Babs Deal, Scottsboro & The Torch

As I wandered recently in my book collection, I came upon this item. I've had it a long time and don't remember how I acquired it. The item in question is the 1973 issue of The Torch, a literary magazine from the "Literary Club" at Scottsboro High School. Since this issue is volume 6, the publication presumably first appeared in 1967. I found nothing about such a magazine on the current high school web site, so I have no idea how long it was published beyond that year. 

High school literary magazines are a genre little studied. A search on Google Scholar brings up in the first results a few articles ranging from 1930, 1966, 1971, and two in the 1980s. The 1971 article noted more than 600 such magazines were being published in the U.S. For my junior and senior years in 1968-9 & 1969-70, I worked on the one at Lee High School in Huntsville. Another journal seems to be have been published there recently. 

Well, now to the real point of this article. Back in July 2017 I wrote a blog post about Babs and Borden Deal, two prolific Alabama novelists and short story authors. Babs [1929-2004] was born in Scottsboro. As described in that blog post, I met her in Auburn in the late 1970s. She and Borden had divorced in 1975. 

If you look below at the page opposite The Torch staff listing, you'll find something interesting. In the middle of that page are some thanks to people who conducted workshops for students, and Babs is listed for "short story". So I guess she was in Scottsboro at some point during the 1972-3 school year. 

As noted in the blog post on the Deals, Babs is buried in Scottsboro. 

I've also included some sample writing from The Torch. 

I wondered if this Rodney Jones was the well-known poet and Alabama native of the same name, but he was born in 1950 and was thus 23 in 1973, so I guess not!

This article by Clarke Stallworth appeared in the Birmingham News 26 March 1982. In it she laments the "bestseller" mentality of publishers and notes that after 25 years her publisher Doubleday doesn't "want me any more." She mentions the completed manuscript for a thirteenth novel. Perhaps it is among her papers, also at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.  

Source: My blog post on the Deals