Special to the Town Crier
Los Altos Hills resident Terry J. DeHart was puzzled when he received a letter from "Writer's Digest" magazine informing him "a freelance writer in your area ... would like to write a profile of you."
It wasn't until he reached the last two paragraphs that he understood why he was noteworthy: "Thank you for your interest in the 'Writer's Digest' Annual Competition and congratulations on your sixth place finish in the Mainstream/Literary Short Story category. Your prize package should be arriving within the next two weeks."
The prize for writers placing sixth through 10th in each of the categories may not seem like much: $25, a year's subscription to "Writer's Digest" and a copy of "2000 Writer's Market" - considered the bible of reference manuals for writers serious about publishing. However, in the world of literary short-story writing, where an author often receives no payment, or payment in copies, it's a big prize. Much more important, however, is the international recognition. "Writer's Digest" has a circulation of more than 215,000.
This year, the annual "Writer's Digest" competition received nearly 13,000 entries in 10 categories.
DeHart said he is thrilled that his story, "Living Off the Land," finished sixth out of 2,291 entries in his category. "I have to tell you that the first time I entered that contest, I came in 42nd place. And now I'm sixth," he said.
DeHart, 39, is originally from Portland, Ore. After a four-year stint in the Marines, he attended Oregon State University, where he met his wife, Sabra, the daughter of Robert A. Loney of Los Altos Hills. In 1991, he, Sabra, and their daughter Terra, now 10, moved in with Sabra's father in Los Altos Hills.
DeHart has honed his craft by taking writing classes at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills and "several creative writing classes through Stanford's Continuing Studies Program," he said.
DeHart keeps a writer's journal, full of bits and pieces, phrases, and settings. "It's very important," he said. "The journal is the best way, I think, to get warmed up, to use as a sounding board for ideas and to write in a completely stress-free environment. ... The journal is much more free, I think, for me than to sit down and say, 'I'm going to write a story now, and I have to stick with it.' In a journal, I can meander and wander and let the ideas come and get me."
Most of DeHart's stories originate from ideas first noted in the journal. While he writes fiction, "the setting is almost always autobiographical for a writer," he said. "You put yourself in a setting and start writing about the setting, and pretty soon, your 'self' starts to vanish and characters start to emerge."
"Living Off the Land" is an example of this technique, DeHart said. His family drove cross country to family reunions several times when he was a kid in the late 1970s.
"Hours and hours staring out the car window going cross country," he recalled. "At the time, it seems like you're bored to death, but you're not, not if you take things in, if you open your eyes and see what's really out there."
DeHart tries to write at least 1,200 words per day, "which is about three pages in the journal and then I'll play with fiction. Revision, I can't really set a word limitation because that's much slower," he said. "It takes 10-to-20 times as long to revise as it does to write."
In other contests, DeHart has received "a whole list of honorable mentions and 'shows' and 'close but no cigars' - A whole lot of 'close but no cigars,'" he said, chuckling.
At the time of his submission to the "Writer's Digest" contest, DeHart was working part-time as an administrative assistant at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto.
On Nov. 29, he accepted a full-time job as a technical writer. He and Sabra now have a second child, 15-month-old Brenna, and "it's time to earn some more money," he said.
DeHart now gets up at 5 a.m. to write and is currently working on a novel. He won't discuss its premise, though, for fear of jinxing the creative process.
However, when asked what genre the novel would be in, he responded, with a hearty laugh, "Well, I'm hoping it'll be commercial!"