New Featured Authors

Gail majored in English at Auburn University and likes to dabble in writing poetry and short fiction. She is a member of a writing guild, The Mystic Order of East Alabama Fiction Writers.

In what Gail describes as a total lapse of judgment, she ran for office and won a seat on the Auburn City Council during the 1980s. She has worked at Sophie Newcomb (Tulane University,) Southern Union State Junior College, Auburn University, Reeltown Elementary School, and Auburn City Schools. Her allergy to children caused her to retire after 38 lengthy years of school teaching. She enjoys books, travel, and naps.

                                           Mary Dansak

Mary Dansak, one of the members of the Mystic Order of East Alabama Fiction Writers and co-author of the book Be the Flame, is happy to appear on the New Authors page of the New Plains Press web site. The writings in Be the Flame are the first of her creative writings to be published.

Mary has enjoyed writing all her life. She was encouraged in first grade, when her story “The History of Tumbling” received first place in a short story contest. She continued to write, and in high school, she won a poetry contest she had not entered. She suspects this was due to a teacher, Amanda Branscombe, who taught her to take her writing a step further -- to use verbs, to edit, and to rewrite. Throughout college and beyond, Mary continued to write for pleasure. Now, as a member of a writers group, she shares her writing with an audience via public readings, and now with Be the Flame.

Mary received her BS from the University of Massachusetts, and much later, her MEd from Auburn University, which she earned just moments before her oldest daughter graduated from Auburn University herself. Mary and her husband Joe have three daughters: Sarah, Emma, and Anna. They live in Auburn with their youngest nestling and their two dogs.

                                          Joanne Camp

The Defender Mystic is Joanne Camp. Joanne is the oldest of twelve children. Although born in Jackson, Alabama, her family’s moves took her to Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Georgia before lighting in Opelika, Alabama. After graduation from Auburn University, Joanne worked as a translator/analyst for the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland. She earned a paralegal degree from the University of Maryland, and then returned to Auburn, Alabama to marry her husband of thirty-four year, Jimmy Camp. Together they have three sons, Jeremy, Michael and Jake. Joanne is an attorney, practicing in Opelika, Alabama. Prior to this book, Joanne’s publication consisted of briefs to the Alabama Appellate Courts and seminar materials.

                                          Judith Nunn

Judith Nunn grew up in Methodist parsonages across south Alabama and northwest Florida. “Because my father was a good man, and was liked, we always landed in a warm community,” she said. “To me, moving meant bigger towns and new adventures.”

In Opp, she discovered the local library. By the third grade her parents let her walk there, and she has not stopped reading since. She spent much of her high school years on the bayous and beaches near Pensacola. “To this day I miss the rhythm of the waves, so in tune with my heart, and the softness of the air and smell of the gulf,” she said. She graduated with high honors from Huntingdon College, and by the time she came to Auburn as a graduate teaching assistant in the English department, she had lived in more than two dozen towns.

“The civil rights struggles were the most difficult years for our family, because both my birth family and grandparents truly felt all people should be treated with respect, justice and equality,” she said, “and that was not the prevalent attitude in congregations in Alabama at the time, or in our church general conference for that matter. When I met my husband I was working on a thesis about African American short story writers, doing research at Tuskegee University (1961). I’m ashamed to say I didn’t finish the work after I married, and that I grew up knowing almost nothing of the rich histories of a large population of those towns and cities I called home. “

She married a local cotton farmer and moved down Wire Road to Beehive to begin a family. When the youngest of three children was in pre-school, Judith began proof-reading part time at a local newspaper, and was soon writing features, columns and news. After ten years of journalism she stopped writing altogether until she joined the Mystics.

“I’d still rather read,” she admits, “except on clear spring and early fall days when the urge to garden overwhelms me. It would take a whip to make me sit down and write on those days. I have a few more years to work on discipline.”

                                          Marian Carcache

Books and dogs were my constant companions when I was growing up an only child in rural Russell County, AL. My greatest dream was to be writer and to provide a refuge for animals. Over the years, my dreams have not changed very much.

While still a university student, I published a short story in the college literary magazine that was spotted by music professor/composer Robert Greenleaf who asked me to write a libretto based on my story for an opera. The result, several years later, was the southern opera, “Under the Arbor,” which went on to be nominated for a regional PBS Emmy and was a finalist at the New York Festivals. The opera also appeared on PBS stations nationwide. My stories have also appeared in Shenandoah, Chattahoochee Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, and have been anthologized in several collections.

Although I have many favorite books, the one that comes to mind when asked to name a favorite is Wuthering Heights. Recently I was thinking about how connected to the land around my home in Jernigan I felt when I was growing up, and how that must be the reason I was attracted to Bronte’s powerful book so early on.

The isolated landscape in Wuthering Heights must have resonated with me as a teenager because I spent a lot of time alone. I spent hours by myself, either reading or daydreaming in the pecan orchard or the rye grass field. I felt detached from the outside world, but at the same time connected to the landscape and to those who had gone before me.

My love for both gothic and magic realist literature is rooted in that connection to the past, the land, and the magic that is just below the surface of everyday life. When I was young, finding an arrowhead in a plowed field connected me to a time and a race of people who lived here before I did. Empty houses held stories of relatives and neighbors who had lived, and sometimes died, before I was on the earth. The gravestones of ancestors in the cemetery at Jernigan church told stories of a past that did not include me, but that I was still a part of. I understood that I was part of the land and of all those who had come before me. I understood that the land would still be here when I was gone. Isolation fuels strong passions; wild places breed wild hearts. So even though I seldom leave Auburn, in my dreams and thoughts I travel unfettered to places that aren’t on anybody else’s map.

Other favorite writers include southerners Truman Capote and Harper Lee, Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams and John Crowe Ransom, but also Hispanic writers Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia- Marques, and Isabel Allende.

In addition to writing, I enjoy photography, specializing in the vanishing southern landscape. I also have an intense interest in Traditional Chinese Medicine and worked for several years as an apprentice and dietician in an acupuncture clinic, and I’m certified in acute homeopathy.

I am so thankful to live in Auburn with my pack of beloved dogs, and with my son, John David, and granddog nearby.

                          Margee Bright-Ragland (Mystic Artist)

Big band music, Couples gliding to a waltz, foxtrot, or jitterderbug,

Black men in tuxedos serving set-ups, ice, ginger ale,

Bowls of peanuts and chips,

Alcoves filled with paintings of peacocks.

A tunnel vaulted ceiling filled with stars floating above a grand

dance floor. A huge kitchen heated by a coal furnace.

My Granddad, Pops, working behind the scene, coordinating

his Friday and Saturday night dances at Peachtree Gardens,

Club del Norte, his nightclub behind our home in residential Atlanta.

I had a happy childhood. I was free to play and explore the woods

and creek beside our home. I was allowed to make things.

I created tiny villages in the woods using moss for

ground, small mirrors for lakes, painted sticks for trees, wood scraps

for houses, and creek stones for walls.

I drew everything, my dog, birds, insects, and flowers.

I was free believing myself to be a cowboy. I never wore a shirt in summer, but I always sported my guns (cap pistols) and cowboy hat. Hop-a-Long Cassidy was my hero.

I was tanned and active and I loved to eat.

My favorite foods were steak, lob (lobster), and corn on the cob.

I was once mistaken for a “Japanese boy.”

First grade was traumatic. I was used to playing alone, making my own fun. School was scary. My music teacher told me to just move my lips. Evidently, my voice was loud and off key. At least I could draw.

One day our teacher read us a story called the Adventures of Mabel. The story was about a little girl who learned to talk to animals by rescuing the King of the Lizards, who was trapped by a rock. Mabel freed him from the rock and the lizard taught her a magic whistle. When Mabel whistled this tune, she could communicate with all animals allowing her to tame the wildest stallion and befriend a pack of wolves. Mabel invited the wolves to all her parties.

After hearing this story, I searched frantically for a lizard I could free. However I wasn’t sure that even if I found the king lizard, I would be able to execute that magic whistle due to my lack of musical ability.

In time I adjusted to school. I even began to like school. I made friends, played sports, learned the basics and always made drawings and painted. In high school, I only worked on becoming a cheerleader. After many tries, I finally did make the squad, becoming the co-captain for the Dykes High Colts cheerleading squad.

“ Dykes High let’s go!” (The students at Dykes High in the 1960’s did not associate our name with sexual orientation.)

I went to Auburn University for college, as Auburn is our family tradition. My Granddad and Dad graduated from Auburn. I had been singing (out of key) the Auburn fight song since they made it up, so Auburn was my only choice. I majored in art and graduated with highest honors. I had finally found my niche; I was going to be an artist.

After graduation, my best friend, Carol, and I traveled across the country, settling in Denver after lots of adventures. Two years working in advertizing convinced me to become a painter and I returned to Atlanta to begin painting again. I was accepted in the graduate program at Georgia State University, and learned more about becoming an artist.

After graduating with my masters, I started teaching part-time at Georgia Perimeter College (then called Dekalb College). I married a fellow artist, 12 years my senior, had three children, and continued to teach and make art.

My first husband, Harold Bright, died of a heart attack in his early fifties. My Mom died six months later. I was a widow with three children so I had “to maintain lane” despite having a brief fling with a Venezuelan guy who was a fantastic dancer. I journeyed to Auburn to see old friends and connected with a college friend, Wayne Ragland. Several years later I married Wayne and my family moved to Auburn.

My children are grown and I still live in Auburn and commute to Atlanta to teach at Georgia Perimeter College. I am also a professional artist. I teach in study abroad programs every summer. My experiences teaching in other counties have influenced my work and broadened my knowledge of art, teaching, and life.

I have been fortunate to meet women in Auburn who are creative.

These women are the Mystics who inspire and support each other.

We meet every month and share our work. I am not very confident about my writing, as I consider my self a visual artist who shares the drawings and paintings I am making, but my fellow mystics encourage and critique my work. Our first book , “Be The Flame”contains my illustrations of each member of our group. In these illustrations I try to capture the spirit of each Mystic.

Gail is our, queen and she is depicted as regal. Joanne is our lawyer, but she also is a fantastic cook and has wonderful parties. Judith is our beautiful and graceful journalist, definitely our anchor for civility and tolerance. Marian is depicted as a lover of animals as well as having a royalty of her own as a gifted writer.

Mary is our youngest member. She is depicted as a science girl. Mary writes in her unique voice as a sixth grade science teacher in Alabama.

And then there’s the Mystic Illuminator, me. I have my palette in hand. I look kind of fancy and ready to paint. I’m happy to be a part of The Mystic Order of East Alabama Fiction Writers.

I continue to draw, paint, and teach.

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