Lessons-Learned on Pitching & Producing AWP Panels

M.L. Doyle, Matthew Hefti, and Randy Brown were part of a panel titled "The Middle Americans: How Flyover Country Responds to War."
Photo by Andria Williams

I attended my first national conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs in Minneapolis, 2015. At that event—an annual gathering of 12,000 writers, editors, publishers, instructors, and academics—I was impressed with the number of offerings that focused on war themes. These included both panel discussions and author readings. While I skipped Los Angeles in 2016, I vowed that I'd help add to the war-writing conversation by proposing a few such events for the 2017 conference in Washington, D.C.

As I quipped at the end of this year's event, paraphrasing that ubiquitous quote attributed to Gandhi, "Be the proposer of panels that will contribute to the change you want to see in the world."

The 2018 event will be held in Tampa. The window for event proposals will open in mid-March, with final deadline of May 1, 2016. I thought I'd document and share a few lessons-learned, in hopes that other war-writers will add their voices to the mix.

There are many little rules to proposing an AWP event. It's a little like simultaneously filling out your tax forms, calling your friends on the telephone, and playing a tabletop war game. Thankfully, the association offers a detailed how-to manual and video. To give you a flavor, however:

• Moderators/organizers can propose up to three events. A maximum of two can be accepted.
• Prospective participants can themselves be listed on up to three event proposals, but can only be on two accepted events.
• Of multiple proposed events, only one can be a "reading."
• You have 500 characters—not words, characters—to describe your proposed event.
• You have an equal number of characters to describe the qualifications of your panelists.

Acceptance rates for AWP event proposals averaged around 39 percent for years 2013-2016. In 2017, I was fortunate to have two out of two approved. At their respective links, you can read my 500-character descriptions for "Citizen-Soldier-Poet; How to use Poetry to Bridge the Civil-Military Divide" and "The Middle Americans: How Flyover Country Responds to War." That's because the words you use in your pitches are the words that show up in the conference agenda.

Here's what worked for us, both in terms of pitching and conducting AWP panels:

1. Emphasize diversity

Find panelists who represent diversity in age, gender, color, life and work experiences, and publishing experience. Strive for balance. In the war-writing context specifically, I subscribe to the notion that every citizen has an experience with the topic of war, regardless of whether or not they've ever served in uniform. Remember: "We're all in this together" and "Everybody has their own war. " In our two sessions, then, we featured both civilians and military veterans, from a variety of branches and deployments. Some were just starting out in their publishing careers. Others had multiple published book credits. I'd like to think that, in many ways, our panels demographically reflected our audiences. And we can always do better!

2. Keep your shot-groups tight

Panel math is like beer math: Keep it simple, and know your limits. Don't show up with a list of 10 in-depth, doctoral-thesis questions. Narrow it down to two three formal questions. Make sure to share those prompts with your panelists prior to the event, so they can consider their responses without over-rehearsing. 

Assuming five panelists, if each panelist responds to a given question with a 3-minute answer, three questions will eat up 45 minutes. This will leave 20-30 minutes for questions from the audience. (Depending on venue and schedule, some audience members may have to leave earlier than the official 75-minute end-time.) People like Q&A. Most likely, the people in your audience are fellow practitioners. They want to interact with your panel. Engage them in conversation.

3. Conduct a leader's recon

As moderator/organizer, I arrived to the conference a day early, on Wed., Feb. 8, to make sure there were no unforeseen obstacles. The AWP registration staff helped me run a last-minute check on whether our panelists had properly registered for the event. I also helped coordinate one panelist's last-minute request for press credentialing on behalf of a Washington, D.C.-based media contact. 

I'd told my colleagues on our Thursday morning panel that we'd meet at the Veterans Writing Project's table (seize the key terrain!) on the Bookfair floor, and walk together to the conference room. 

One panelist, however, had spent an hour Wednesday getting eyes on the target, and determined out that our Thursday morning venue wasn't as easy to find as I'd assumed. Instead of being located in the convention center, it was one-quarter mile below ground in a hotel across the street from the main venue. His early-bird information saved us from collectively showing up late and in the wrong place. 

Also, our second panel, unlike the cozy meeting space of our first, turned out to be located in a ballroom the size of a small airplane hanger. You get the space you're randomly assigned, of course, but knowing that ahead of time would have been good information to share with my fellow panelists.

4. Look for ways to make connections & continue the conversation

With only 15 minutes between events, conference schedules often get in the way of exchanging business cards at the end of panel event. Our fix was to publish a two-sided 8.5 x 11-inch hand-out for each panel, complete with author published credits, and contact information. Listing complete biographies cuts down on spending valuable discussion time on introductions. Also, offering public-facing ways of communication (e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) gives introverts an easier way to contact authors after the conference. 

(For panelists, we also published an internal list of telephone numbers and private e-mail addresses, in case of emergencies and dinner coordinations. In fact, we treated information like we would in an infantry squad: Everybody should know the plan.) 

Following our poetry panel, one of our colleagues was immediately approached by a literary journal editor, who inquired regarding a work that had been read aloud. So, having debuted at AWP, the poem will soon see print, later in 2017! It's all about helping make connections!

We published 50 hardcopy handouts per session, assuming that number would likely exceed our maximum attendance. (We had from 35 to 50 people attend each session.) Just in case, however, we also posted a link to an electronic copy of each document at the Red Bull Rising blog. Later, we posted MP3 audio files of each session. Not production-quality, but good enough for note-taking. When the original files proved too huge for his iPod, a blog reader helped us out by compressing those files for easier portability.

So, to recap, here are some takeaways and recommendations for future panel events:

• Promote diversity in panel composition
• Plan for 3 to 4 formal questions, tops
• Arrive early; get eyes on your venues
• Offer handouts with author contact info
• Post audio recordings (But try to keep file-sizes small!)

I'm not the only one musing and reflecting on their AWP17 experiences, of course. Check out what these other war writers have been are saying about their experiences:

• David Abrams, author of "Fobbit" and the forthcoming "Brave Deeds," in his "Quivering Pen" e-newsletter here.

• Eric "Shmo" Chandler, at the "Shmotown" blog: "Guts, Generosity, and Gratitude: AWP17 Highlights"

• Matthew Komatsu: "Hugging It Out at #AWP17"

• Peter Molin, at the "Time Now" blog: "The Watched Pot Begins to Boil: War Writing at AWP17"

• Andria Williams, author of "The Longest Night"; editor of "The Military-Spouse Book Review" blog; and Official Photographer of the War Writers Social Club, offers some words here.

Re-run: 25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas

Blog editor's note: This post originally appeared on the Red Bull Rising blog Dec. 25, 2014.

Earlier this month, I started a daily exercise using the following phrase as a writing prompt: "Day X of 25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." My intent was to generate (mostly) new material, inspired by actual holiday happenings around the Sherpa family FOBstead. It was like writing tactical fortune cookies while channeling my inner Martha Stewart.

Listed below are collected all of the "25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." (Thanks to the Facebook friends of Charlie Sherpa, who inadvertently served as a daily writers' workshop!) For fun, I've hyperlinked to some definitions and explanations. Best wishes to all for a safe and rewarding holiday!

1. "This is our Christmas tree. There are many like it, but this one is ours."

2. Poncho liner makes surprisingly effective field-expedient tree skirt.

3. Three cups of Peppermint chai before one talks of holiday business.

4. First test of homemade MICLIC rocket for deploying holiday lights across perimeter of FOB Sherpa. Essayons!

5. Tinsel works as a festive and fabulous ghillie suit. Chaffs a bit, though.

6. Lutefisk is the MRE omelet of the holiday-food world.

7. Ask your chaplain if she'll accommodate Saturnalia services on the 17th. 'Tis the season!

8. Lesson-learned: Infrared twinkle lights require night-vision egg-noggles.

9. "Over the river and through the woods" should not require a formal convoy clearance. An extraction plan, however, is recommended.

10. In the mailbox today: "Season's greetings from the IO section."

11. Glitter is a persistent agent. Deploy it wisely.

12. Tactical Advent wreath? Use IR chemlights as candles.

13. Mistletoe can also be ordered in bulk as a Class IV barrier material.

14. "We're dreaming of a Red Bull Christmas."

15. Sherpa kids initially not interested in crafting pine-cone birdfeeders using peanut butter and suet this past weekend. Told them we were making festive sticky bombs instead.

16. You know something? Engineer tape makes for some darned fancy ribbon!

17. "Treat Christmas like a Key Leader Engagement."

18. Santa's challenge coin is the one that rules them all.

19. Psyop section always has the best holiday music playlist. And they'll DJ.

20. Just like ACU trousers, Christmas stockings can be used as floatation devices in the unlikely event of a water landing. "Knowing is half the battle."

21. Notes and maps left for Santa should be red-light readable. Santa is tactical. And an aviator.

22. Roasting chestnuts by an open MRE heater is ... not recommended.

23. Trail camera mounted on Christmas tree. RC drones on stand-by. Sherpa kids have put Santa on the HVT list this year. Then again, like they say, "the jolly old elf also gets a vote."

24. Airborne Santa says: "Geroni-mo-ho-ho!"

25. Message of the day: "Peace on earth! Goodwill toward all personnel!"

Update: Soldier Sets New Sights on Seven Years' War

Jason Huffman with "1750: Britain vs. France" at GenCon 2014. PHOTO: Battle Hardened Games, Inc.

Editor's note: This post is an update to a Red Bull Rising post that ran Aug. 28, 2014. While the effort to meet that earlier, $28,000 goal proved unsuccessful, the game designers have recently launched a smarter, leaner attempt at funding the project. With more than 25 days to go, they seem well on their way to making their $12,000 objective.

Like many soldiers, Iowa Army National Guard member Jason Huffman loves history, loves games and simulations, and loves learning about history through gaming. After months of game design, play-testing, and even demonstrating at the 2014 GenCon gaming convention in Indianapolis, he and his colleagues at Battle Hardened Games have launched a crowd-funding effort to bring their inaugural game "1750: Britain vs. France" to full production.

Sample graphics from the game "1750: Britain vs. France"

The game "1750" is a 2-player card-based strategy contest, using both dice and cards to fight for control of the board. One player plays as Britain and the other as France, and each seeks to dominate the globe. Players leverage historical events, land and sea forces, generals and admirals, supplies, and allies to control the North American, African, and Indian colonies in the years leading up the American Revolution. The graphics incorporate the paintings, maps, and other artwork of the day.

A Kickstarter page for the project is here. A video is here, as well as below. A Facebook page for Battle Hardened Games is here. Huffman started his game company in 2013, and is trying to raise $12,000 by Wed., Nov. 9, 2016.

"My top priority is to deliver games that you'll enjoy playing, whether you are a history fan or not," he writes on his website. "But I do hope that you will learn a little bit about history when playing our games. I also hope that some educators will consider using our games as a framework for discussing history, particularly the leaders, battles, economics, and geography involved."

In 2007-2008, Huffman spent a year deployed to Western Afghanistan as part of an Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.). There, he saw the echoes of empires first-hand. (Also, be sure to ask him about the Taliban chicken.) In his first game design, however, he chose to focus on the 18th century struggle between imperial powers Britain and France—the "Seven Year's War." (In the theater that was to become the United States, the conflict is better known as the "French and Indian War.")

For Huffman, the historical milieu provides an opportunity to explore lessons on scales ranging from the global, to the individual. He writes:

Many British officers that would later play major roles in the American Revolution also fought in the Seven Year's War, with some of the younger officers in the American Revolution going on to fight in other British conflicts of the late 1700s.

There are a few British generals that I find particularly interesting in terms of their legacies from this era. They fought in multiple wars and had very different results in each of them. Growing up in an American school system, our history books didn't really address parts of their careers that didn't deal with American history. Basically they get mentioned within the context of the American Revolution and that’s it.

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, circa 1796

Take, for example, Charles Cornwalis. Huffman writes on his website:

Basically, looking at American history books, or watching [2000 film] The Patriot, Cornwallis would have been viewed as the biggest loser of the 1700s. He surrendered an army of over 7,000 soldiers, the act that ultimately broke military British efforts to retain the 13 colonies. This same person was hugely instrumental in the ongoing rise of British power in the Indian subcontinent. You can't look back at him and only weigh the Yorktown surrender in judging his performance as a commander [...]

The entrepreneurial Huffman is an Iowa National Guard signal officer, and also spent time as a civilian contractor instructing on mission command systems. He now works for a national healthcare insurer.

Huffman is a 2003 graduate of the Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the University of Iowa, Iowa City.

"My love of military history was certainly a strong influence in my decision to join the military," he tells the Red Bull Rising blog. "My grandfather was also a medic in the 34th Infantry Division during WWII in North Africa and Italy, and that was always inspiring to me when I decided to join."

And ... what about the war story regarding Pashtun poultry? "I was driving wearing N.V.G.s [Night Vision Goggles] during an operation to cordon an Afghan village, when a chicken flew at our Humvee, knocking out a tactical satellite that had been zip-tied to the hood and really hurting our communications during that operation."

"That chicken," Huffman says, "was Taliban."

Contest Solicits 'Lessons-Encountered' Essays

Editors at Small Wars Journal have teamed up with Military Writers Guild to conduct an essay-writing contest focused on lessons-encountered at the tactical and operational levels of war.

Word count is 3,000 to 5,000. Deadline is Jan. 15, 2017. Winners will be announced in March 2017.

According to the announcement, the project takes inspiration from the publication of "Lessons Encountered: Learning from the Long War," a National Defense University project that explored similar theme at the strategic level.

That book, available for FREE in e-book reader formats here, was "intended for future senior officers, their advisors, and other national security decision-makers. By derivation, it is also a book for students in joint professional military education courses, which will qualify them to work in the field of strategy."

In the announced contest, Small Wars Journal editors are soliciting takes on what worked and what did not work in modern wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. They suggest two lists of maxims as a potential launching points, the first from former commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. Anthony Zinni, and the second from civilian strategist David Kilcullen. Both lists appear here.

Writers are encouraged to use incorporate one or many of these maxims into their submitted works, and also to base their writing in first-hand experiences, told in the first person.

Functional areas and applicable topics suggested by the editors include, but are not limited to:

Insurgency/Counterinsurgency

Terrorism/Counterterrorism

Stabilization, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations

Unconventional Warfare

Foreign Internal Defense

Civil-Military Operations

Information Operations

Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence Activities

Transnational Criminal Activities that Support or Sustain Small Wars / Irregular Warfare

Law Enforcement Activities Focused on Countering Irregular Adversaries

Writers may enter in three categories, including: U.S. Military, Non-U.S. Military, and Non-Military (U.S. and Other). First ($1,000), Second ($500), and Third Prizes ($300) may be awarded in each category, in addition to up to 20 honorable mentions ($200).

Full details, including submissions formats and process, are to be found here.

Holiday Traditions: The Annotated '25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas'

Blog editor's note: This post originally appeared on the Red Bull Rising blog Dec. 25, 2014.

Earlier this month, I started a daily exercise using the following phrase as a writing prompt: "Day X of 25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." My intent was to generate (mostly) new material, inspired by actual holiday happenings around the Sherpa family FOBstead. It was like writing tactical fortune cookies while channeling my inner Martha Stewart.

Listed below are collected all of the "25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." (Thanks to the Facebook friends of Charlie Sherpa, who inadvertently served as a daily writers' workshop!) For fun, I've hyperlinked to some definitions and explanations. Best wishes to all for a safe and rewarding holiday!

1. "This is our Christmas tree. There are many like it, but this one is ours."

2. Poncho liner makes surprisingly effective field-expedient tree skirt.

3. Three cups of Peppermint chai before one talks of holiday business.

4. First test of homemade MICLIC rocket for deploying holiday lights across perimeter of FOB Sherpa. Essayons!

5. Tinsel works as a festive and fabulous ghillie suit. Chaffs a bit, though.

6. Lutefisk is the MRE omelet of the holiday-food world.

7. Ask your chaplain if she'll accommodate Saturnalia services on the 17th. 'Tis the season!

8. Lesson-learned: Infrared twinkle lights require night-vision egg-noggles.

9. "Over the river and through the woods" should not require a formal convoy clearance. An extraction plan, however, is recommended.

10. In the mailbox today: "Season's greetings from the IO section."

11. Glitter is a persistent agent. Deploy it wisely.

12. Tactical Advent wreath? Use IR chemlights as candles.

13. Mistletoe can also be ordered in bulk as a Class IV barrier material.

14. "We're dreaming of a Red Bull Christmas."

15. Sherpa kids initially not interested in crafting pine-cone birdfeeders using peanut butter and suet this past weekend. Told them we were making festive sticky bombs instead.

16. You know something? Engineer tape makes for some darned fancy ribbon!

17. "Treat Christmas like a Key Leader Engagement."

18. Santa's challenge coin is the one that rules them all.

19. Psyop section always has the best holiday music playlist. And they'll DJ.

20. Just like ACU trousers, Christmas stockings can be used as floatation devices in the unlikely event of a water landing. "Knowing is half the battle."

21. Notes and maps left for Santa should be red-light readable. Santa is tactical. And an aviator.

22. Roasting chestnuts by an open MRE heater is ... not recommended.

23. Trail camera mounted on Christmas tree. RC drones on stand-by. Sherpa kids have put Santa on the HVT list this year. Then again, like they say, "the jolly old elf also gets a vote."

24. Airborne Santa says: "Geroni-mo-ho-ho!"

25. Message of the day: "Peace on earth! Goodwill toward all personnel!"

Review: 'Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors' 4

A rule of thumb, in both newsrooms and Tactical Operations Centers, is that "two times is a coincidence, but three times is a trend." Four times? Four times must make something an institution.

Now in its fourth consecutive volume, and published annually on or near Veterans Day, the military-writing anthology series "Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors" is arguably the high-point of the 12-month veterans-lit calendar. In partnership with the Missouri Humanities Council, the series is published by Southeast Missouri State University Press, Cape Girardeau, Mo. Comprising short fiction, non-fiction essays, interviews, and photography generated by or about military service members, veterans, and families, no other book publishing effort so regularly portrays the scope and depth of U.S. military experiences.

World War II is here. Korea and Vietnam are here. Iraq and Afghanistan are here. The home front is here.

The Navy is here. The Army is here. The Marines are here. The Air Force is here.

The memories of 80-year-old veterans are here. The words of a high-schooler from Gilman, Iowa are here.

It's all here. Every year.

In reading across the most recent edition's 270 pages, one is struck by the chorus of voices. One hears harmonies in times and places. One hears differences in experiences, but never dissonances. In short, the book seems to embody the sentiment: "Everybody has their own war; no one has to fight it alone."

Keeping with the choral metaphor for a moment, the solo performances are stand-out. Each issue features a winner and two honorable mentions in five categories: fiction, essay, interview, poetry, and photography. (Disclosure: The writer of the Red Bull Rising blog was a runner-up in this year's poetry category.)

For example, photography winner Jay Harden's image, "Planning for Peace," graces the cover of the book. Harden was a B-52 navigator on 63 missions over Vietnam.

This year's fiction contest winner, Christopher Lyke, weaves a braided narrative of loss and return and fighting against—or maybe for—the routine. A former infantry soldier, Lyke is a Chicago-area writer, musician, and teacher. He is also the co-editor of the literary journal "Line of Advance." You can hear the Chicago in his prose, in story titled "No Travel Returns":

He woke up and ran the dog and showered. He dressed and woke up the kids. This kept happening. Then he made breakfast for the kids and woke up his wife. This happened every day, too. He made it happen, this routine.

Essay category winner David Chrisinger delivers a profile of U.S. Marine Brett Foley, an Afghan War veteran. Chrisinger, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, interviews Foley and Foley's wife, and grounds the resulting conversation in grief theory. Chrisinger is the son of a Vietnam-era veteran, and the grandson of a World War II veteran. He teaches a student-veteran reintegration course on campus, and counts Foley as his best friend. The resulting exploration is, then, both personal and professional:

What helped to increase Brett's resilience and help him move toward a productive and purposeful life was talking about his trauma and remembering the good men he served with. Only then could he move on. And even though he never discovered the complete and final truth of his experiences—no one ever really can—Brett did create meaning out of them by organizing his memories and creating a coherent narrative. […]

In the winning poem, titled "nights," Navy officer Nicholas J. Watts writes an hypnotic, rhythm-infused ode to sleep and memory:

nights
I visit dark places
where war still rages
and I didn't fight
like I should have
where whiskey flows
from plastic jugs into Salvation Army cups
to be cast away
like dead children from suicide bombs
or Talib cattle shot for sport […]

Such exemplars are indicative of the qualities to be found throughout the book. In a poem titled "TBI" (which stands for "Traumatic Brain Injury"), VA nurse Susan K. Spindler delivers a punch to the gut with lines such as:

[…] A brain weights three to four pounds.
It floats in a fluid that protects it.
You floated in me once, Josh.
I gave up pot and booze and moved
us far away from the man that was half of you.
I thought you would be safe. […]

In a war story titled "How I Almost Lost the War for the U.S.A.," Korean War veteran and former U.S. Marine George Fischer tells a hilarious and harrowing tale. He was driving a WWII-era amphibious truck called a "Duck," one laden with ammunition destined for the front, when he ran over a long-haul communications cable presumably used by much-higher headquarters. The Duck gets stuck. He walks over to a nearby artillery unit, to radio for assistance:

While I waited for that wrecker, the 155 guncrew listened on the phone to announce the next target. Some of the crew asked me how the hell did I get to this howitzer emplacement. I pointed to where my truck rested in the dark across the meadow at the road. They were amazed and astonished as they told me that field I had walked on was thoroughly mined.

In her introduction to this year's volume, series publisher Susan Swartwout describes some of her lessons, taken from four years of compiling, editing, and producing "Proud to Be":

Just a few of the things I've learned include that some veterans carry their stories inside and won't speak their war burdens to friends and family—but they will write them to the world when the have a place and invitation to do so. […]

I've learned that a veteran's coming home to loved ones and civilian life can be yet another battle with its own version of firestorm. […]

And I've learned that many veterans and military personnel have an awesome sense of humor, brilliant with word play and pranks.

Sherpatude No. 26: "Humor is a combat multiplier …" And thank goodness for it. World War II veteran Bill McKenna was an infantryman with the U.S. 24th Infantry Division in the Philippines, when his buddy took off, suffering from the "G.I.'s" (gastrointestinal distress). A Filipino leading a squad of Moro tribesmen happen upon McKenna. After a wary stand-off, they mention in passing to McKenna the recent death of the U.S. President:

For every G.I. in a far-off battle zone, it's great to hear from home—a letter from Mom, Sis, or Sweetheart. But today I got news delivered first-hand to me on a Philippine jungle road. Not the usual way to hear the news, I suppose, but damn, it was exciting.

Later, I learn that the news of the Roosevelt's death was delayed for troop morale considerations.

Where else are you going to hear a story like that? Who else but a veteran would be the one to tell it?

*****

For information on the 2016 military-writing contest and anthology, click here.

A Facebook page for the project is here.

A St. Louis-area book launch event is planned for 1 to 4 p.m., Sat., Dec. 19, 2015. The event is free and open to the public. Information here.

How Sherpa Wrote a Book: 'Welcome to FOB Haiku'

First of all, before you call out the Poetry Samurai (they're like the Grammar Ninja, but more figurative), let me say that, yes, I'm aware of the difference between haiku and senryu. Haiku is a three-line, 5-7-5-syllable Japanese-inspired poetic form regarding a moment in nature. Senryu is similarly structured—three lines, 5-7-5—but focuses on human foibles.

I write about the military. That roots me firmly in the human terrain. (In the U.S. Army, we brief all other forms of nature under "enemy situation.") So, technically, it would be more correct to say that I write senryu. I still call it "haiku," however, because I also know my audience. You don't need an M.F.A. to know what "haiku" is. Even the @#$%ing Infantry knows haiku.

Back in the day, we learned haiku in grade school. We also learned Robert Frost in junior high, and Shakespearian sonnets in high school. Fast-forward to today, and my Fifth-grade warrior-princess and Third-grade video game technician are both accomplished haiku practitioners. They also learned it in school. "All this has happened before, and all this has happened again."

Because people of all ages and abilities recognize the haiku form, it makes it both accessible and (pun intended) versatile. The best haiku deliver a surprise, a shift in the action or focus. Sometimes, it can be enough to surprise readers with the fact that they just read a poem—or that they learned something in grade school that's still useful.

Given the restrictions of haiku, I personally enjoy the technical challenge of finding just the right words and punctuation, to make my poetic shot-group as tight as possible. As a writer, I don't aspire to lyrical greatness—I want my language to be understandable. I want to entertain someone, and maybe get them to think about things in a different way.

I write for my buddies who don't read poetry, after all—guys who sometimes barely read the instructions to complicated things. That doesn't mean they're not open to new ideas, however, or to seeing old things in new light.

For example, I'm pretty sure that a couple of them will find this haiku, written about emplacing an anti-personnel Claymore, to be both familiar and fresh:

Point *this* side at Them.
Spool yourself away from harm.
Click three times and ... Boom.

After a couple of decades away from the practice—during which I wrote daily newspaper and how-to magazine and Army lessons-learned articles—I started writing poetry again in 2011. I was at a free weekend writing workshop on the campus of the University of Iowa, run by Emma Rainey and the non-profit Writing My Way Back Home.

The prompt had something to do about capturing a moment of wonder. I had been stewing for months, having earlier that year embedded with my former Army colleagues deployed to Afghanistan, about an interaction I'd had with my former commander while downrange. I kept wondering what it meant. Rainey gave us a few minutes to write, mental brakes off, with some soothing music playing in the background. I started writing about my first meeting downrange with Ryder-6. Ten minutes later, I had the start of a book.

I didn't realize that then, of course. It took years to admit I might be a poet. In the meantime, I still considered myself a just-the-facts non-fiction guy. Over the years, my journey was shaped and influenced by meeting many fellow travelers, such as poet Jason Poudrier ("Red Fields") at the first (and later, the second) Military Experience & the Arts Symposium.

I also met poet Suzanne Rancourt there—she of the sharp wit and long knives—who led by example and humor, and later convinced me to take over for her as the poetry editor for the group's literary journal, "As You Were." (FREE PDF of the latest issue here!)

At the 2012 Sangria Summit for writers of military fiction and non-fiction, held in Denver, Colo., I learned about independent and electronic publishing as methods to overcome obstacles to market—barriers such as having too narrowly focused a niche. Little did I realize how much of that information would factor into my actions in 2015. More on that in a minute.

I learned to use poetry to dig at the moments and memories that didn't quite make sense, or that didn't immediately seem to support a larger narrative. Sometimes, in my explorations, I found myself at the bottom of an intellectual hole. Sometimes, I found myself at the crest of a hill. Perhaps most importantly, I learned to accept the risks of sharing my work with others.

I started to get poems published in veteran-friendly venues, such as "The Pass in Review," "Line of Advance," the Veterans Writing Project's "O-Dark-Thirty," and the annual anthology series "Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors" from Southeast Missouri State University Press, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Later, I began to get traction in non-military but Midwestern-themed outlets, such as the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library's "So It Goes" literary journal, and "Midwestern Gothic." Each of the above titles represents an editorial staff that is open to exploring ways to bridge the gap between civil and military experiences. We need more such bridge-builders.

Earlier this year, I found I had enough poems—published and unpublished—to produce a chapbook. I started to submit manuscripts to chapbook contests and publishers, recognizing that "light-hearted verse about the light infantry" is more of a rabbit- than a fox-hole—a niche within a niche within a niche. (I joke that I've finally discovered a vocation that pays less than newspaper journalist—that of "military poet.") Meanwhile, I added pages. The manuscript grew to book-length.

I began to realize that my poems, collected and curated, roughly reflected the narrative arc of my Army career, from Boot Camp to Bagram and back home again. The sum might be greater than its parts.

Having set a personal 2015 deadline for getting at least one major writing project off my desk, I published this month via Middle West Press LLC, Johnston, Iowa. This was the same entity that had, in 2011, endorsed my freelance media credentials when I applied to embed for a few weeks in Afghanistan. The result is a 90-page trade paperback, which is also available in various e-book formats, including the Amazon Kindle, and others via Smashwords.

The cover design of "Welcome to FOB Haiku" mimics the hardcopy Army doctrine and technical manuals we once shlepped to the field by the truckload: Matte finish. Subdued colors. Comforting and camouflaged. Theoretically fits in a cargo pocket, just like the brigade TACSOP.

The cover image is a pencil drawing by Aaron Provost, the original of which I proudly display in my undisclosed writing location. Long-time readers of the Red Bull Rising blog may remember my crush on the Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected ("M-RAP") trucks that epitomized so much of our country's thinking and tactics during Operation Enduring Freedom. I'm pleased to put that love on display. Even wrote a sonnet about it.

I continue to write haiku, while also working on my non-fiction muscles. A couple of pals from the Military Writers Guild and I are mutually resolved to make 2016 the year of non-fiction. On the Chinese Zodiac, it's also the year of the Monkey. That seems appropriate.

So stay tuned. And thanks for your continued readership. As always, I look forward to your questions, comments, insights, and now ... reader reviews?

Like the Red Bull says: "Attack! Attack! Attack!"

*****

You can buy "Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire" in print here and here. ($9.99 U.S.)

You can buy the e-book on Kindle here, or in a variety of e-book formats via Smashwords here. ($5.99 U.S.) More vendors to be listed soon!

Notes from a Veterans-in-the-Arts Symposium

MEA2 event organizer Jason Poudrier, MEA founding president Travis L. Martin, and
current MEA president David. P. Ervin celebrate a successful veterans-in-the-arts
symposium  conducted May 14-17, 2015 at Cameron University, Lawton, Okla.
PHOTO: Military Experience & the Arts

More than 100 military veterans, writers, artists, scholars, therapists, and others assembled in the second Military Experience & the Arts Symposium (M.E.A.2.) May 14-17, 2015. The event was held at Cameron University, Lawton, Okla., near the Fort Sill military installation. Participants attended nearly 75 workshops, performances, meet-ups, and seminars on the communication of military experiences through expressive arts, including music, writing, dance, painting, and more.

The first such event was held 2012 in Richmond, Ky. Each symposium has been under the banner of Military Experience & the Arts, a Kentucky-based non-profit organization.

News reports about the event included this broadcast from ABC affiliate KSWO-TV Channel 7: "Veterans Create, Display Art." (See text, video at link.)

The Cameron campus was lush and green, the dirt red, and the weather relatively cool and blustery. (Wind conditions kept me off the on-campus disc golf course.) The region has gotten plenty of rain this year, and flash flood concerns were often as high as local waterways. Some friends from Wisconsin had to find hotel rooms at the last minute, after the cabin they'd reserved on Fort Sill turned about to be high and dry, but surrounded by a moat impassible to anything but tactical vehicles.

Still, to update that old Army saying about the weather and training: "If it's raining, we're still painting!"

While it was impossible to participate in every workshop or experience, I hope the following notes provide some sense of the talents and topics available at MEA2.

DAY 1:

Saw lots of friends from MEA1. Met friends I didn't know I knew already. ("Who I am depends on who you are and where we are ...") Met entirely new friends. Even friends who'd said they'd gotten published via venues identified at the Red Bull Rising blog. Oklahoma, in short, is a very friendly place. 

In the evening, former Marine and poet Suzanne Rancourt read from her work in a theater setting, and made me cry. And then, former Marine Roman Baca's Exit 12 Dance Company took the stage, and performed a ballet about motherhood and separation and deployment. They also made me cry. 

When the lights went up, the mother who commissioned/choreographed the piece was suddenly in the audience, as well as one of her two sons, who is stationed at nearby Fort Sill. And later, the troupe re-purposed a dance to an impromptu Native American flute performance by Albert Gray Eagle. 

"Magic" does not adequately describe all this.

DAY 2:

Made DIY comic books with Steve Gooch and Marc DiPaolo of Oklahoma City University, then learned about contemplative photography from Buddhist and Army veteran Tif Holmes from the non-profit Engage the Light of Lubbock, Texas. 

Wrote about the homefront through prompts suggested by Amber Jensen of South Dakota State University, a writer and Army National Guard family member, whom I first met back at Great Plains Writers' Conference 2014. 

Then, dinner with the jazz musicians of 77th Army Band ("The Pride of Fort Sill!"), followed by provoking insights about Military Sexual Trauma issues from Miette Wells, Phd., an Air Force veteran. 

Finally, video presentation from Ben Patton, grandson of WWII Gen. George S. Patton, and founder of "I Was There" Film Workshops. The latter uses digital film-making as a collaborative therapeutic intervention for people diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

So much energy here! So many sparks!

DAY 3:

Got the gouge on self-publishing from MEA president David P. Ervin (author of "Leaving the Wire: An Infantryman's Iraq"), then learned about flash non-fiction techniques from Rob Roensch of Red Earth MFA in Creative Writing at OCU. 

After lunch, Tara Leigh Tappert of The Arts and the Military blew my mind by academically connecting the Arts & Crafts movement with the origins of occupational therapy as a profession, and the establishment of craft shops U.S. military installations in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Scholarship like that puts veterans and arts organizations such as MEA into historical context. "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again." 

Evening performances included readings of flash fiction by Veterans Writing Project Managing Editor Jerri Bell (from whom I learned lots of new sailor slang. Household-6 will be very pleased), and physical comedy (Masks! Mime! Puppets! Juggling!) from Hoosier Doug Berky. Berky's re-telling of the Korean fable, "The Tiger's Whisker," is a family-friendly tale of one family's journey of healing from PTSD. I hope to invite him to Iowa someday.

Bottom line: The Military Experience & the Arts Symposium 2 provided a unique opportunity to exchange insights on expressive arts techniques, tools, scholarship, advocacy, and healing on veterans issues—and encouraged veterans, students, educators, and arts practitioners to try new things.

Godspeed, and God bless! I can't wait to see what happens next!

The Annotated '25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas'

Earlier this month, I started a daily exercise using the following phrase as a writing prompt: "Day X of 25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." My intent was to generate (mostly) new material, inspired by actual holiday happenings around the Sherpa family FOBstead. It was like writing tactical fortune cookies while channeling my inner Martha Stewart.

Listed below are collected all of the "25 Days of Sherpa Family Christmas." (Thanks to the Facebook friends of Charlie Sherpa, who inadvertently served as a daily writers' workshop!) For fun, I've hyperlinked to some definitions and explanations. Best wishes to all for a safe and rewarding holiday!

1. "This is our Christmas tree. There are many like it, but this one is ours."

2. Poncho liner makes surprisingly effective field-expedient tree skirt.

3. Three cups of Peppermint chai before one talks of holiday business.

4. First test of homemade MICLIC rocket for deploying holiday lights across perimeter of FOB Sherpa. Essayons!

5. Tinsel works as a festive and fabulous ghillie suit. Chaffs a bit, though.

6. Lutefisk is the MRE omelet of the holiday-food world.

7. Ask your chaplain if she'll accommodate Saturnalia services on the 17th. 'Tis the season!

8. Lesson-learned: Infrared twinkle lights require night-vision egg-noggles.

9. "Over the river and through the woods" should not require a formal convoy clearance. An extraction plan, however, is recommended.

10. In the mailbox today: "Season's greetings from the IO section."

11. Glitter is a persistent agent. Deploy it wisely.

12. Tactical Advent wreath? Use IR chemlights as candles.

13. Mistletoe can also be ordered in bulk as a Class IV barrier material.

14. "We're dreaming of a Red Bull Christmas."

15. Sherpa kids initially not interested in crafting pine-cone birdfeeders using peanut butter and suet this past weekend. Told them we were making festive sticky bombs instead.

16. You know something? Engineer tape makes for some darned fancy ribbon!

17. "Treat Christmas like a Key Leader Engagement."

18. Santa's challenge coin is the one that rules them all.

19. Psyop section always has the best holiday music playlist. And they'll DJ.

20. Just like ACU trousers, Christmas stockings can be used as floatation devices in the unlikely event of a water landing. "Knowing is half the battle."

21. Notes and maps left for Santa should be red-light readable. Santa is tactical. And an aviator.

22. Roasting chestnuts by an open MRE heater is ... not recommended.

23. Trail camera mounted on Christmas tree. RC drones on stand-by. Sherpa kids have put Santa on the HVT list this year. Then again, like they say, "the jolly old elf also gets a vote."

24. Airborne Santa says: "Geroni-mo-ho-ho!"

25. Message of the day: "Peace on earth! Goodwill toward all personnel!"

Thank You, Vonnegut! Thank You, Doctrine Man!!

Photo of cover and poem recently published in third annual issue of "So It Goes: the Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library," which was organized around a theme of creative process. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing ceramics with lacquered resin mixed with metallic powders. Originating in the 15th century, the practice celebrates an object’s history and imperfections, while also keeping it in service. Ashikaga Yoshimasa and Tom Albers are each real people, but only one was a citizen-soldier in the Iowa Army National Guard.

At risk of sounding like that inscrutable "Thank U" song by Alanis Morrisette, I am thankful for a rewarding year of writing. My work continues on various research, writing, and goof-off projects related to the history of the U.S. 34th Infantry "Red Bull Division. Meanwhile, I grew more confident in my production of military-themed poetry (should that be "light verse about the light infantry"?), and more aggressive in seeking venues for its publication.

To paraphrase Alanis: "Thank you, India! Thank you, (war on?) terror! Thank you, disillusionment!"

Writing and publishing poetry probably distracted me from larger career targets, but it also provided an outlet for exploring fragments that might otherwise have ended up unexplored. Receiving a coin from a former commander, for example. Or what it felt like to work in a Tactical Operations Center. It's amazing what sticks with you. It's amazing what comes back. And, it's fun to share.

Just this year, I saw more than 12 poems published, in print and on-line.

I benefited in this effort, I know, from a 2014 boomlet of venues seeking to publish veterans' lit. At one point, I counted a dozen journals and anthologies actively soliciting military-themed fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and more. Whenever possible, I tried to pass along news of these opportunities to my fellow mil-writers via the Red Bull Rising blog. I also tried to encourage other practitioners via on-line interviews (here and here), and via workshops and presentations.

Nearly five years out of uniform, and I'm still doing lessons-learned ...

Last spring, I shared my publishing methods and insights at the Great Plains Writers' Conference, Brookings, S.D. and at Writing My Way Back Home, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I'm looking forward to other such opportunities in 2015—including the Military Experience and the Arts Symposium in Lawton, Okla., May 14-17.

Some venues for veterans' voices are well-established. Southeast Missouri State University, for example, recently published its third annual "Proud to Be" anthology. Editors have already issued a call for submissions toward a fourth volume. The dead-tree version of the Veterans Writing Project's literary journal "O-Dark-Thirty" is a joy that arrives quarterly to my mailbox (subscribe here!), although you can also read its issues free on-line here.

Other publications emerged, such as Line of Advance and The Pass In Review. Special themed issues popped up like 25-meter targets. Scintilla magazine, for example, dedicated an entire issue to veterans' writing. And The Iowa Review continues its annual (?) Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for writers who are veterans.

Of course, the literary terrain is always shifting. Publications come and go. Funding, staffing, energy, and interest quickly become obstacles to a clockwork publication schedule. The Pass In Review, for example, went on hiatus after two issues. I'm told they're refitting and cross-leveling their intellectual ammunition for 2015.

Rather than publish four separate journals, Military Experience and the Arts is consolidating its family of non-fiction, fiction, trauma-writing, and poetry journals under one cover, now titled "As You Were." The inaugural issue is here.

Some military-writing sites, like Doonesbury's "The Sandbox," live on as on-line archives. Others, such as Milblogging.com, have left the net altogether.

In this season of reflection, I am proud and humbled to have had my work appear in many of these publications. I am thankful for the hard work that writers and designers and editors invest in bringing these products to life. Moreover, I am thankful to be part of a larger community of veterans (and readers!) that seeks to encourage the expressions of others.

Thank you for your words. Thank you for reading some of mine.

In the meantime, have a safe and rewarding Thanksgiving. Remember to check on your buddies, remember to hug your kids.

Give thanks.

Essayons.

*****

Here's a quick list of places in which to read some of my 2014 work, as well as that of writer-veterans. Please support these venues with your attentions and patronage, as appropriate:

• "Café Sessrúmnir," The Pass In Review No. 1 (reprinted on-line here on Doonesbury's The Sandbox)

• "quiet as TOC-rats," The Pass In Review No. 1 (also reprinted on-line here)

• "combat patch," The Pass In Review No. 1 (also reprinted on-line here)

• "bullet proof me," The Pass In Review No. 1 (reprinted on-line here on The Pass In Review)

• "dawn patrol", O-Dark-Thirty

• "leaving empty," Scintilla No. 6

• "your squad leader writes haiku," The Pass In Review No. 2

• "wait for it," The Pass In Review No. 2

• "the TOC-roaches write haiku", Red Bull Rising blog

• "carry on," Line of Advance No. 2

• "your convoy leader writes haiku," Line of Advance No. 2

• "Kintsugi," So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library No. 3

• "Suburbistan," Proud to Be anthology, Vol. 3
  

Iowa Soldier Crowd-funds to Refight 'Seven Years' War'

Jason Huffman with "1750: Britain vs. France" at GenCon 2014. PHOTO: Battle Hardened Games, Inc.

Like many soldiers, Iowa Army National Guard member Jason Huffman loves history, loves games and simulations, and loves learning about history through gaming. After months of game design, play-testing, and even demonstrating at the recent GenCon gaming convention in Indianapolis, he and his colleagues at Battle Hardened Games have launched a crowd-funding effort to bring their inaugural game "1750: Britain vs. France" to full production.

Sample graphics from the game "1750: Britain vs. France"

The game "1750" is a 2-player card-based strategy contest, using both dice and cards to fight for control of the board. One player plays as Britain and the other as France, and each seeks to dominate the globe. Players leverage historical events, land and sea forces, generals and admirals, supplies, and allies to control the North American, African, and Indian colonies in the years leading up the American Revolution. The graphics incorporate the paintings, maps, and other artwork of the day.

A Kickstarter page for the project is here. A video is here, as well as below. A Facebook page for Battle Hardened Games is here. Huffman started his game company in 2013, and is trying to raise $28,000 by Sun., Sept. 28, 2014. He has already fronted the graphic design and other developmental costs. If funded via Kickstarter, the game is ready to go into full production.

"My top priority is to deliver games that you'll enjoy playing, whether you are a history fan or not," he writes on his website. "But I do hope that you will learn a little bit about history when playing our games. I also hope that some educators will consider using our games as a framework for discussing history, particularly the leaders, battles, economics, and geography involved."

In 2007-2008, Huffman spent a year deployed to Western Afghanistan as part of an Embedded Training Team (E.T.T.). There, he saw the echoes of empires first-hand. (Also, be sure to ask him about the Taliban chicken.) In his first game design, however, he chose to focus on the 18th century struggle between imperial powers Britain and France—the "Seven Year's War." (In the theater that was to become the United States, the conflict is better known as the "French and Indian War.")

For Huffman, the historical mileu provides an opportunity to explore lessons on scales ranging from the global, to the individual. He writes:

Many British officers that would later play major roles in the American Revolution also fought in the Seven Year's War, with some of the younger officers in the American Revolution going on to fight in other British conflicts of the late 1700s.

There are a few British generals that I find particularly interesting in terms of their legacies from this era. They fought in multiple wars and had very different results in each of them. Growing up in an American school system, our history books didn't really address parts of their careers that didn't deal with American history. Basically they get mentioned within the context of the American Revolution and that’s it.

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, circa 1796

Take, for example, Charles Cornwalis. Huffman writes on his website:

Basically, looking at American history books, or watching [2000 film] The Patriot, Cornwallis would have been viewed as the biggest loser of the 1700s. He surrendered an army of over 7,000 soldiers, the act that ultimately broke military British efforts to retain the 13 colonies. This same person was hugely instrumental in the ongoing rise of British power in the Indian subcontinent. You can't look back at him and only weigh the Yorktown surrender in judging his performance as a commander [...]

In his "spare time," the entrepreneurial Huffman is an Iowa National Guard signal officer assigned to 734th Regional Support Group (R.S.G.), and recently spent time as a civilian contractor instructing on mission command systems. Huffman is a 2003 graduate of the Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. "My love of military history was certainly a strong influence in my decision to join the military," he tells the Red Bull Rising blog. "My grandfather was also a medic in the 34th Infantry Division during WWII in North Africa and Italy, and that was always inspiring to me when I decided to join."

And ... what about the war story regarding Pashtun poultry?

"I was driving wearing N.V.G.s [Night Vision Goggles] during an operation to cordon an Afghan village, when a chicken flew at our Humvee, knocking out a tactical satellite that had been zip-tied to the hood and really hurting our communications during that operation."

"That chicken," Huffman says, "was Taliban."