The Maryland Writers Association created the Writers Roundtable Program to encourage writers, poets, playwrights, and authors through monthly articles and activities.
Notable Maryland Author articles and associated prompts from Fun With Words authors are the centerpiece of the program.
Each month, Southern Maryland News will feature an MWA article about an author. Marylanders are encouraged to read the articles and try their hand at the writing prompts each month.
Gender: Adventure. Fiction that features stories of adventure, such as world travels, difficult quests, voyages of discovery, and other journeys that might involve finding a secret place or object, or testing courage , or being caught to save someone else. Adventure can be useful like taking a long canoe trip or happening by chance like having to stay alive after a car accident in a blinding blizzard.
Example playlist: “Two on the Trail”, “Jack Chanty”, “Madame Storey”, “The Velvet Hand”, “The Folded Paper Mystery”, “Maryland Main and the East Coast”, and “Rivers of the East Coast”.
“Each man must blaze his own trail.” —Hulbert Footner
Hulbert Footner (April 2, 1879 – November 17, 1944) was a Canadian-born American writer who was mostly self-taught and wrote both adventure stories and detective stories.
He enjoyed living outdoors and canoeing, and a trip gone wrong made him a fan of Maryland. On a trip to paddle the Chesapeake Bay in 1910, he encountered bad weather in Baltimore and ended up taking a steamer to Solomons and was hooked.
He married a local lady, Gladius March, and in 1915 bought Preston House on the Patuxent in Lusby, which he renamed Charles Gift, where he lived until his death in 1944.
He wrote his first novel “Two on the Trail” in Solomons in 1911, which is a fictional adventure based on a 3,000 mile canoe trip he made alone through northern Alberta in 1906. afterwards he made another canoe trip through the Northwest Territories. ranging from British Columbia through Alberta and into the MacKenzie Territory from where he wrote “Jack Chanty”.
A friend, Christopher Morley, suggested Footner switch to detective fiction and, as Footner recalled, “Morley guided me beyond an overdose of northwestern stories into crime stories , adventure and romance.”
Footner’s Madame Rozika Storey and her simple assistant, set in the flapper era of the 1920s, became his most successful detective character.
His romantic debut “Country Love” is set aboard the Adams Floating Theater, which sailed the Chesapeake Bay and brought plays and vaudeville acts to remote villages, including Solomon, in the years since followed the First World War.
In 1930, Footner introduced a new detective, Amos Lee Mappin, whose crimes tend to happen in New York’s coffeehouse society. He wrote “Maryland Main and the Eastern Shore”, which was illustrated by Louis Ruyl, and was a chapter-by-chapter study of Maryland through his eyes and his impressions as an outsider, while he was in the process of die.
Critics consider it an accurate capture of the essence of Maryland.
Footner is buried in Middleham Chapel in Lusby.
The MWA invites you to have fun writing adventures like Hulbert Footner. Using only 100 words, place a character on an adventure of their own initiative or occurring by chance. Title your work and submit it to https://marylandwriters.org/Notable_Maryland_Authors by the 22nd of the month to receive an MWA Fun With Words submission certificate.
Selected responses will be published with next month’s article as well as on the MWA website.
Last month, readers were invited to have fun writing horror like Edgar Allan Poe. Using just 100 words, place a character in a weird or scary atmosphere on the darkest, dirtiest night or day of the year.
Here are some regional responses:
I went outside. The mailbox was only a few feet away but felt like a trip. There was wind. It was as if the sun had set thousands of years ago. Dark old pines swayed in the wind and lined the path along the road. You could hear the creak of the bridge under my feet as I walked down the driveway, and sounds of something in the distance. I was alone, but I swore there were other souls around. As I took steps, I heard a strange voice in the distance.
“Hello” says something scary.
It was cold outside and I felt a shiver run up my spine. It always happens when it’s dark and cold. I wanted to take a shortcut through the cornfield so I could get out of this scorching cold. The cornfield smelled earthy and the moon was my only source of light. I feel like I’ve been walking for ages. I start to hear rustling behind me.
“Hello, if someone is there, it’s not funny.” The cold was unbearable now.
The rustling got louder and as I turned behind me, I passed out.
While investigating the death of a local doctor in a dark basement, Tyler fails to notice the man nicknamed King Killer sneaking up behind him. The man slowly draws his knife, ready to strike again. The wind howls in the distance late at night, Friday the 13th, the night that 10 people had already been killed from unknown causes. Tyler would be next… How long before Killer strikes? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Suddenly thunder sounded and lightning struck Boom! Everything became empty.
The leaves swirled and the icy breeze of the wind blew on the neck of the young woman walking on the sidewalk. Pulling her coat closer, she shivered. Not because of the cold, but because of the fear she felt walking alone in this part of town. Glancing around, she felt like she was being watched. Shaking her head, she thought it was sheer madness.
Suddenly, her head jerked up at the sound of footsteps moving near her. Frantically, she looked left, right, behind – but saw no one. She took a breath, wanting to run, but her feet weren’t moving. And where would she go? It didn’t matter. All she knew then was… escape.
Markie and Steve were playing catch in the graveyard behind the church after dinner. In the growing darkness, Markie missed the ball and it rolled under the church building which was 18 inches above the ground. Some of the oldest tombs have been moved back into this space under the building.
Markie knelt down, peering into the darkness below the church. “It’s very dark in there, Steve. I see nothing.
Steve crouched down next to his friend. “Yeah, but we have to get that ball back or my big brother will kill me.”
The boys crawled slowly through space. They were never seen again.
It was a windy day. Perfect time. Standing equipment. Brushing, picking up hooves, brushing mane and tail. Then it’s time to put on the saddle pad. Then saddle. Make sure it’s the right one though! Grith to secure your saddle. Then the bride. Before you make sure to take off the halter, push it between the teeth to make it slide. Lift the ears and you’re done! Remember to hold and steer with 2 hands. Then go down to the rank you are going down. Wave to your other horse friends as you descend. In line. Closing the door behind.
Jasper was a simple man. Jasper loved his neighbor’s cookies. Last night, Jasper ate an entire tray of his neighbor’s cookies! Jasper felt bad… He used the bathroom. Feeling. Drink water. Feeling. Jasper can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. Nothing like this has ever happened with cookies. Jasper went to his room to calm down and watch TV. The door closed behind him. Locking him up. He felt the room closing in on him. The walls slowly crushing his body so he could feel every pressure. Jasper was a simple man.
As I walk through the halls of the abandoned school, I notice that every locker I see has the exact same number. But as I walk past the library, I see a specific locker begin to shake rapidly. I soon start to hear the same words repeated.
“Find the key, find the key, find the key!”
I don’t know what’s going on, but I suddenly have the urge to run. A few minutes later, I am in the same place and I hear the same words.
“Find the key, find the key”
All I know is I’m falling down…
It was a dark, rainy, cold autumn night. I was knitting by the fire, watching my movie and sipping hot coffee. I was doing my hoop through the thick, stringy yellow wire, I hear a bang upstairs. I hear the creaking wooden floor moving under someone’s feet. I go into the kitchen and grab a sharp knife. I head for the dark, creaky staircase and begin to ascend. I’m checking the rooms when I hear another knock. I go to the bathroom. Nothing. I go into the creepy, doll-infested room and there someone is standing in the corner.
Hunched at midnight, weak and tired, my back had become horribly sore
Searching for many lost receipts, in the bottom drawer of my kitchen
It was the day before an audit; terror was in store
Tossed and turned on my bed, didn’t nod until half past four
Then the morning dawned with raven cries, it grieved me to the core
The listener who saw me enter was a terrible, stoic bore.
I squirmed in that seat so hot, trying to explain that I was poor
“You go to jail if you lie”; that’s what he swore to me
From veiled deductions and fuzzy math, I made a wish: never again
It was too late, he handcuffed my wrists, said the taxman: “You owe more!
Thunder pounded the screened glass of the interview room, and my chair nearly stank. The two detectives – a Korean weightlifter and a grandmother – returned. Granny acted eager to ask me why.
“Miss Cage?” Grandma said, like mom. “Minoa, why did you lure Reed Rendahl to Morwyn Creek where the alligator was hiding?”
I said, “Gator was starving.”
The Korean detective hissed in disgust. “Rendahl never knew this girl. His parents said that during tonight’s storm, Reed stopped to help a lady collapse.
Detectives judged me with their eyes.
Reed’s family told the truth.
