My Wyoming Valley Memoir

My Wyoming Valley Memoir
http://maureenkatsellas.blogspot.com/

Over the years I've read a lot of blogs. Blogs written by teenagers, twenty-somethings, older folks, even the elderly. I've gotten to develop an eye for writing styles and the use of language. I've known people in all these age groups in the bricks-and-mortar world, as well, and I've learned to adapt to the cadences and rhythms of their speech patterns.

I've known a lot of writers and actors, too. I know that, as a writer, sometimes authentically recreating the language of the real world paradoxically fails to produce dialogue readers will find believable. Sometimes tropes and stereotypical patterns have to be added in to create a character who meets the expectations of and is instantly recognizable by readers. For an actor, this is even more important: if you fail to convince your audience that you are the character you are playing right out of the gate, you've lost them.

In my current job I talk to a lot of people from all over the country. And I do know that some of them speak in a way that seems full of stereotypes and tropes, that seems more like an actor playing a part than an authentic voice. But I accept that they are real.

On My Wyoming Valley Memoir Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas doesn't write like any elderly person I've ever read.  Here is how she introduces herself on her sidebar:

I am a Senior Citizen in her Golden Years who has taken to the wide world web through blogging and chat forums. I am a feminist, a widow, Catholic, and mother of 2 grown children who hate me with a passion. They never call, and I recently began having therapy to deal with all of the lesbians who are in my life at the moment. That's why I'm online with the interwebs, sharing myself on the information super highway from the safety and privacy of my home in beautiful Northeastern Pennsylvania, birthplace of Joe Biden. Please note that I employ noms de plume, thusly altering the spelling and pronounciation of certain persons and locales in order to retain privacy, except when discussing celebrities and public figures, through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Her writing is very reminiscent of a character created by a certain writer/poet/actor I know. (Conor M., is that you?) It is also reminiscent of someone else I saw posting a while back in Facebook discussions of the Hotel Sterling, though that person called herself "Bertha."

Whatever the case may be, Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas has put a lot of effort into My Wyoming Valley Memoir. Check it out for an amusing take on life in the Wyoming Valley, and life in general!

My Wyoming Valley Memoir
http://maureenkatsellas.blogspot.com/