useful to people traveling abroad, author Brett Harriman said his fictional account with some useful travel information, "Sydney's Bavarian Serendip," will make people want to get out of their chair in America and visit places mentioned in the book.

Harriman was in town recently, visiting his father, Sid Harriman Jr., a Pahrump resident and retired postal worker from California. Harriman doesn't have quotes from critics of prestigious publications praising his book, but one quote on the back cover mentions an anonymous person from Pahrump who remarked, "How could I go wrong? It's a book and travel guide in one." Harriman adds to the quote, "We don't know this person, but his point is valid."

The account of Sydney, a sophomore at an American college who takes a job as a chambermaid in Bavaria during a year's sabbatical, is a topic Harriman can relate to in the job he has held for the last four years.

"I'm the guy who takes our troops on tour in Southern Germany and Austria," Harriman said.

"Instead of fiction, tangible reality is a better term. You can do this," Harriman said. "Where she goes, what she does, everything is real."

Fictional accounts of Sydney's trip aren't far from reality and are interspersed with real travel tips. For example, the end of chapter three, on Sydney's trip to Salzburg, Austria, includes 30 pages of travel tips on places to see, places to eat and lodging in that famous tourist city.

Harriman said he paid tribute to the American military in his list of 24 cemeteries in Europe where American servicemen who fought in World War I and World War II are buried.

Chapter four about Sydney's first experience in a youth hostel, leads to chapter five, a visit to the hot baths at the tourist resort of Baden-Baden, Germany, where she talks to people about Elba, Italy, a favorite town of Harriman's that also gets a mention in the book.

The cover of the 324-page book shows a painting of Sydney, touting a backpack, transposed on a real picture of the Marienplatz, the central plaza of Munich, Germany, in front of the famous glockenspiel.

"It caters to the backpacker, but I've got travel tips for the normal driver," Harriman said. While older folks would want to read it, too, he noted, "She doesn't check in at the Hilton."

Harriman plans to update the book yearly and add other travel areas.

"This is the first in a series. So the next one will be when she moves on from Bavaria," he said.

Harriman said 3,000 copies of the book have been printed, he put one copy in the Pahrump Community Library. Harriman said he'll be approaching large book store chains like Borders or Barnes and Noble to sell it, as well as universities. He will sell copies for $15 to people who write to his Web site, www.ytcompanion.com.

Harriman expresses thanks to 14 people in the acknowledgments at the beginning of the book, some of the many people who he said edited what was his first publication. Harriman said he spent two years writing the book. The character Sydney was adapted from an Australian fictional character, Robert G. Barrett, who travels and has a good time, Harriman said.

"Sydney is a character like girls want to be, like guys want to meet," he said. "When you go through a chapter, you really want to go there. The way I see I've achieved success is when people living in these towns say, 'I didn't know that about my town.' "

Gwynne Hill

At 94, Gwynne Hill, a resident of the Bee Hive Homes, can still remember some of the Chinese words she learned while working as a nurse in China during the tumultuous period from 1935-39.

Hill's book, "A Path of Many Windings," is based on a quote by the famous Chinese philosopher Confucius: "Life leads the thoughtful man on a path of many windings. Now the course is checked, now it runs straight again. Here winged thoughts may pour freely forth in words, there the heavy burden of knowledge must be shut away in silence."

"It's mostly about my time in China. I lived four years in Chingsha with the Yale-China Association," Hill said. "The whole book is letters I wrote back to my family. They typed them up and kept them."

Hill said the book was published when she was 80. She moved to Pahrump a year ago, where her son, Tom Peticola, works on computer technology for the Nye County School District. "A Path of Many Windings" was published by QED Press in Fort Bragg, Calif., and has 253 pages.

Hill grew up in Los Angeles in the early 20th century, where she graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles. The first few chapters are about her upbringing in those memorable years in Southern California. She traveled by boat to China, leaving from San Francisco in 1935 while the Golden Gate Bridge was under construction.

Hill was the dean of the school of nursing in Changsha in central Hunan province. The letters have an aura of immediacy to them, like the description of when the Japanese were bombing her town.

"You wanted to run and get under the table. It was scary," Hill said. "The writing is direct and imminent. It's not just reminiscing. So you feel an immediacy.

"I think you get to respect that long civilization behind the current times, both in art and of course, the literature," she said.

Some interesting photographs in the book include one of a storefront sign with a funny translation from English into Chinese, "Insertion of false teeth and eyes. Latest Methodists." There are also photographs of Hill as a young nurse.

Trish Rippie, manager of the Bee Hive home, said Hill's book is read often to residents of the assisted living facility after lunch. Residents have heard the whole book.

"It was a fascinating time because we went on long hikes up mountains, holy mountains," Hill said. There are photographs in the book of one holy mountain, Tai-Shan, as well as a photo of the tomb of Confucius.

After leaving China in 1939, Hill visited a German friend in Germany just before the onset of World War II, before returning home.

Carl Beck

Carl Beck, a Pahrump resident who built an entertainment career with magic tricks and tigers, can date his interest in show business back to when he met Francis and Lottie Brunn, world famous jugglers, who visited him back in 1952 in Bakersfield, Calif.

Beck had a chance meeting with Lottie Brunn in Las Vegas just recently, 50 years later. He decided to write a book about the world's most famous woman juggler, which he hopes to have completed before an international magic convention in Reno next year.

"I was a young kid, the circus came to town. I met them, I was so inspired by the artistry. Francis and Lottie changed my life entirely," Beck said.

"I had seen jugglers and I had seen great acrobats. This guy (Francis) was so far beyond any artistry," he said. "I was totally in shock. I couldn't believe how good this guy is."

"Fifty years to the month in June I'm in a magic shop in Las Vegas and this fellow says, 'you'll never believe who I saw at the Siegfried and Roy show," Beck said. Francis Brunn was in town. "I said this is unbelievable. I have to see this guy!"

A German film crew showed up at Beck's home recently as part of a documentary on the Brunns, who were separated during World War II. Francis Brunn is now living in Berlin, putting on a show called "Incognito." Lottie is living in Las Vegas .

"I started juggling when I was 12 years old," Beck said. "My mother made me a costume just like Francis Brunn's."

Beck said he had a juggling act on ice skates, a totally original act. He said his routine will be included in a revised edition of a book on the 4,000-year history of juggling by Karl-Heinz Ziether.

When Lottie Brunn met Beck recently, Beck said she wondered whatever happened to that boy she met in Bakersfield, back when Beck's mother invited the jugglers over for dinner. Beck continued to juggle for 19 years -- he's now 65. From juggling it was an easy transition into magic, which both involved slight of hand, Beck said.

"I continued to juggle, got into all kinds of acts, eventually got into magic, came to Las Vegas and performed for 15 years as a headliner with all the major production shows," he said.

Francis and Lottie Brunn split up in the 1950s.

"Between the two of them, they had the world's greatest doubles act, but it was always billed as Francis Brunn, world's fastest juggler," Beck said.

"We have all of her scrapbooks. She has piles of scrapbooks. We put it all on CD-ROM," Beck said. "This is all Lottie's book. There's been plenty written about Francis."

Beck said he already has a friend in Pasadena, Calif., who publishes books, formerly known as Magical Publications.

During her visit to Beck's home in Pahrump, Lottie Brunn said she worked with Francis for 12 years. During World War II she emigrated to Sweden, then came to the U.S. with Ringling Brothers circus in 1948. In 1951, she met her new husband, Ted Shirrick. Lottie Brunn went on tour as a solo act in 1952 with celebrities like Spike Jones and Milton Berle, playing in the classic Las Vegas casinos like the Flamingo, the Frontier and the Sahara.

Lottie Brunn retired in 1985 and lived in New Jersey, until moving with her husband to Las Vegas last June. Asked about many of the current show productions on the Las Vegas Strip, Brunn remarked many of them are big on special effects but short on talent.

Paschal Ryan

Paschal Ryan said he has 10,000 copies of his book already sold, but he's waiting on an ISBN number. He jokingly held up a copy of a framed certificate with a $1 advance from a book publisher.

"Five weeks ago tomorrow -- they used the word 'soon' -- they will give me the page proofs to sign off on," Ryan said.

"My book concerns the Irish boys of the 17th century who were taken from Ireland for the Caribbean and a new country called America," Ryan said.

Ryan, who still sports a slight Irish brogue after emigrating from Ireland on Christmas 1958 and wears an Irish derby, said it's a little-known piece of history that more than 200,000 Irishmen sailed to America on slave ships during the reign of Oliver Cromwell.

"He came and slaughtered the parents of these children and they were taken aboard these slave ships from Africa to the New World," Ryan said.

The plot of his fictional book, "Child of Grace," centers around an Irish lad in 1690 who sailed from Antigua in the Caribbean and met a girl he searches for in the New World.

"It's a novel, but the background of it is true. In Carolina, I have created 32 plantations that are tobacco plantations as they have Irish names," Ryan said. The book was written 10 years ago, but Ryan said he received some encouragement from members of the Oasis Writers Guild to have it published.

"Child of Grace is a saying, and that's the expression I used when this guy found this girl on a slave ship. They were 11 years old. Then he spent a lifetime looking for her," Ryan said.

"Child of Grace" is 397 pages, and is scheduled to be published by a company called Publish America LLP, based in Frederick, Md., Ryan said.

Kate and Richard Mucci

Kate Mucci, co-author of "The Healing Sound of Music" with her husband, Richard Mucci, said it's flattering to see their book published in four foreign languages: German, Italian, Spanish and Indonesian.

"It's a primer on music healing and it just shows how positive and negative vibrations affect humans and everybody else," Mucci said.

The book was first published in 2000. A second run of the 160-page book was published by Sindhorn Press, after the initial 10,000 copies of the first run, Mucci said. The book includes a compact disc with healing music played by Kate, who plays the harp, and Richard, who plays guitar.

"In those foreign markets they don't tell you how many they sold. You hear about it every year when you get your royalty check," Mucci said. "Ten thousand books is a lot of books for an unknown author."

The Muccis, who used to play at the Pahrump winery before opening their store, Music Mind and Matter, have been getting some visibility through their television show on KPVM-TV, "Out There," which Mucci said is now telecast on UHF channels in Las Vegas and Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Their store includes a recliner chair with musical vibrations, Mucci said it's the only one in Nevada. Mucci said sales of the book also have been going well on the Internet, and it can be purchased in all the major book catalogs.


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