The View Up Here

Mired in mid-semester grading, and after a jam-packed weekend in Cleveland with my in-laws, I'm finally getting to finishing my thoughts and reactions to the Serling Conference. 1. Meeting Andrew Smith was absolutely an unexpected bonus to the weekend. Drew was a presenter at the conference, and was also collecting interviews to edit a piece for BBC Radio back in his home town of Gateshead, U.K. My husband, Don, and I made sure he didn't lack for eats and things to do after the conference. Now we've started a jar to save up our nickels and dimes for a visit to Drew's neck of the woods across the pond. You can check out more of his conference adventures and audio interviews with George Clayton Johnson here: Illegible Me. 2. Meeting Carol Serling after she watched my presentation at the mini-course. Such an honor and what a lovely woman. She seemed to think my ideas were interesting, which was gracious of her to say. The students didn't fall asleep, and it was a...

A close friend of mine, Myron Rumsey, has started this venture: The Blog of OA . Give him a shout, especially if you're into comics!

I'm just coming off of a contact high. I spent time this weekend with George Clayton Johnson , TV and film writing veteran, as well as other notables at The Rod Serling Conference at Ithaca College . This week marked the 50th anniversary of The Twilight Zone, and to celebrate, Serling's hometown of Binghamton and his chosen home of Ithaca both put on a spectacular weekend of events. The Conference included scholarly presentations from around the world on Serling's work, and also presented more personal, intimate sketches of the man's life from his friends and colleagues. The special guest of the conference was, of course, George Clayton Johnson, who wrote four episodes of TZ as well as numerous other teleplays including Star Trek's " The Man Trap ." Clayton was a joy to watch and listen to; at 80 he is exuberant if not eccentric, and tells it like it is, as far as he's concerned. I was honored to present the panel session with the top three winners...