Meet
the Editors:
Stacy Shannon and Rebecca
Mercurio
Stacy and Becky at Collingswood's Mayfair, May 2002.
Stacy and Becky have been friends since 7th grade band class when they both
aspired to flute fame and fortune (or at least playing the right notes!).
After graduating high school in 1995 they remained good friends, but it wasn't
until 1997 while working at the same optometrist office that they discovered
each other's appreciation for literature. This shared understanding led them
to form The Writer's Block: a publication they hoped would promote literature
in their community. Even when the paper was put on hold in 1999, Becky &
Stacy remained close, side by side through their college graduations, weddings
and frequent walks around Cooper River. Their 12 year friendship and dedication
to the paper's original vision are the very heart of Creative Voice Foundation.
And in their own words...
Stacy's Story:
I discovered my "creative voice" at 16, when my English teacher
made a big fuss over a short essay I wrote for an assignment. Since then,
writing has become my key to doors of self-expression, artistic communication,
and bargain basement therapy. These keys have taken on the shape of poetry,
sketch comedy, and short stories. For the past 5 years I've been working on
a screenplay, so don't look for it in theatres until 2020.
For me, writing is a way to channel emotions, confront fears, laugh at life,
and interpret the world. I will probably never win a Pulitzer Prize for literature,
but I'm satisfied enough if my poems can say what I feel, my sketches can
induce a laugh, or my stories can make a reader think.
I read as passionately as I write; I believe a writer is only as good as the
writing he/she reads. Authors that have inspired my own words include T.S.
Eliot, Walt Whitman, Edward Albee, Stephen King, and Edith Wharton. There
are many other writers who have entertained and enlightened my world over
the years, and I hope Creative Voice can inspire everyone we touch to enjoy
literature from the past and present.
I also hope Creative Voice and The Writer's Block encourage people, young
and old, to explore their creative talents and perhaps become inspired as
I was in English class. And for those existing writers, struggling to find
their voice, to publish their first novel, or to simply express their joys
and sorrows in iambic pentameter, I hope whatever motivates you will keep
you writing!
Here's a poem I wrote for a Creative Writing class. My motivation: A passing
grade.
Becky's
Story:
Though I have done little writing of my own, I have always delighted in "the
creative voice." I grew up with books: from Babar to The Berenstain Bears
to my years with The Black Stallion series and anything about horses. This
relationship with books continued throughout my school years, and despite
a nasty run-in with Jane Eyre in my senior year, I was inspired to choose
English as my college major.
It was during my four years at Rowan University that I truly began to realize
how important literature was to me. Despite the quick discovery that English
majors often command about as much respect as dishwashers, I reveled in my
chosen path! My English classes were not the dry readings of dead poets that
some people presumed them to be. In those small rooms the whole world lay
open to us! Through the printed words of so many different voices we experienced
anger and joy, fear and triumph, hate and love, and all of the wonderful (and
sometimes bizarre) things that make up the human experience.
This is what I bring to Creative Voice Foundation: the desire to encourage
others to curl up in the words of someone else for a little while: to feel
someone's thoughts, hopes and dreams, maybe even to discover their own. It
is a wonderful talent to write; it is just as great a gift to allow a connection
to the words of someone else. It is my most sincere hope that our foundation
will encourage people to let themselves become part of the creative experience,
whether they are a writer themselves or not. For literature sings the songs
of every one of us; because we are all human, we all belong.