When the time came to announce the first Presbyterian College Creative Writing Award at Honors Day last April, the winner did not come forward. Charlie Johnson, senior English and Spanish double major, was studying in Valparaiso, Chile.

The English Department chose his short story "Lost Things" as the best entry submitted by students from freshmen to seniors. In Charlie's story Howard Fairweather, an unemployed computer programmer, is baffled by the steady disappearance of all his personal belongings. In an interesting turn of events involving an abundance of UPS men and a bag of cheese puffs, Saint Anthony appears to Howard and reveals the author of his misfortune: Old Saint Nick, burdened by population increase and lack of elves, has turned kleptomaniac, and Howard is the victim of Santa's attempt at burglary. If he is ever to regain his possessions, Howard must journey to the North Pole and confront the wayward holiday saint.

In writing "Lost Things," Charlie began with "an ordinary person to whom something unusual happens" as he does with most of the prose he has written. "I think most of my protagonists are based on Arthur Dent from [Douglas Adams's] The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As far as any real life inspiration, I guess you could say that my story could be an 'explanation' of why things go missing all the time." He says that "though I wouldn't say that I had ever successfully emulated him, I think my favorite author from a stylistic standpoint is William Faulkner. I do, however, often use unconscionably long sentences because I feel that all of the ideas I want to present should be tied together rather than chopped up. As far as content, I'd have to go back to Douglas Adams again for all of my Hitchhiker's inspiration. The Hitchhiker's Guide and Joseph Heller's Catch-22 are the two books that I specifically wish I had written."

Lauren Johnson, who interviewed Charlie, thought his winning story had the kind of zany humor found in Hitchhiker. She knew from her own experience as a creative writer that comedy is not easy to write and asked him if he had any advice for someone attempting a comedic piece. "Sometimes comedy is a reflection of real life. Sometimes comedy is a journey into the absurd. Sometimes it is both, " Charlie answerd. "I think one way to write comedy is to find something that is true and exaggerate it. Often people won't realize something is funny in real life until they see it in a story/show/movie and say, 'Oh, that is so true.' From then on, life is funnier."  Lauren observed that Charlie had depicted Santa Claus as a villain and wondered: "Should this story receive mass circulation, are you prepared to accept the responsibility of crushing the Christmas dreams of millions of children worldwide?" Taking his first opportunity to quote his story, Charlie replied, "As the Saint Anthony fabricated by my story says, 'No, not bad. You people down here, everything's good or evil, black or white, especially you Americans.' I wish I could have allowed readers to meet Santa, so as to realize he's not so bad after all, but I ran out of narrative steam."

His current writing projects demonstrate that Charlie must have gotten his steam back. He's currently writing for The Blue Stocking, editing Figs and Thistles, tutoring in the writing center, interning at The Clinton Chronicle, and writing a narrative about immigration for an Honors Research project.

by Lauren Johnson and Jill Frey