Some time ago, I attended a Weekend Writer’s Workshop. I was the only guy there along with maybe 15 women, which isn’t unusual. They were all wonderful writers and genuinely nice people – which isn’t unusual either.

At the end of our first session, we were given an overnight assignment – write the beginning to a story or article about scrapbooking. On the following day, we would read them aloud and share them with the group. 

Later that evening in my room at the Lowell Center, I set up my laptop and began to stare at the screen as I repeated the word scrapbooking again and again, like some magical mantra to summon my muse.

The next day we read our story beginnings. The women had written some good stuff and I soon learned that there’s a whole lot more to know about scrapbooking then I ever imagined. When called on to read, I asked to go last, stating that my piece might be a little different from the stuff I’ve heard so far from the gals. So they moved on. Everyone was especially touched by the story beginnings written and read by the Christian writers and, as I learned later, most of the women there belonged to the same Christian writer’s group.

It became my turn. I looked around the room, cleared my throat, lowered my head and began. “I call this A Collection of Terror. It’s a little different.”, I said.

They all smiled with encouragement, so I continued reading. “Annie started in innocence, collecting, cutting and pasting. She took to scrapbooking early while other girls her age played with Barbie dolls. Her collection of scrapbooks with decorated covers were displayed on bookshelves like time capsules and they filled her tiny apartment on every available wall. There were hundreds of scrapbooks, arranged alphabetically by the things that had enthralled her over the past 30 years.

Annie’s early collections featured famous clowns and horses of every breed, but her passions became shorter in duration and turned increasingly voyeuristic. Her secret collections of male underwear models, popular wrestlers and beefy iron-pumpers showed up shortly after puberty, sparked from a curiosity that grew into a raging fire of fantasy and masturbation.

Later, Annie’s tastes became darker in her collections of wanted posters and certified police mug shots. This in turn led to her prized collection of letters to and from crooks, thieves and murderers who were incarcerated in some of our nation’s worst prisons. Annie’s deepest secret was of the nights she would lie naked on her futon, holding their letters in one hand while reading of the convicts’ desire for her. She would pass-out in ecstasy and dream about them.

Annie continued to search newspaper personal columns desperately seeking literate penal inmates to correspond with. That’s how she met Eddie. And that’s when her nightmare began.”

The instructor broke the silence and called for a short break while shock still flooded the faces of my writing companions. I sheepishly got up and took long strides toward the solace of the men’s room.

When I returned, the class got right back to work on the final subject of our agenda: Know Your Audience.

 (Originally published February 10, 2004)