One of the first things you learn when studying ventriloquism is Don’t Call it a Dummy!!

Dummies don’t like that.

Or rather, Ventriloquial Figures don’t like that.

At 15, I took Ventriloquism by Correspondence. I was well-acquainted with correspondence at the time, as I’d taken grades 4, 8, and 9 in the same way. Felt natural to study little workbooks, practice, send off the lessons neatly filled in and, in the end, have a piece of paper for the wall.

But why a picture of me with Angie, my old vent figure?

Well, you’ll have to read MOLLY’S CUE to find out. Let’s put it this way: it’s a good thing I hang on to stuff. I’ve actually packed around all thirty lesson plans from that course (MAHER VENTRILOQUIST STUDIOS) for all these years (me being ancient and all) and I pulled them out and used them in the writing of the novel. This will now be my primary example as to why I don’t throw away and purge. Non-writers don’t get why writers just can’t purge…