| About Duck'n'Cover
Duck and Cover began as a nameless editorial that I wrote once for my high school paper, for the special Valentines Day issue. At the time I thought that writing a humorous editorial would likely be only a one time thing because I was busy thinking that I'd never, ever be able to make a living as a writer, certainly not as the kind of writer I wanted to be, which was one in control of a massive, one-woman, syndicated empire. Instead, I was busy writing fake movie scripts staring my friends as characters. So I wrote a two page little ditty about how whacked out society's perceptions of beauty was (and is), turned it in, and called it a day.
Later that year I found myself attending a Perspective Student Weekend at my now Alma Mater, Eckerd College. There I roomed with a girl who was to be editor-in-chief of the college newspaper, The Triton, the following year. Well, when she found out I wanted to be a writer, she recruited me right quick, and by the following fall, I was once again writing humorous editorials, this time weekly under the name of "Iz's Corner".
I hated that name. It seemed like everything in the world was relegated to corners, especially writing. I didn't want my writing to be in a corner, so I thought long and hard about a new name for what was now my column in the Editorials section. Eventually I came up with "Duck and Cover". I have no idea why, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the name, though I hadn't a clue as to what it was supposed to mean. I still don't.
Well, time passed, as it does, and I was busy clacking away at my keyboard to write this weekly thingamajig, tackling the oh-so-up-to-the-moment and important topics that plagued my college campus, like classes, papers, and midterms. I did this for the most part weekly for the entirety of my freshman year and was informed by many of the students that "Duck and Cover" was the only thing they ever read in the paper.
This swelled my already large head (I have a lot of hair, which makes it look even larger), and I began to think of making "Duck and Cover" bigger, into a real force to be reckoned with. In fact, I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I could sell "Duck and Cover" to other papers, and get myself a little bit of syndication going.
That never happened. But I did start writing about topics that didn't just concern the Eckerd College community.
"Duck and Cover" continued to appear in The Triton for the rest of the year, and into my sophomore year, surviving the political coup that overthrew the editor-in-chief that originally recruited me, until I finally couldn't take the current editor any more, and quit the paper all together.
"Duck and Cover" was dead, it seemed, never to return.
The first semester of my senior year, I went to London with a few of the then current staff of The Triton, which had once again, and several times, undergone political upheaval in the position of editor-in-chief. I was informed that I had to come back to the paper, and that I had to write "Duck and Cover" again, even if it was only for one more semester before I graduated. I gave the idea a great deal of thought and even decided to go ahead and do it.
Then I came home, discovered my boyfriend had basically cheated on me (we broke up while I was abroad, but he neglected to mention the fact that he and the girl I found him in bed with had been hitting on each other before that eventful phone call across the pond), re-organized my priorities, and spent my entire last semester yanking hair out of my big head trying to complete my senior thesis and write poetry that wasn't too angsty and angry towards the male sex. Once again, "Duck and Cover" was no more.
I am now living in Gainesville, attempting to find work and to decide what it is I'm going to do with this piece of paper informing everyone that I have a BA in Creative Writing. And in the process of my rediscovery of the fact that, yes, I really do want that giant, freelance empire, I have decided to bring "Duck and Cover" back in one last incarnation, and see if it doesn't go anywhere. I plan to cover such thrilling topics as cats, the work force, artistry, and technology, and generally point out the world for the great big cosmic joke that it really is.
I hope you enjoy it.
Iz Church, July, 2003
|
