- [Announcer] Live from your public media studios, WVIA presents "Keystone Edition Arts," a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in northeastern and central Pennsylvania.

This is "Keystone Edition Arts."

And now, Erica Funke.

- Welcome to "Keystone Edition Arts," where we'll learn that for many years, a community in the Poconos was considered the science fiction center of the universe, and we'll hear about some really out of this world writing.

Paul Lazar sets the coordinates for our journey.

- [Paul] Science fiction and fantasy writing and art have captured audiences' attention for decades.

We present some of the people and places in Pennsylvania that bring these genres to life.

Philadelphia was home to writer Isaac Asimov in the early 1940s.

There, he wrote stories that would become part of the first novel in his "Foundation" trilogy and the Early "I, Robot" stories.

Those who delight in the visual arts can check out the Frazetta Art Museum in East Stroudsburg.

Here, you can find some of the works of Frank Frazetta, a painter and illustrator of comic books, movie posters, and album covers.

Filmmaker M Night Shyamalan grew up in Penn Valley and has based several movies in Philadelphia and Reading.

Scenes for the 1958 movie, "The Blob" were filmed in Phoenixville.

A local theater hosts an annual festival celebrating "The Alien" and chaos it causes.

The coal mine fire town of Centralia inspired the setting for the movie "Silent Hill," an adaptation of the video game of the same name.

Books, graphic novels, and movies.

There are many ways to get your science fiction and fantasy fix, especially in Pennsylvania.

For "Keystone Edition Arts," I'm Paul Lazar.

- Imagine you are watching TV, and a man is about to be lynched.

The year is 2215 and the earth is parched and abandoned, inhabited by only two groups of people, the dwellers and the drivers, the dwellers, who are white, work the drivers, who are Native American in pursuit of the one last profitable enterprise on Earth, the reclamation of scrap metal for the planet's colony on the New Angeles asteroid.

In the town of Carbon, west of the radioactive ruins of Los Angeles, a driver has been accused of attempting to rape the wife of Carbon's head dweller, and he is now seeking his own brand of vigilante justice.

Cut.

That from Christopher Metress of Sanford University.

We're about to learn the story behind science fiction tales like that by Rod Serling and more as we welcome our viewers, our audience members, and our guests.

Phoebe Wagner is assistant professor of creative writing at Lycoming College in Williamsport, and an author working at the intersection of speculative fiction and climate change.

She's co-editor of the very first anthology of solarpunk writing and art.

Larry Kassan is program director of the Rod Serling School of Fine Arts at Binghamton High School, and he presents nationally on Serling.

And Christine Cohen is a literary agent at the Virginia Kidd Agency in Milford, Pennsylvania, one of the longest established specialized literary agencies in the world dedicated to the top end of science fiction and fantasy genres.

Greetings, Larry.

There are so many people who are viewing and in our audience and at this table who love Rod Serling, and there's so much to tell and you're the one to tell it.

But tell us, let's go right to "Twilight Zone."

What was the impetus for the series?

- Well, you know, it's funny.

Rod Serling was writing quite a lot of television before "The Twilight Zone."

He was writing in what was called the Golden Age of Television, "Playhouse 90," "Kraft Theatre," you know, "Westinghouse Playhouse."

He got into "The Twilight Zone" because he needed to fool some people.

He needed to fool corporate sponsors and network executives.

They did not understand science fiction and fantasy.

Many of his work was blocked by censors, his earlier work, and his contemporaries, like Paddy Chayefsky, who you may know, wrote "Network," and, they left television and went out to California to make films.

Rod, as I said, fooled everyone at their own game.

One of my favorite quotes of his is, "What I couldn't have Republicans or Democrats say on TV," I could easily have Martians say."

And again, corporate America, the sponsors, they just didn't understand it.

And very few of "The Twilight Zone" episodes, although they were major, many more, you know, morality plays and had terrific social messages, were not really understood or cared for.

- Emmett Till.

- That's basically what really tipped the balance for Rod.

Emmett Till, as you know, was a young boy.

He went down south from Chicago to visit family, and he was viciously murdered in 1955.

Emmett Bobo Till.

Rod Sterling was incensed.

He wanted to dramatize this.

He wrote a play, a teleplay, that was destroyed by the sponsors and the network.

It was called "Noon at Doomsday."

He had references to Coca-Cola.

Now, everybody drinks Coca-Cola, but they don't realize it was a southern drink.

It was out of Atlanta.

He had a character named Clemson, which was a southern university.

And the sponsors said, we can't indict the south.

We'll lose viewers.

So, he basically said, his script town has turned to dust, "They turned my script to dust."

He tried again and he failed.

It was, as I said, there was "Noon at Doomsday," and it just, he couldn't get it going.

He was incensed.

- Wow.

Wow.

- So he decided to go into a whole nother medium, which was science fiction and fantasy.

- And we know so much science fiction and fantasy can take place in galaxies far, far away or places that are unknown, and he could do that.

He was capable of writing such stories.

But he also wrote stories that were close to home, "Walking Distance" - - [Larry] "Walking Distance."

- From where he was from.

- [Larry] Yes.

- And that worked on a science fiction level.

- Sure.

It was a wonderful, most people think it's his most biographical piece.

He lived about two blocks, he grew up two blocks from the park.

People think that they actually shot it in Binghamton.

They did not.

All the "Twilight Zones" were shot out in California, but they had this beautiful park.

You know, Binghamton was a corporate town.

It was Endicott Johnson, Johnson Shoes, Endicott Johnson Shoes.

He made his money by selling boots to, in World War I.

But he took care of everyone.

Talking to Rod's wife, Carol, she used to say that he had this idyllic childhood, and he really did.

You know, Binghamton really wasn't, I mean, everyone was affected by the Depression, but they sailed through it a little easier than most places.

You know, I always joke when I speak that if you spoke to my father, who grew up in Brooklyn, and you speak to Rod Serling, who, about the same age, it would've been two very different stories.

It wasn't until World War II that he really started to experience the things that that crafted his writing.

- Well, go with us.

Take us through World War II.

He was affected.

He was in the Pacific, right?

- Yes, he actually wanted, he was Jewish.

Rod was Jewish.

He wanted to fight in Europe.

He was assigned to the Pacific.

He had horrific combat experience.

He was with the 511th Parachute Regiment.

He was a little too short.

Rod was not a very tall man, but they actually let him into the parachute regiment.

They took him right to the Philippines.

He had shrapnel in his leg from explosives.

You know, his wife would say that he would wake up in the middle of the night and think he was back in Leyte.

He won the Philippine Liberation Medal, two Purple Hearts.

I mean, really an amazing experience.

And that was where he started to experience everything that really crafted his writing.

- Writing, because he felt in his soul that - - [Larry] Yep.

- About the injustice in the society.

- [Larry] Yes.

- And also the violence of war and people fighting against each other.

- And, you know, he wrote, he was a boxer in the war.

He would do some amateur boxing.

And what was his second Emmy?

A wonderful teleplay called "Requiem for a Heavyweight."

In fact, before he went into science fiction, he won three Emmys.

He has a total of six, but for creative dramatic writing for television.

Two of them with "Twilight Zone."

- Wow.

Christine, place, we were just talking about Binghamton and the story that you have to tell about the agency you work with, the Victoria Kidd Agency and the people who got together with your wonderful, the titular head of the agency.

Those people were passionate about science fiction, but they also had social justice conscience.

Introduce us to those folks who came from New York, those writers with that desire to write good, good.

Rod Serling, a tremendous writer.

Those writers were terrific.

Victoria Kidd scores.

- It would be my pleasure.

Thank you.

Yeah, the Futurians started in the '20s and '30s, and then, in the wake of the war, you know, after seeing a lot of horrors and also the, you know, atom bomb and the horrors that we could unleash on the world, they thought, you know, there's more to this than just imagine what's out there.

There's like, you know, we need to warn people and write fiction that's imagining a future, but hopefully a good future because, you know, we are harnessing incredible power.

So, it started out in the city and Milford became the place where you escaped to for the weekend.

Are you going to Milford this weekend became a verb.

And yes, I'm going to Milford, and Damon Knight had a big old Victorian mansion called The Anchorage, and the spillover from that went to the Virginia Kidd House.

And so, from there, Virginia, herself a writer, went from Futurians to science fiction, had a knack and she would just take everybody's contracts and have a look at them and say, "No, don't sign that."

Or, "If you sign this, you need to change this clause."

And she did this for enough times that people said, "You know, Virginia, people get paid to do this.

It's an actual profession, it's called agenting."

And so, she reluctantly sort of started it and then, when she got into it, she really figured out she was helping authors.

Because you think that once you sell the book and it's done and you have a contract, you're good to go.

But there's so much more that comes after it.

And I think it was Richard Curtis who said, you know, "Treat every contract like everybody involved is gonna drop dead tomorrow and all of your heirs are gonna hate each other."

So, you have to make sure that it's all lined up, that everything is gonna work okay.

All your rights are protected and, you know, if there is a film deal, you're gonna be involved in that.

It wasn't left for the publishers to take because they will.

So, because of that, because of the writer's workshop in Milford, everybody came up on the weekends and brainstormed together.

Isaac Asimov, you know, Heinlein, James Blish and Virginia Kidd themselves.

Damon was great writer and, I'm trying to think who else.

I'm drawing, Anne McCaffrey.

- [Erica] Judy Merrill.

- Judy Merrill.

Yeah, I should know that.

That was Virginia's best friend and, yeah, she lived up the road from Virginia, and so - - So, this cluster of writers.

- Yeah.

- Were in Pike County.

- Yeah.

- Trying to perfect the craft of writing science fiction, and - - [Christine] Absolutely.

- Were they, it wasn't a school in terms, or was it a school?

Was there a certain - - I think we'd call it a workshop or a writer's workshop today.

And it was really, the Milford Method is something that's talked about around the world still.

And it was as simple as, you know, these are in the days where you wrote on a typewriter, and maybe you had one carbon copy.

So, what you did was on Damon Knight's kitchen door, you would thumbtack the story that was gonna be looked at that day and everybody would saunter downstairs at whatever hour they awoke and read it over their Cheerios or whatever they had for breakfast.

And then, you would all meet and sit in a circle, and whoever had the manuscript was the person talking.

And the author can only say yes or no, couldn't explain away something they'd messed up.

And so, it became like, you know, a critique, but also a way to expand and learn the craft because published writers were invited.

So, it wasn't just from the ground up.

People already knew what they were doing.

So, they learned from it, and they also learned what contracts they could sign thanks to Virginia.

- [Erica] That's true.

- So.

- And you are an agent in the mold of Virginia.

Do you - - Well, thank you.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Hope so.

- And you deal with exciting, and it, and the area is science fiction.

- [Christine] We call it speculative.

- Speculative.

- So, science fiction, fantasy, horror.

I do have a couple of really great horror authors, and I'm very proud to work with them all, and her legacy, too.

We have a lot of the clients she started with have been with us their entire careers.

Alan Dean Foster, Ursula Le Guin's entire writing career until she retired and turned it over to the kids.

She was with Virginia.

And these people became, Gene Wolfe, same thing.

Now, we represent his estate.

So, these people became friends with her.

It is a relationship very much, as, you know, working a relationship and a friendship, hopefully, if you're lucky, and I am that lucky with a lot of them, so.

- Oh, wow.

Is there anything to be said about, and it would be generalizations.

- [Christine] Sure.

- But the interests, the way of approaching stories of your writers now, the ones you work with and the ones who did start out there at Milfording or whatever the verb is.

- To Milford.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting 'cause we just had a really strange couple of years with a global pandemic.

and you expect from that a lot of utopian material to come out, and we're getting a lot of dystopian.

So, back in the day when writers were looking to the future, they were trying to give us a bright idea of what could happen.

There were warnings and dystopians, but, you know, we wanna hear the positive stuff, and we're seeing a lot more of the what we're doing wrong now.

So, my advice to somebody starting out would be, you know, think like those Futurians and think of a bright future for us because editors and agents are getting a little weary of reading about bad stuff.

You know, we wanna have some hope for the future.

- Could you have introduced Phoebe Wagner any more appropriately than we've just been talking about it?

And Phoebe, we're going to ask you to talk about what you explore in your stories, and it sounds to me like that's what you have in your heart and mind and when you are creating stories.

Is it?

- Very much so, yeah.

So, my work in solarpunk really came out of, particularly around 2010 through 2015, we saw so many dystopias that were so popular.

And solarpunk was really a response, saying, you know, we can't just imagine negative futures.

We have to imagine positive futures, not necessarily utopian, but at least something better than what we have now.

'Cause if we only imagine the negative, then that's where we're going.

So, we need to imagine something different.

So, tapping into some of that legacy from Ursula K Le Guin and Octavia Butler, even though she writes dystopia, ends on very hopeful notes, usually, in her work.

So, my solarpunk work is very much tapping into this and looking at trying to give us a multitude of different futures to look at and say, how can this be useful to my community?

And where can I, what can I take from this story to encourage myself and to inspire hope through action?

- [Erica] And the environment, climate change very important to you.

- Yes, absolutely.

So, solarpunk and in my work, as well, you know, I was thinking about tipping points in terms of the climate crisis and climate change and writing about characters that have the right tools and the right moment to create change.

So, thinking about what can we use to inspire people to work for the betterment of their community and to encourage the folks that are already doing that.

So, it's very much imagining the future that we're in, what climate change might look like in 10 years or 200 years and what that impact will be.

- Yes, yes.

And empathy, you are very, you work with students every semester and you are working with them to bring out, how does that style that you are embracing, solarpunk, lead to empathy?

Or how, for us?

- Absolutely.

And I think some of it is just imagining that there is a future.

You know, particularly with my students, they sometimes struggle with that, and I don't blame them.

You know, the generation below me, they have a tough job ahead of them.

And so, I think oftentimes it's encouraged them to not just look at the problems in the system, but to say, all right, how can we imagine better systems?

And like, let's focus on the imagining of the better rather than just pointing out the problems.

So, there is valid work to be done there, as we saw with Rod Serling, but thinking about how we can imagine these better futures and then help guide them to get there on the page, you know.

Sometimes it's a struggle just to imagine the betterment for them.

- Larry, what about "The Twilight Zone" and that question about recognizing what's around us, but maybe imagining for better?

Was it just, was he writing in that way?

Was he helpful in a certain sense?

- I think so.

And, you know, some of the closing narrations and opening narrations of "The Twilight Zone," in my opinion, is some of the finest writing ever in television.

I'll give you a quick example.

He did a show called "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," which is almost his homage to "The Crucible."

It was during the time when, you know, just after the House Un-American Activities.

And he was helping people deal with that and listen to this because you could hear this and apply it to something today.

"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout.

There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices to be found only in the minds of men."

I mean, you could apply that to just about anything that's happening today.

Again, I said he had a tremendous feeling that if you know and you don't say something, it's the ultimate obscenity.

- Wow.

- He stood his ground, He got into a lot of trouble for it, as well.

But one of the other things he did, because he had the power is, you know, prior to Rod Serling, the writers were not in charge.

Writers were just not in charge.

It was the producers and sponsors.

He opened the door, you know.

I like to say that when he started writing, it was called the, you know, the Golden Age.

When he died in the mid '70s, at an early age of 50, what was America, what was television called?

The boob tube, the vast wasteland.

And I think that he started to open that door that, you know, then you could get shows like, you know, "Hill Street Blues" and other things where the writer was the producer.

- [Erica] Got it.

- Before, it was just not that case.

- Phoebe, let me ask you about another movement that's very prominent.

Major institutions like Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have been in 2022, our year, looking at Afrofuturism.

Is that related?

Are there ties or any reflections with what you're talking about in terms of solarpunk or speculative fiction?

Where, what role does that play?

Because it, we think about the Marvel movie and "Black Panther" and things like that.

- Yeah, so solarpunk and Afrofuturism are definitely separate genres, but you will see overlap, particularly depending on the author, right?

But I think for, you know, the most obvious example of Afrofuturism currently sort of in pop culture is definitely "Black Panther."

Though I think that doesn't always capture the nuance that the genre has.

So some of my favorite Afrofuture writers are, you know, Nalo Hopkinson, then the African futurist writer, Nnedi Okorafor is also just a brilliant writer.

I mean, we do see Octavia Butler's work also influencing Afrofuturism, as well.

So, we're definitely seeing a time where it's, so much of it's coming from multiple genres, too.

Not just the written work, but also coming from music, through film and television.

So, it's a really great time for Afrofuturism and this focus on Black joy.

- You know, it's funny 'cause when I hear terms like this and what you're talking about, I could imagine, if Rod Serling was alive today, what kind of work he'd be putting out because there, you know, there were so many opportunities.

Although when I speak with young people, 'cause I used to run a video festival, and they get so into the special effects and the bells and, you know, and I said, you know, start with a story.

Start with a story and, you know, an outline and, you know, and let the story drive the effects, not the other way around.

- No, that makes sense.

Now, you may not be aware, but we have a studio audience and we're so pleased that you're here.

But there are writers, there are visual artists, there are film viewers, there are historians, all kinds of wonderful people in the studio.

And does anyone have a question who would like to approach the table or would you like us to just keep coming?

You're welcome.

Somebody come say a comment, or have a question?

Anybody?

Okay.

Can you say it to the microphone?

- [Audience Member] Oh, I see it.

- And you say who you are if you want.

- And I was a great friend of your, give me his name again.

- [Larry] Oh, for, Rod Serling.

- Rod Serling.

I'd never, I don't think I missed one.

- [Larry] Yeah.

- And he was ahead of his time.

- Yes, he was.

You know, he, he wrote over 92 of 150 some odd episodes.

- Wow.

- And that was quite a - - I had a brother-in-law who lived close to him in Binghamton, but I never got to meet him, unfortunately.

- [Larry] Yeah.

- But I never missed a show.

And he certainly had a good wit and good brain for the future.

- He was a, you know, I'm very close with his youngest daughter, Anne, and, who has written a wonderful book about grow, you know, her father.

But, you know, she always wants to talk about how he had a tremendous sense of humor.

He loved dogs, you know, they always would have a dog.

He almost never wore a shirt, she didn't think, you know.

- Oh, wow.

- And you know, quotes, like when he, you know, he had to move out to California for a short time and he would say that, "California is a great place if you're a grapefruit," you know.

He was very funny, a great guy.

You know, I would've loved to have met him.

I really didn't know much about Rod Serling.

Obviously I knew "The Twilight Zone," until I moved from, I'm from, originally, Long Island in New York.

And I came up to Binghamton and when I, you know, had this notice that he was a graduate of our high school in 1943, I said, "Wow."

- [Erica] There it is.

- And we got permission to use his name and his image.

And it was just a gold mine.

We had so much flexibility to do creative things with the young people.

- The young people, and that's the important, and we're, you're working with young people, and you.

- Exactly.

- This is a time when we can ask each of you, if anything that someone has said at the table that sparked your interest.

Do you have a question for each other or a comment on what you've heard?

It sounds like there's a lot of commonality, doesn't there?

- Yeah.

- Well, I was thinking that Damon Knight wrote "To Serve Man," which is one of the favorite episodes of "The Twilight Zone."

And then, you know, the big punchline in that it's a cookbook, it's a recipe.

It's not help.

- [Larry] Well, fortunately you didn't spoil it for anyone.

- No, no.

I mean, it's a 70 year old spoiler.

Sorry.

Sorry.

We show that in Milford every once in a while at The Columns Museum to just remind people this is, you know, a local.

- Well, we call that the Rod Serling gotcha.

- Yeah.

- Okay, and there was almost a gotcha at the end of every "Twilight Zone."

- [Erica] And that was - - Where it just completely turned around.

- [Christine] Oh, the Agnes Moorehead.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

I love that one.

- Agnes Moorehead.

- I won't ruin that one.

- And in fact, that was called "The Invaders."

- Yes.

Yeah.

- And it was about a spaceship that landed in this - - Don't ruin it.

- No, no, I won't, I won't.

But there wasn't a spoken word.

- Yeah.

- And many people from what I remember hearing, speaking, so, some people in New York, she, Agnes Moorehead studied with Marcel Marceau.

And she was able to carry the whole show.

- [Phoebe] She's amazing.

- Without any verbal work.

- [Phoebe] And fascinating and everything.

- Well, this is the time when we say, oh no, please come back.

We wanna thank our guests, Phoebe, Larry and Christine, and you for watching.

For more information on the topic, including links to our guests and resources, please visit wvia.org/keystone and click on "Keystone Edition Arts."

And remember, you could watch this episode or any previous episode on demand anytime online or on the WVIA app.

For "Keystone Edition," I'm Erica Funke.

Thank you for watching.

And we have prevailed upon Phoebe to read something from her story, "University Speaking."

You could find the link on our website.

- First, we found someone to listen.

We whispered to new hires and emeritus faculty, first year students and graduate TAs, deans and presidents.

And we failed.

Yes, new housing towers joined the city skyline and old town revitalization project promised condos, windowed store fronts, reflecting our spires, a rooftop bar.

These places made a bad translation of what we wanted.

Not a wider, taller, more decorative wrought iron fence.

We wanted no fence.

In all our whispering, we weren't listening.

We had a vision, our architectural imagination of ourselves, entwining with the city for what we thought would be better.

But someone was already speaking to us.

The gardener had worked our ground so her kids wouldn't have to take out as many student loans.

She pruned our rose bushes, taught the wisteria how to climb the new trellis.

In our hazy summer slowness, when our lights dimmed early and our lawns stretched lonely, she hummed the latest pieces from the civic choir.

Thank you.

(mysterious music)

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