By John Maruskin

Clark County Public library

This Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., the Clark County Public Library’s 2017 Fall/Winter Writer Series begins with a presentation by local author, poet and Winchester Sun columnist Chuck Witt presenting a program entitled “This Pen for Hire.” The program title, of course, is a take-off of the 1942 film “This Gun for Hire” starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.

You might think that’s incongruous for a talk about writing, but over the past few years, Chuck has written some A-1 ripping good thrillers about Michael Tate, a contract assassin living on a small farm outside of Winchester. The Michael Tate stories are wonderful for their well-paced plots and meticulously rendered characters and settings, and for their clear, crisp, beautifully structured sentences and paragraphs.

Chuck has been unveiling his Michael Tate stories a chapter at a time to the participants of the library’s Friday morning writing group, Write Local. They are so popular that we usually insist Chuck reads last. In that way, his chapter acts as our serial cliff-hanger. However, there’s a lot more to Chuck’s writing than sinister targets for UMP 45’s.

Chuck has written some absolutely mind-boggling alternative historical fiction, touching lyrical poetry, challenging military poetry and humorous memoirs, along with the bi-weekly columns for the Sun. Chuck says he never knows how the piece is going to proceed or where the piece is going to end when he begins. Chuck was an architect and over the years he developed an innate sense for the precisely right components — for a writer, words — and a scrupulous sense of how to develop a structure, or for a writer, a plot.

No writer can download their art into the mind of a listener, but anyone who is interested in writing can learn a lot by listening to a fine writer talk about his or her work.

This program is free and open to the public; registration is suggested, but not necessary. This event will also be a great time for members of the Winchester/Clark County Writers Community to get to know each other, share ideas and trade tips. Bring your notebooks, pens and journals and get inspired.

From 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16, Sue-Z Early, the Queen Bead of Winchester, will show you how to make a fabulous paperclip necklace. Sue-Z wore one to Meeting of Minds one Tuesday night and it was stunning in its simplicity and glorious for its colors.

Need some new glitz for the upcoming field party season, the holidays, the October Keeneland meet or do you want to learn how to make delightful gifts for the cost of a box of paperclips … not to mention just having a hoot gabbing with your neighbors and friends … then come to this class on Saturday. I guarantee you will leave enlightened, bespangled, and happy. And isn’t that what Saturday is all about?

This class is limited to 12, so tap out of Instagram, now, and call the library at 744-5661 to register, or surf on over to www.clarkbooks.org and sign-up using the library’s online Evanced registration system. If you only go around once, you might as well do it natty.

Other programs this week:

— Tuesday at 10 a.m., Internet 2. Learn more efficient ways to search, copy and paste information and print from the web.

— Wednesday at 2 p.m., Kentucky Picture Show presents a 1948 Humphrey Bogart classic that explores the rhetorical assertion, “Badges! We don’t need no stinking badges!” Fred Dobbs and Bob Curtin, two Americans searching for work in Mexico, convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

— Friday, Write Local. After Chuck’s program on Wednesday, you’ll want to catch the next installment of Michael Tate. Bring your own work, too.

It’s safe to say that every writer represented in the library spent a lot of time at a library.

John Maruskin is director of adult services at the Clark County Public library. He can be reached at john.clarkbooks@gmail.com.