My name is Coleman Thomas Lamb, and I am a 21-year-old native of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.  I graduated from Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School in 2007 and left to study English and History at Georgetown University.  In January, I left Georgetown and returned home to intern with a local non-profit committed to peace, unity, and economic prosperity in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  Beginning inn August, I will pursue an undergraduate degree in Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University. 

My literary influences include a number of different writers and traditions, many of whom/which I’m sure I have yet to discover.  However, six specific works that had a notable impact on my life are: Dubliners/A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley, A Season on the Brink by John Feinstein, and The Corner by David Simon and Ed Burns.

Hi Coleman,

Thanks for joining.  Each submission automatically gets a “Discuss” link to a new forum topic specifically for that submission.  My original idea with that was to give short story writers a way to introduce the motivation and goals they had in writing the story.  There aren’t a lot of people who use it that way, but it’s a handy way to discuss a piece with its author.  I think those links might be a good way for you to connect with the other writers here.

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.  New writers generally help keep things going around here.

Hey Dave,

Thanks for the info.  I was a little confused but that helps clear things up.  I like that idea about writers offering a bit about what they were thinking while composing a certain story.  So, in your original idea, were you thinking that after an author posted a story, he/she would start off the discussion by posting a bit about motivations/goals?

Before or after.  When I had more free time, I wanted to write more, and had ideas kicking around in my head.  In order to try one out, I could just keep it in mind while making stuff up and writing it down, but I’d often get lost in the fiction and forget my original intent.  So I started writing my thoughts down first.  Then I could reread them as I made stuff up and adjust as necessary.  It’s like up-front design work, and it pays off a lot even just when I’m in normal conversations.  The alternative is flying by the seat of one’s pants, which is fun, of course, but often puts you on well-trodden paths and lets you fall into predictable patterns and forget why you started.

I probably should have mentioned all those things when I first created the feature.  But thanks for the opening!  Hopefully some other members will read this and benefit from it.