Interview: Charles Templeton

In the debut episode of eMerge Unchained, Aubrey Green of Blue Clover Editing sits down with Charles Templeton, author and founder of eMerge Magazine, to explore the origins of the literary platform that has captivated writers and readers alike. Charles opens up about the vision behind eMerge, his own creative process, and the struggle over "unsweetened" tea. Don’t miss this in-depth conversation that kicks off the series with inspiration, humor, and the inside scoop on what it takes to launch a literary revolution!

Special host: A.lbert I.chabod, an AI narrator from Speechify. Want to hear your work read out-loud? Speechify is a great resource. https://speechify.com/

Transcript

eMerge Magazine (00:00)
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to Emerge Unchained, where authors and poets reveal their ancient secrets of procrastination, the mystical rituals they perform to ward off writer's block, and the true horror of staring down the blank page. I'm your emcee and tour guide, Chad Gurley, and we're here to ask the tough questions.

Like how many cups of coffee does it really take to finish a novel? Or what TV series do you binge when writer's block strikes? In this very first episode brought to you by our amazing partner, Blue Clover Editing, we're especially excited to have Aubrey Green from Blue Clover hosting our interviews. And to kick things off with a plot twist, we're starting our interviews with founder of eMerge and author Charles Templeton. Now to give this episode the weight it deserves,

We've asked our very own Albert Ichabod to introduce Charles. So stay tuned for an episode that promises to be as captivating as your favorite cliffhanger.

Welcome listeners to the Emerge Unchained podcast. Today we are thrilled that Aubrey Green will be interviewing Emerge founder and author, Charles Templeton. We couldn't be more delighted. But first, let me provide a little background. Charles Templeton was born in Deep East, Texas in 1946. So deep, they had to pipe in the sunshine.

His parents were nomads in the Mojave Desert in the 50s where Chuck Yeager taught him how to crush beer cans on his forehead. After being dismissed from the Copay Lincoln Therapeutic Boarding School for miscreant teenage girls, he attended Sherman High School in Sherman, Texas. Charles was admitted to Austin College only after promising to bring back all of the furniture that had disappeared from the office of the president.

In 1967, just as the president of the college predicted, Charles found himself in the Marine Corps. He boarded a Caribbean bound helicopter carrier with his squadron in the spring of 1968. Their mission was to prevent the insurgent Cuban communist guerrillas from invading Florida. His squadron was so successful that Charles was promoted to corporal and received orders for Vietnam shortly afterward.

There, Charles served as a Marine Corps helicopter crew chief in HMM 265 in 1968, where he earned his aircrew wings and flew over 150 missions. Charles was promoted to sergeant and received orders for the presidential helicopter squadron when his squadron was ordered to stand down in 1969. It was in 1973 when Charles completed his BA at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.

and earned a Masters of Education from North Texas State University in 1974 after paying off his excessive parking fines. After a career in education in Texas and becoming a hundredaire, Charles retired. He moved with the love of his life, Sandra, to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. He has three adult daughters and five granddaughters who continue to bring joy, love and headaches from laughter into his world.

He still enjoys blur to hear brownies, a templatini, and listening to music from the Vietnam era. Life never seems to grow old, just his knees. Charles is still a voracious reader and lover of the written and wakes up every day, thankful for the gifts he has been given and looking forward to whatever adventures the day brings, knowing that whatever happens, it beats shoveling shit in the South China Sea.

All right. So here we go. Yeah. Hi. How are you doing today? Doing really well, Aubrey. Now that we finally have the interview going. Yes. Yeah, for real. It's been a little awkward this morning, but that's okay.

Yeah, yeah, it has been. I was trying to get the letter out to the people who won the Woody Barlow Poetry Contest. And while I'm sending them their individual letters, the Facebook is dinging me because Chad's already put it up. And so I had to work extra fast to get that out. So yeah, you can't keep things like that a secret. No, you can't.

No, it's very difficult. Well, we're not trying to keep it a secret though. We want everybody to know. Yeah. You need to tell people faster. Yeah, we just had, yeah, it was just a really wonderful creative group of submissions that we got this year. And so yeah, we spent a lot of time on it. Well, you know, you got the judge, you were one of our judges. So yeah.

I'm curious, so about how many submissions did you end up getting, do you know? Over 150. Nice. Yeah. So yeah, it was, it was, it was really more than last year. So I was kind of surprised, but very, very happy about it. Excellent. So I'm curious, how, just how long has eMERGE

magazine than a thing because I was introduced to it probably about three years ago. But how long has it been around? We started in 2017. And at the time I was on the board of the writers colony at Derry Hollow. And we were looking for something else that we could do for the people who were staying there.

who were staying at the colonnade to come and write. And we thought, one thing that all, guess, I don't want to say novice writers, but those beginning in the trade, no matter what age that they need is a platform, you know, to showcase their work. And so it started from that premise. And

We took it over in...

2023. You know, we've had it back for a year. We had it for when I say we, I mean, my family, because my daughter does, she's the web developer. So she maintains the website. And my wife does the, I guess, the artistic part of it. She is the one that

rifles through all kinds of photographs trying to find something that will go with each poem. And so, and now we've got Chad who maintains our Facebook page. But at the time when we started it, we had one one online publication the first year is all we had. And then the second year we had two. And the third year I think we had two.

And then, yeah, entering the fourth year, we had four. And so we maintained four issues a year for three or four years now. And then when we, my family took over Emerge, the writers colony didn't want to do the upkeep of it anymore. So we just took it back. And they're still one of our featured partners.

And we try to promote them as much as we can because, well, you know, they were kind of impetus for the literary magazine to begin with. yeah, we didn't want to see it disappear. If you look at the number of online magazines that disappear every year, they come, they stay two or three years, and they're gone. And so we didn't want that.

to happen to emerge. wanted to try to keep it going because it has been so important in the lives of so many people that write for it. that's, you know, and that's why we're doing it. You know, we're not, we're not going to make a fortune off this thing. This is not WW Norton or whatever. Yeah, this is

silence, do good books is what this is amounted to. But then when we took it back over, we thought, well, okay, it's going to have to support itself eventually. So do we want to do this with advertising? Or do we want to do it with charitable contributions?

So we talked about it and we did not and after looking at other literary magazines and I'm not casting aspersions on them or anything like that. But the ones that rely on pop-up ads and ads, know, it just interferes with what you go there to do, which is read

new material by new young authors and new young poets or new old authors and new old poets. So, yeah, so that's, so we wanted to maintain the

the online presence of the magazine so that it wasn't being interfered with. So we decided to go the charitable contribution route. anyone listening would like to make a donation, go to emergemagazine.com and do that. Yeah, and so, but the contest have helped a little bit too because they basically pay for themselves.

We don't have to worry about that too much. And- you have the poetry contest, which we just finished, the Woody Barlow Poetry Contest. And what is your other contest? The Nikki Hanna Literary Challenge. And it's a short story contest that we do. We'll be doing that in the spring.

And yeah, it's a, it'll be interesting to see what kind of short stories we get this year. Yeah, because it's open, you know, you'll get stuff that make you cry and make you laugh and that kind of thing. And it's just, well, it's like the poetry, we don't have a theme. So it's so it's open. And so you get some real moving pieces of poetry.

like we got this time, like I have a photo, which was a very moving, very endearing piece. And then you get prose poetry like Simone Banks, know, a swampy area south of Morgan City, which was unusually well done for prose poetry. And it was one of our winners.

Yeah.

It's nice to be able to have the variety. I've read and I've written in contests and things that have themes and that don't have themes. I've done both. And it really does make a difference. It's kind of like writing poetry with structure or not. You kind of feel a little constrained, but the challenge is also fun. I think contests with themes are similar. Yeah.

It is kind of structured, you know, because you're going to be writing to that theme or opposed to that theme or looking at it from a totally different perspective. And so I mean, but if you get like 200 entries that are all about a circus clown that, you know, sells donuts in the morning or something. I mean, it's gonna

That's a very, very narrow theme. That might be challenging. Well, yeah, I suppose it could be. but yeah, it's a yeah, having it open is it makes it a lot more difficult to judge to I think, you know, because you're if because there's an emotional piece of it.

you know, as well as the mental interpretation of what you're reading. And so, yeah, if it's, if it's not emotional, if it's just bringing you to a point where you go, I've never thought about this before. You know, to me, that is kind of an emotional aha kind of moment. But

And we had several poems like that. so, yeah, it was... It's always interesting to look at the worldview of others through poetry. absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it's just a little slice of humanity, you know, but when taken as a whole, it's interesting.

to read and see. And even at my age where I know everything, been everywhere, done everything twice, know, the old Navy SEAL saying, you know, I've been around the world twice, talked to everybody once. It's just not true. There's always something new. And it's always fun to read the stuff that we get.

So do you still consider the magazine to be focused towards emerging writers or do you also like getting work from people who are more established in the literary community? yeah, have several that are pretty well established in the literary community. Bill Bernhardt, I talked him into writing poetry for his one time and he's pretty well established, I think.

Pretty well, yeah. How many books does he have out? Some beautiful poetry. I mean, and I was a little surprised, but not really, because like I got hooked on his Daniel Pike series, you know, and so I know how he can weave words together really well. you know, like when I was writing my book, my wife told me.

I probably shouldn't tell this story on myself. She said that I didn't need to be writing love scenes. I wasn't good at it. gosh. Yeah. And so, yeah, my advice to Bill Bernhardt would be don't write about mechanical things because you're not very good at that.

Anyway, his poetry was just wonderful. But the way he developed his characters in his books, and that over time, and they develop a little bit differently in each book, you know, because you're continually growing all the time. Well, you could see how

how much attention Bill pays to characters in his poetry because he had these interesting people in his poems also. And it just made you want to know him and want to meet him. But Bill already told you the most important thing. So yeah, it was really interesting. And then the...

One of our new featured partners, which is the Transformative Language Arts Network. Chad just went to their workshop in Kansas City and Karen Miriam Goldberg is one of their presenters in poets and heavily involved in TLA. And she was like poet laureate of Kansas for like eight years.

Yeah. And so having having the established people writing also, you know, and being judges in your contests, that kind of thing is extremely helpful. And it's extremely helpful to the new authors that come on, you know, that have maybe never

seen anything in to be published before. And so it helps him also. you have any? I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Do you have any suggestions or, or tips to give people who who haven't really submitted work before or maybe are hesitant?

Yeah, read the directions on the submission page, please. And then we'll go from there. Yeah, and most people do read the directions and very rarely do we have to text and kind of walk people through.

I think my daughter has the submission form set up pretty well right now. So, and we're fixing to open fixing to that's my texting coming out there. But we're in the process of opening the submissions for 2025 on the website. So, Yeah.

Is has there been a particular piece over the years that has really stood out to you that you still remember or? Yeah, there's, there's, they're innumerable. Yeah, every, listen, I love the reading period. I love, I love the submission period from October. Okay, first of October, or second of October or

whenever my daughter gets a submission side up, we'll be open and till the end of November. And as the submissions come in, just man, that is a fun time for me is, you know, choosing what's going to go in. And a lot of the Woody Barlow poetry contest entries will be in a 2025 issue.

And we're trying to get the winners up right now so that people can go there and at least read what the winners have written. Yeah, I'm thinking Morris McCorvey, who I think is from Tulsa, has written some short stories. And I think he recently passed away with cancer. But

He's short stories and he's also a poet and he has this phenomenal voice.

he would have made, he would have put Morgan Freeman to shame if he'd had done the movie about the penguins. Morris's voice was so good. and we at one time we were having poets that wanted to read their work and put it online. And Bill McLeod took advantage of that. I think maybe Morris did too, but there's

to people that can read their own works. And it's much more meaningful to you when you hear them read it, you know, than it is when you try to read it yourself. But then, like Bill Clad, I find myself trying to read it in his voice when I get something from him. Morris had a,

He wrote a short story called Rosebuds. And if you get a chance, you can go on a merge and we have a little search engine and you can type in the writer's name, Morris, and it'll pop up Morris McCorby and you click on it. It'll take you and show you everything he's written. Or you can just do type in Rosebuds and it'll pull up Rosebuds by Morris McCorby. So we've got a nice search engine.

for emerge and which is, I have very few literary magazines have a search engine where you can go back and type in a name and find the archives and very easy to navigate. I've noticed that your site has been a lot easier to get around than some I've been to. Yeah, me too. Yeah.

Like if I got a right hand pointing and want to read something by Bill McLeod, I have to look forever to find something. You have to know exactly when or what issue they were published in. And yeah, that can be challenging. Yeah, it can be. But so anyway, so Morris's story, Rosebuds, was about a bunch of guys in jail. And they're watching Citizen Kane.

And they're discussing it at the end. And I mean, it is like, it's like Morris was there in the jail cell with him discussing this. And so the story was just, it just stuck with me. It was just fascinating. And, and the jailer.

kept coming by, wanting to get in on the movie and received a particularly inventive tongue lashing from some of inmates who didn't want to share the story. And the meaning it had for them was totally different than the meaning it had for me.

I saw the movie. And so I had to go back and watch it again. And, and look at it from a different perspective. And look at it from Morris's perspective and those inmates that were in jail. And, and so yeah, that, kind of stuck with me. And then a lot of Bill's poetry sticks with me. And because, you know, it's, it's kind of like,

He leaves it up to you to decide what the point means to you. and if you, Bill and I have done, have done this thing where I will say, okay, does it mean this? Well, no, doesn't mean that I said, okay, but you tell me it means whatever I think it means, but

And then you tell me no, doesn't. he's like, we'll go back and read it again. So so we have this, you know, little thing going on. but it really is. He leaves it so it can have two, three, four different meanings. And so if you try to pin it down, he's not gonna let you do that. Because

That wasn't the purpose of the poem. The purpose of the poem was for you to think, well, it could mean this and it could mean this, you know, and for you to have to think about, which

I try to do about once a month, I try to sit down and think about something. It's very painful. don't like to do it. Yeah, don't don't stress yourself. Don't strain. No, no, really. But yeah, there. there are a lot of memorable pieces. gosh. Yeah, it's just my brain right now is like, high speed.

I to spring some hard questions on you. Yeah, I really want to you time to think about things. Yeah. What is your favorite place to submit your own work? Do you have some place that you like to submit to? No, I don't really. I submitted a couple of short stories to OWFI.

just because the submission fee was right. Yes, it is, isn't it? And I wanted to see what it was like, you know, to participate. But yeah, I haven't really submitted a lot. Somebody submitted my book to a contest that was a finalist. But yeah, I really don't.

I really don't think about doing that. I, my writing is more like, for me, or mine's more therapeutic. And I like to write entertaining stuff. I know. I hate to be bored. Yeah. And, and that's why we have on our website, don't bore us, you know, send us stuff that's

out there. It's different. I haven't had a really true horror story yet. I don't think we've had one on on the moon. Yeah, I think we've had we've had some Halloween stories, but they were more entertaining than they were, you know, scary. But no, no real horror stories. No.

Yeah. Writers out there need to remedy that. yeah. Yeah. We could use a couple of our stories. Hmm. Anything else like that you don't receive much of or, or would just really like to see more of? Yeah. Nikki Anna, who we named the short story contest after. I would love to see more of her work.

come in. Never get too much of her work. I know. Really? She she she's one of those people that you want to kind of model some of her characteristics after you know, she asked her to read over a couple of short stories of mine and tell me what she thought. And she said, you know, I'm brutal. And I said,

Okay, B, do your worst. I'm ready. But you're never ready. But anyway, she sent me back a lot of ideas and corrections and everything. There was nothing brutal about it. was stuff that you go, I should have seen that. I didn't see I should have seen that. But

and very generous in her praise of pieces she liked and great ideas about how to clean up something that was stilted or

needed to be tightened up, you know, because I've noticed that there are some of my run on sentences or paragraphs, you know, they have to be cleaned up. And so, and she's, she's just, she's a real good coach that way. Yeah, yeah, she is. Yeah. And

Well, it reminds me a little bit of your advice on the anthology that I was working on. And so you helped us clean that up and get it and get it in much better shape. And I liked it because you said, I don't usually comment on things, but I'm going to comment on this story. I thought, okay, she's got some Nicky Hanna in her.

Well, I have had lunch with Nikki a couple of times, so she's she's rubbed off on me a bit. Yeah. That's a good thing. This is the Miracle in the Woods 50th anniversary anthology of stories and essays from Clear Spring School, of which you were our proofreader. And I appreciate your proofreading skills. I appreciate getting to proofread. Well, we are almost out of time.

It's giving me a message that we're going to need to wrap up here soon. So do you have any final words for authors and poets and listeners? Yes, I do. It really and it's like you asking me about submissions. Have I submitted to anything? I got I got to say it takes a lot of courage.

to share a piece of yourself with others. Okay, because it just does or to tell a story that's personal to you or to write a poem that's very personal to you and to put it out there for others to criticize or to a bore or to love. It takes a certain amount

of courage. And because I mean, think about meeting someone new, you don't immediately spill the most important stuff in your life to them. Usually, yeah, you want to build up this trust. And an interesting thing is, poets, in particular, have a

built the interest with other poets, somehow, it's like, they can sit and talk about the most intricate way to weave words. so, but to take that and then share it with a lot of people that you don't know, it takes a amount of courage to do that. And so my suggestion would be just to bite the bullet and submit to

whoever you want to submit to. Don't worry about rejection. There's, there's, there's a magazine out there somewhere that will read your work and want to publish it. And so yeah, just keep trying and don't give up. And if you've got something to say, it's important that others hear it. Very good.

All right, I have one final question for you. Sure. Ice tea. Are you a sweet tea drinker or an unsweet tea drinker?

See, you just hit one of my pet peeves. There's just tea and sweet tea. There is not tea, sweetened tea, and unsweetened tea. And it's like, you go into a restaurant in Eureka Springs and you want tea, and they'll ask you, well, do you want that unsweetened or sweetened? It's like, if I say tea, what does that tell you?

It's like, I know it's all semantics, you know, but we all have our little pet peeves and that's mine. Because I grew up in the South and you had either tea or you had sweet tea and that's how you ordered it. I want sweet tea or I want tea. You say I want unsweetened tea. That means they would have taken all the sugar out of it.

because it had already been sweetened. I can see your point. I had not thought about it that way. Yeah. So yeah. Well, thank you very much for your time today. We appreciate it. yeah. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to Emerge Unchained, where we peel back the layers of the creative process, one procrastination trick at a time. If you've enjoyed these writerly confessions, coffee counts, and binge-worthy insights, make sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode. We'll be dropping new episodes every first and third Sunday of the month, so grab your favorite mug, settle in, and get ready for more twists, turns, and creative revelations. Until next time, I'm Chad Gurley.

from Emerge Magazine. Keep those pens moving and those coffee cups full.