Midwestern Gothic

We at Torg Stories are excited to announce that our film On the French Broad River has been accepted to the Queens World Film Festival in New York City.

The film will screen on Sunday morning March 19th, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. in the Zukor Theater at Astoria Kaufman Studios. Click here for more information about the festival.

trailer features music from Jeremy Vogt and Erika and Shawn Wellman

The seventy-five minute documentary On the French Broad River follows the journey of we four Torgs as we raft 147 miles from Rosman, North Carolina, through class III and IV whitewater rapids, all the way to Douglass Lake in Tennessee. With environmental themes related to water quality and best management practices within watersheds, this film is about the river, the people who use it, and the social and political issues that surround it. Utilizing interviews with those connected to the environmental organizations RiverLink and MountainTrue as well as with experts in the fields of biology, wildlife conservation, and geology, this is an educational and heartwarming film for the whole family.

On the French Broad River Torgerson French Broad River Paddle Trail Asheville Rosman MountainTrue RiverLink

Charlotte, Bill, Izzy and Megan Torgerson on their Star Inflatables raft

Seven years ago I made the switch from high school English teacher and basketball coach to writer and professor. Since that time, I’ve been blessed to have been hired to teach First Year Writing courses at St. John’s University in New York. I write novels, scripts, publish a podcast, and have just sent out my first documentary film for consideration at several film festivals.

Cherokee McGhee Press has published two of my novels. The first, Love on the Big Screen, tells the story of a college freshman whose understanding of love has been shaped by late-eighties romantic comedies. In writing that book, I drew upon my early dating experiences, my time riding the bench of a small-college basketball team, and my devotion to 80s films such as Say Anything and Sixteen Candles. My adaptation of that novel won the Grand Prize of the Rhode Island International Screenplay Competition.

a scene from the novel by artist Keegan Laycock

Horseshoe is my most recent novel and is set in a fictionalized version of my hometown, Winamac, Indiana. It’s a place where everyone knows everybody else’s business. Writer Bryan Fuhurness endorsed the novel by writing, “What Sherwood Anderson would have written if he had a sense of humor.”

I ask my students to write a hybrid research paper we call a Scholarly Personal Narrative. I think of Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man and Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking as examples of this sort of text that combines a personal story with scholarly research. The students also create short documentary films, follow Tweets in their area of interest, and compose ePortfolios as their final writing project.

In order to consider my professional life, I use a metaphor gifted to me by a former professor: Writing Floats on a Sea of Conversation. Given that, I invite you to respond to anything you find here as the first lines of what could be a rewarding conversation. You can get in touch with me via Twitter @BillTorg or write me an email at William.Torgerson@gmail.com

Thanks to Kathy Patrick for choosing Love on the Big Screen as a Pulpwood Queen May Bonus Book Club selection. It’s been great getting to know so many of the book club members. You are all passionate readers with big hearts, and I’m still holding onto all those hopeful vibes I picked up from you when it comes to your enthusiasm for literacy. First, I made you all a special video greeting that also previews some of the great pictures taken in Jefferson, Texas by Brooklyn-based photographer Natalie Brasington. Click on the video below to watch:

I’m also at work on a documentary film about my visit to Texas last January for Girlfriend Weekend. I’m calling it For the Love of Books, something that just popped into my head near the end of my weekend after watching everyone stuff their extra suitcases with books and as I saw book group after book group using literacy to help others. Yes, you ladies–and a few good men–have fun, but your devotion to literacy and to caring about people is what really inspired me.

If you do read Love on the Big Screen, you can find some book club discussion questions here. It might be fun to see what you think of this teacher’s idea about conversation starters. Also, if you glance over to the right of this page, you’ll see that I’m selling some extra copies of the novel that have accumulated at my house. Sometimes when I do a conference or a book festival, too many books are ordered and when those go unsold, they get returned to the publisher. Since the burden on an indie press can get pretty tough, I’ve purchased some of these copies. If you’re interested, you can purchase the book here through Pay Pal, I’ll write you a big ole thank you note inside the book, and then ship it off to you. I hope it’s okay to trouble you with mentioning that possibility. The book is available through the usual channels including Kindle, Nook, and iPad.

I’ve already made plans to return to Jefferson next year with my Midwestern Gothic novel entitled Horseshoe. For those of you who read Flannery O’Connor, I hope you’ll see some of the ways her “Misfit” fiction has influenced my writing. I’m also going to join those of you who are planning to come with Kathy to NYC this June. You can read more about the trip here. Brooke Ivey is doing a lot of the planning, and I just found out I get to lead the charge into Strand Books, a store that claims over 18 miles of titles. I don’t really know what they mean by that, but I’ve been in the store and it takes a marathoner’s stamina to make it through even one of the floors. By the way, Brooke’s mother Anita is a Pulpwood Queen!

I’m happy to interact with individual chapters of the Pulpwood Queens in lots of ways including perhaps a Skype visit or a special video that answers questions readers might have. I’m a native Indiana Hoosier, and so like David Letterman, perhaps I could do my own sort of version of reader mail. With another shot from Natalie, here’s to Texas and the Pulpwood Queens: