Portal Magazine
Volume 3 Issue 7
August 29th 2010
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Vol. 2 Issue 7 Links: CCSYC-13 Iseldar-1 Shallow Crobbits Crobbits and Media - By: Tim Eagle Yes, eight years ago, I decided to give up “big city” life, that is if you consider the great land of Port Huron a big city, and moved the wagon and clan to the small city lights of the thumb. Here you have many a quaint and curious group of what I call Crobbits, yes, it’s a spin off title and no, Crobbits don’t have fur on their feet. I have always been outside of the box and most of you who know me either personally or by reading my bizarre fiction that I am not a typical person who goes around shaking hands and introducing what I do, most consider this a flaw. I consider it a blessing, in disguise. When I became published in July of ’09, I thought it was a great achievement and decided that since the small minded newspaper here in the Thumb introduces most of the “self” published authors that I had one up on them, I was published for real. I promoted my published short story “Symptom” to the local media and the Libraries. To my dismay, a negative outcome was about to amble my way. If you’ve ever visited a dentist or doctor’s office in the Thumb, you would understand why they’ve taken an opposition of a local author of my stature. Number one, I’m not a self published sell out. Number two, I write better than most of the newspaper journalists here in the Thumb. And finally, drum roll please, Number three, what I write isn’t about a functioning little town, it’s not about poetry of when the schools merged as one, it’s not about the good ole financially inbred fascists days when the town named their schools after the glorious stink factory sitting like a monolithic tumbledown. No, I write about dysfunction, most of the time, but my character’s have flaws, my characters are the truth that flounders in society, and I will never change that. My characters are symbols about the strange convictions, beliefs, and dysfunctions that most of us never want to face or talk about, that’s why I stand out and that’s exactly why I’ve been rejected by local media. So enjoy my correspondences below and thanks for letting me get all that off my chest, it’s a relief and inspiration to know I have people like you who may disagree with me, but at least make an attempt to understand where I’m coming from. E-mail sent by me to Jane Vanderpoel (Newspaper Editor):
Resident of Croswell, Tim Eagle, an author of the bizarre, dark, macabre, and the list goes on, will be featured in Morpheus Tales Magazine Issue Five this July (a London, England based magazine). Being a local resident I thought that this news would be informative for either the Sanilac County News or The Jeffersonian or both. Please let me know if you have an interest for an interview. I have done a couple of lectures for the Cros-Lex High School creative writing class taught by Ms. Stacey Fritz and have been writing now for over ten years. This is my first published short story and I think it important to emphasize local talent whether it's music, art or writing. Thanks for your time. Tim Eagle (There was never a response.)
Second E-mail in response to Jane Vanderpoel’s non-responsiveness: Dear Editor: I’m slightly annoyed by the fact that you had ignored my email, (Subject: Local Author Tim Eagle Published--News Release) sent on June 27, 2009. As you know, if you even have journalism or writing under your list of achievements, getting anything published with a publisher, magazine, etc. is a highly regarded achievement in the writing world. My email, which you may have just deleted, or didn’t get around to acknowledging, was about my first published short story. I’ve been writing for over ten years, and have finished so much that this letter would be very long if I choose to list a complete set of works, and I am very disappointed by this rejection of my own local newspaper's, library and other media outlets. I understand that with all the fairs, the opinion sections covering a vast array of boring and uninteresting articles, and ads to place in the newspaper, that you may have strayed far from the news of local talent, and I apologize for my bitterness. But as I stated above, a writer’s life is frustrating when he/she has written so many things, seen so many rejection slips, most of them impersonal and form in nature, that I think I’ve justifiably earned the right to sound bitter. So if you’ve just been wrapped up in “local” events, selling ad space, and handling disgruntled consumers, I again apologize. If you so choose, my phone line and email is open for suggestions of how to get recognized on a “local” level. If I’ve offended you, the newspaper or its subsidiaries it’s just the blatant truth that I’ve chosen to pour into this letter. Thank you for your time, or lack thereof, and I hope to here from you soon. It’s the news that people want, but when the news gets boring, they recycle the newspaper, when small town life resorts to uneventful things, people move out of small towns, and when writer’s (who can be very blatant people on paper) get rejected by their own, they hurt. I hope you do choose to help me appear in the paper with my published story and if you choose not to, that’s fine, it will just encourage me to try harder. Sincerely, Tim Eagle There was never a response to this email either (what a great local support system).
This is an e-mail that I sent to the Aitken Memorial Library: Resident of Croswell, Tim Eagle, an author of the bizarre, dark, macabre, and the list goes on, will be featured in Morpheus Tales Magazine Issue Five this July (a London, England based magazine). Being a local resident I thought that this news would be informative for my local library. The magazine is available for purchase at http://www.morpheustales.com . I have done a couple of lectures for the Cros-Lex High School creative writing class taught by Ms. Stacey Fritz and have been writing now for over ten years. This is my first published short story and I think it important to emphasize local talent whether it's music, art or writing. Thanks for your time. Tim Eagle This was the library’s response: We do not put individual issues of magazines in our collection, but if you want to send us a copy of your short story, we could post it and leave copies for people to take. If you have any books published, those we could put in the collection.
Jennifer Walters
And here was my response back to the Library:
© Tim Eagle 2008. All Rights Reserved.
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