If a question is directed specifically at me, yes, I'm more likely to
dive in.

The story of how I met Norman is actually kinda funny...I was at San
Diego State University, in the Psychology department, when I heard that this
Norman Corwin fellow was going to be a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer that
semester, teaching writing in a couple of classes in the Telecommunications
and Film Department. Curious, I went to the library to find out what I could
about him. Opened up "Who's Who." And the entry went on...and on...and
on...and my jaw dropped. This was a WRITER.

You could only take one, not both of the two sessions he was teaching
that semester. Also, his classes were ONLY open to TCF majors, no one else.
AND, you had to submit a writing sample to get in.

I was determined not only to get in, despite being in the wrong (and thus
closed) department, but also to take *both* classes. I submitted a piece of
writing, and though I didn't hear anything from him personally, learned that
it passed muster. But I still now had to get the computer cards (back when we
used such things) from the TCF department, which were, er, under lock and key.

How I got my hands on the cards...is another story for another time.
Suffice to say if the Symbionese Liberation Army had had this kind of
technique, they'd still be around today.

So...first day of his first session. I'm there early. He walks in. And
you have to understand that Norman never just enters a room...he is a
*presence*. Leonine and elegant. And he went to the front of the room,
looked around, and said, "Is there a Joe Straczynski here?"

I died. "Well, this is it," I thought. I'd been nabbed. I raised my
hand. "Could I see you outside?" he asked. I stepped out into the hall,
where I was sure several department heads and, for all I knew, campus security
would be waiting.

There was no one, just Norman and me. "Listen, Joe," he said, "I read
over the material you sent in, and I just have to say that it's really very
good, very professional, excellent writing. So I was thinking that I'd very
much appreciate your help with the class, if you think you'd like to pitch in
a bit. I think they could use your help."

You could've knocked me over with a feather.

Later, some in the TCF department figured out what I'd done, and began to
raise hell. They went to Norman and felt I ought to be booted. He felt that
I really should stay, and stay I did.

He took me under his wing then, and for a long time thereafter. He had
much to teach, and I had much to learn. I thought I actually knew how to
write...five minutes with him taught me that I knew *nothing*. Norman taught
by word, by edit, and by example. I went out and read everything he had ever
written, and you could take any one of them and parse and study it over and
over, and still not be able to figure out how he did what he did...how, with
only a few words, he could evoke an image, trigger an emotion, grab you by the
shoulders and shake you. It's the nearest thing to close-up magic I've ever
seen. He's *that* good.

Oddly enough, some of what he wrote could be considered (in the loosest
sense of the word) fantasy, of a sort. No two pieces were ever quite
alike...hard dramas, delightful and fanciful pieces, jeremiads that thunder'd
and lightning'd and corrected like a caring but concerned father attempting to
pull his children, our nation, back from the brink.

Long after the session, we continued and grew as friends, visiting,
having dinner, hanging out. (Though it's not quite right to describe Norman
"hanging out;" somehow it just doesn't fit.) He still teaches once in a while
at Idlwylde, by the way.

To quote Ray Bradbury, "He taught us then not only how to open our
mouths, but how to insert bright pebbles beneath our tongues so that
eventually we might fire forth a sentence not only worth listening to but
thinking about."

And, later: "When I published my first book, Dark Carnival, in 1947, I
somehow got Norman's phone number and address from a conniving secretary at
CBS Radio. I sent Norman my book with a note saying, `If you like my book as
much as I love you and your work, please let me buy you a drink some
afternoon.' A few days later, Norman called and said, `You're not buying me
drinks, I'm buying you *dinner*." The dinner has lasted forever. And what a
feast."

jms