Playing with Words

From The Pen Woman, Fall 2022

 

By Joanne Hardy, Palm Springs Branch

The Palm Springs Branch is basking in justifiable pride over the achievements of one of its members. Author Carol Mann recently learned she was a finalist in the 2022 National Indie Excellence Awards in Fiction, short story category, for her recently published book, “Creek Songs.” However, before she could fully assimilate what that honor meant, she was informed she was also a finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards in Fiction, short story category.

Many, many kudos to this talented author.

Mann’s interest in the short story literary art form began when she listened, fascinated, to her middle school English teacher read the haunting tales of Edgar Allen Poe. When, as an adult, she decided to write a short story, Mann found fertile ground for inspiration from the people she had seen or met while accompanying her father as a youngster when he’d paid calls to clients.

Her intuition and imagination looked beyond the conversations her father had held with workers and customers into the lives of the people she’d seen. Mann envisioned them as characters in a drama, with challenges, problems, triumphs, fears, longings, and foibles. She knew she would write about real people, ordinary people just leading their lives. She describes herself as a realist.

After the first short story, she wrote another and then another, bringing to life characters inspired by the people she met. Eventually there was a large body of work.

But what to do with the stories? There was no common theme; each was a drama of a unique human life, as diverse as the rocks in the creek near her house.

During Mann’s childhood, she found Ellicott Creek a place for reflection and solace. She remembers it swollen from raging floods, placid in lazy summer, sometimes crashing against rocky impediments, but at bedrock continuing undeterred to its destination, the mighty Niagara Falls. It was a metaphor for life. The idea of “Creek Songs” was born, each story a song unto itself.

Mann says the short story is the most companionable literary art form. It allows a brief escape into another world in which you know the end before you leave.

When asked her thoughts on receiving these awards, she said, “I have to write. Recognition is nice, but writing the story is the thing. It’s not always a grand energizing discourse, but the joy lies is playing with words and seeing a story in every person I meet.”

With this philosophy, we know there will be more stories from this fine author.

We can’t wait!