GEORGE WATERS: A COLUMNIST WHO CAN
WRITE LIKE WILL ROGERS
by Robert L. Haught
California freelance columnist George
Waters captured the style of one of the
most successful communicators of all
time to become the top prize winner in
the Will Rogers Writing Contest
sponsored by the National Society of
Newspaper Columnists.
His humorous commentary,
“A 21st Century Rope Trick”, was judged the best of all entries received in the nationwide competition. Submissions were received from writers in 17 states and one province in Canada.
Waters, a native Southern Californian, began his writing career only five years ago at the age of 40 after a decade as circulation manager for L.A. Parent magazine. (That wasn’t quite as late in life as Will Rogers, who in December 1922, when he was 43, wrote the first of 667 weekly articles, which he continued until his death in 1935.) Before that time the only writing George had done was for his high school newspaper. He applied his talents and energy and in a relatively short length of time became a replacement for Dave Barry. Here’s how it happened:
“I saw an ad for ‘Columnist Wanted’ in a free paper that got tossed on my driveway on Sundays, and I thought I could write as well as the guy they were replacing,” Waters said. “So I worked up a writing sample and sent it in, and got hired for a biweekly general interest column about various happenings about town -- whatever I found interesting. I named it ‘On the Waters Front.’
“After a couple of years biweekly in the freebie, the other writer who wrote for the paper on alternate weeks bailed out, and my column became weekly. Another year later, Dave Barry quit writing his regular column, and the parent company of the free paper asked if I wanted to fill the available column space writing for the Sunday edition of their three regular newspapers, the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Whittier Daily News.
“So I have been doing that weekly for the past two years. The column goes in the entertainment section, which is inserted in all three papers, about 100,000 copies.
“After a few months,” Waters said, “I found my column was leaning more toward humor than it was general interest, and since I was filling the gap left by Dave Barry, the publishers seemed all right with that. So now it is a straight humor column. It is not displayed online by the company, however, which is why I am working up my own Web site.”
Like many other freelance part-time writers, George, a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, is working toward making writing a full-time career. He has a Masters degree in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University and his other job is as a part-time reference librarian.
When he decided to enter the Will Rogers Writing Contest, Waters spent several weeks driving around with a library book on tape of Rogers’ writings. “I really came to love his ‘voice’ – it was totally unique,” he said. “We haven’t seen his like since.”
Having won the contest’s top prize of a free registration for the Will Rogers Writers’ Workshop, Waters said he is looking forward to being in Oklahoma City next March 15-17 to attend his first writing conference. He said he is especially interested in going to a workshop session with W. Bruce Cameron, award-winning columnist and author of The New York Times best-seller, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teen-age Daughter and How To Remodel a Man. Cameron won first place in the 2006 Robert Benchley Humor Prize Competition. As a workshop speaker, he was ineligible to compete in the Will Rogers Writing Contest.
“Good thing,” Waters says.
Waters is married to a high school English teacher, Jennifer – “my personal editor and pre-print critic” – and they have a daughter, Emily, who is nine, and a son, Ben, who is five.
“I live in Pasadena, Calif., where every New Year’s Day my house is buzzed by the stealth bomber as it launches the Rose Parade,” he said.
That’s a great topic for a humor column, and George Waters could write it in his own style or Will’s.
The second place winner in the Will Rogers Writing Contest, Eileen Mitchell of Palatine, Ill., previously taught literature and writing at the College of Lake County in Grayslake, Ill. Her essays have been published in a new book, America’s Funniest Humor, and on a related Web site, www.HumorPress.com. She is pursuing publication of two humor novellas she recently completed. Eileen is an ardent fan of Max Shulman, a 20th century American writer best known for his creation of Dobie Gills, a character in short stories which later became the basis for a TV series. He also wrote several best-selling novels, including Barefoot Boy With Cheek, The Feather Merchants, The Zebra Derby, Sleep Till Noon and Rally Round The Flag Boys.
Marie Hawk is the pen name of Mary Lyn Landis of Oroville, Wash., who won third place in the contest. She writes knowledgeably about farming and ranching and is the only contestant to claim she could shoe a horse. A member of The Net Wits, she produces wild and funny stories from “the town of Eyesore, in the middle of nowhere.”
Robert L. Haught is Secretary of NSNC and director of the Will Rogers Writers’ Workshop
