Local author discusses first book, publishing process at Writers' Guild workshop

Mark Adderley, professor of English at Missouri Valley College, speaks on his book, "The Hawk and The Wolf," at the Marshall Writers' Guild Workshop Saturday, April 25. [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

About 17 people attended the workshop, organized by MWG President Authorene Phillips and held in the fellowship hall of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Marshall.

Adderley spoke on his recently published book, "The Hawk and The Wolf," which hit bookstores and libraries October 2008. He said it is the first in a series he good-humoredly calls the "definitive version" of the story of Merlin and King Arthur. The 12-part series as a whole is titled "The Matter of Britain."

Born in Crewe, England, Adderley said he grew up reading the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Ian Fleming, though it was with T.H. White's "The Once and Future King," the story of King Arthur, that his Arthurian passion began.

Attendants at the Marshall Writers' Guild Workshop April 25 listen as Mark Adderley reads an excerpt from "The Hawk and The Wolf," his recently published work of fiction about the young man who would become the "Merlin" of Arthurian lore. [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

"T.H. White ... deliberately doesn't describe certain things, like the last battle," said Adderley. "So I wanted to fill in the gaps, and I thought, 'Well, one day, when I've read everything there is to read about King Arthur, I'll write the definitive version of the King Arthur story.' That was 20 years ago ... I still haven't read all there is to read on King Arthur. So I decided I'd start writing it anyway."

"The Hawk and The Wolf" is different from other Merlin stories because Adderley said he was "using sources that most Arthurian novelists don't bother with."

Giving a brief synopsis of the book, Adderley noted one difference is that the first book begins at the dawn of the first century in Britain, referred to in the book as "The Island of the Mighty," with Merlin as a young boy.

"I took it 400 years back in time," Adderley said. "And I decided that I was going to set my story, or at least the first episode of my story, against the initial invasion of Britain by the Romans."

Adderley said, "I love 'The Lord of the Rings,' and one of the things that impressed me about Tolkien's work in general is the sense of importance that he manages to give to the events. I've been struggling for a very long time to get that sense of importance -- something really significant going on in my fiction -- and I don't think I ever really succeeded until this one."

Adderley read to the workshop attendants a selected sequence from the book, which described Merlin's fictional involvement in a historical battle.

Adderley also spoke about publishing process. He said he had to go to approximately 50 publishers over the course of about three years before Westbank Publishing picked up his work.

"The way you present the manuscript is really important to a publisher," Adderley said. "Go find out the guidelines for manuscript submission from whatever publisher you're looking at and follow them scrupulously."

Stressing the importance of following a publisher's principals for submission, Adderley said he discovered most publishers are flooded with manuscripts and have to weed out everything they can before even reading the properly submitted writings.

"They're looking for excuses" to get rid of all they can, Adderley said. "'Oh, inch and a half margins -- slosh pile,'" quipped Adderley.

Adderley noted, "Publishers like manuscripts that are 100,000 words or fewer."

He said an excellent source of information for writers is the Web site firstwriter.com.

After lunch, attendants had one-on-one sessions with Adderley while other writers read their pieces of poetry or prose to the group during the open-mike.

The Marshall Writers' Guild meets three times each month. The May meetings are: Marshall Writers' Guild day group will meet Thursday, May 21, at 1 p.m.; Thursday Night Writers will meet Thursday, May 14, at 7 p.m.; and Monday Night Writers will meet Monday, May 18, at 7 p.m.

The first MWG Workshop was held in 2003.

For more information on the Marshall Writers' Guild, go to www.sullivansfarms.net/writersguild. Additional information on "The Hawk and The Wolf" can be found at www.markadderley.net.

"The Hawk and The Wolf," which holds five-star ratings both on barnesandnoble.com and on amazon.com, can be purchased from both sites.

Contact Jacob Hatfield at marshallpeople@socket.net