I am a 68 year old male. I live in NJ and have been writing seriously for the past five years or so. Over the years, I've composed some halfway decent poems, but have only recently tried my hand at writing short stories and reflective essays. I've been tutoring a brother and sister, of Indian descent, for several years now, and the two stories I'd like to eventually share were written for them. I'm looking forward to reading and critiqueing a few stories from other Writing Forum members. - Jupiter Thorne
By any chance your name isn't a reference to Jupiter Jones ("Jupe") of The Three Investigators, is it? Probably not, but you're old enough (even older than me!) that you just might know what I'm talking about. At any rate, welcome to our strange little forum.
Welcome. Are those the Alfred Hitchcock mystery novels? Hitchcock makes random appearances for some reason?
@JUPITER THORNE —sorry we're talking about all this stuff that has nothing to do with you, aside from a possible connection to your name. But hey, your thread is getting some action! Spoiler: Irrelevant discussion Yeah, when I bought it in grade school it was "Presented by Alfred Hitchcock", and was published by Scholastic, which sent catalogs to schools and the kids could buy books out of them. Got a few good ones that way. Then many years later, out of nostalgia, I sought out another copy on eBay. Found one published in the 80's by Random House (I think Scholastic was an imprint of theirs?) It no longer said presented by Hitchcock, and his intro was replaced with one by somebody else. I think Hitchcock's TV show was really popular around the time the original was published. The book was The Green Ghost, their best-known adventure, and the only one anybody has heard of as far as I can determine. Lol I don't remember Hitch showing up in the story, but he did write the back cover blurb and I think the intro. It may well have been someone else writing 'as' him, and he just signed off on it? Not sure. I suspect his involvement was the reason they got published in the first place. Now you've got me thinking, maybe Hitch did show up briefly, just a little cameo? Or they just mentioned him? Yeah, that actually does sound right. I actually found the original book after ordering the newer one, but not sure I feel like checking through it. EDIT—I can't find the original book now, but the memory is returning. I'm pretty sure they mentioned Hitch right at the beginning, while they're standing in front of the scary old 'haunted house', and they say Hitch was in town recently looking at it as a possible location for an episode of the show. 2nd EDIT—Here we go. From the 1st page (of the newer edition): "A lot of people think the house is haunted Pete. It's too bad we didn't think of it when Reginald Clarke was looking for a haunted house for one of his pictures." Mister Clarke was a special-effects expert in Hollywood. Bob was referring to a time they had tried to find a genuine haunted house for a director friend of his. "I bet Mister Clarke would have liked this place alright." Pete agreed. "But I dont." Yeah, pretty sure it didn't used to say Reginald Clarke.
Welcome. As you can see, we host regular poetry contests so feel free to take part in those. Your critiques are also very much valued but to post 1 your own you'll need to critique 2 (at least).
