A Glance Back: Rodo Sofranac Remembers AAA’s Beginning

 

Internationally celebrated writer of groundbreaking books on the business practices, traditions, and languages of China, Japan, Korea, and Mexico, Boye Lafayette De Mente founded the Arizona Authors Association in 1978 and became its first president. He established a monthly newsletter and brought famous authors, agents, editors, publishers, and book distributors from around the country to Arizona to lead spring and fall writers’ seminars under the AAA banner. Within one year, De Mente had recruited over 400 members into the AAA. The following year, he created the annual Arizona Literary Contest and the Arizona Literary Magazine. While leading the AAA for the next seven years, De Mente continued as a prolific writer and small press publisher, becoming an approved vendor for leading U.S. bookstores, and shipping books to Australia, Japan, Europe, and South Africa.

Current AAA member Rodo Sofranac was brought into the AAA by De Mente during the early years of the organization. He kindly offers his memories of those crucial first years, and his ideas for the future of the organization.

Rodo: In the early 80s Boye came to address a creative writing workshop I had enrolled in at Paradise Valley Community College. He was forthright, unpretentious; he advised us to write from the heart, and not to look for fame and fortune. These admonitions were exactly what I had needed to hear—I had wanted to write children’s books, and my wife had joked that I shouldn’t leave my day job!

Boye expressed his belief that you don’t achieve anything all by yourself; he advised us not to hesitate to call on others for advice. At the time he was trying to get the AAA going as a collaborative organization, where writers could share ideas, share successes and defeats, prop each other up. He felt that the meaning of life is in building relationships, that one’s life is defined by building relationships. That was Boye’s philosophy for AAA.

A great highlight of the early years was the acknowledgment that Arizona wasn’t just a hick state with dirt and cacti, that its diversity in geology, plants, and animals extended to its people—especially regarding thought and philosophy. Boye brought widely diverse people together to share each other’s work. One suddenly felt not so alone as a writer. The communal feeling among the members was the big highlight of those early years.

About eight years ago the organization felt a bit like parents going through a divorce. But through the strength and resilience of the group, we snapped back and continued to be there for each other. As Boye had originally intended, the organization offers mutuality and relationships. I find it easy to recommend AAA to other writers—it’s financially economic to join, and there are lots of activities to participate in, lots of opportunities to learn and to teach, to pass on knowledge. That’s what distinguishes people from animals: the proclivity to pass on learning.

There’s so much talent in Arizona. I’d like to see relationships develop with Amazon and B&N, where local authors are celebrated and promoted. I’d like to see the independent community bookstores feature events with local authors. Maybe AAA could do more along those lines, could do a bit more to promote the purchase of books from local authors. I’d like to see AAA develop relationships with the schools, creating opportunities for speakers/readers, who would make presentations for minimum stipends and create markets for their books. AAA could help organize that.

With a degree in psychology from Cornell University, Phoenix resident Rodo Sofranac also has a teacher certification from Cleveland State and an MBA from ASU. Born in Montenegro—formerly Yugoslavia—Rodo fled with his family to Austria, later immigrating to the US. A writer, teacher, trainer, and translator, he has over 45 years of business, education, and community experiences. He was executive director of Phoenix Habitat for Humanity, and has chaired various local, state, and national organizations. For eight years Rodo was the program director for AZ Leader Force, bringing together political, business, faith, and other community stakeholders around Quality of Life issues. As a private sector volunteer, he has been involved in policy research and formation in the area of workforce development. Elected National Chair, he worked closely with the National Governors’ Association, Departments of Labor and Education, Congress members, public and private economic development organizations, and workforce development and education agencies from the local to the international levels. See https://rodowrites.com 

History of the Arizona Authors Association 1978-1997 - by Kathleen Cook

Years after De Mente founded the association in 1978, Mali Berger served as its secretary. She had taught American literature in Michigan universities before moving to Fountain Hills, Arizona, where she published both novels and children’s books. While serving as secretary, she interviewed Boye De Mente at his home in Paradise Valley and asked him about this early period of the Arizona Authors Association history. According to that article: 

"De Mente was chosen as the first president of the AAA by unanimous vote. In addition to inaugurating a monthly newsletter, he also took the lead in sponsoring spring and fall seminars whose speakers included famous authors, agents, editors, publishers and book distributors from around the country. By the end of its first year the AAA had over 400 members. The following year De Mente initiated an annual Arizona Literary Contest and the Arizona Literary Magazine." 

David Rich recalls one of those famous early guest speakers, Zig Ziglar, a motivational guru whose meteoric rise earned him a place among the world's best-selling authors. One of Zig's famous quotes was, "You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." Another quote from Zig has been repeated for decades: "You don't have to be great at something to start, but you have to start to be great at something." 

De Mente served as the president of the Association for the next seven years, through 1985. He also continued as head of his company, Phoenix Books/Publishers, and sold AAA members' books through all of the major American book chains and also abroad to chains in Australia, Europe, South Africa and Japan. Eventually, however, the urge to travel and write became too great, and he stepped down from his position as president of the Arizona Authors Association.

Although some of the records are lost from the earliest days following De Mente's departure, we do know that Bill Bodell served on the Board from 1989 until the mid-90s. Another Board member, Mary Westheimer, served for a time starting in 1994.

Iva Lee Martin took over as president in April of 1995. Iva was the author of several stories in the anthology Chalkboard Dust: Twenty Six True Stories About Students As Remembered By Their Teachers. A long-time teacher in the Phoenix public school system before turning to writing about her students, she lived in Phoenix. Her Vice President at the time was Sandra Harnagel of Scottsdale, who first earned that position in 1992. Her secretary was Jack Benninger, who also took office in 1992. 

Gerry Benninger, Jack's wife, took over as president of the Arizona Authors Association in 1997; Jack remained as secretary. Gerry was born in 1942 in Colorado and worked as a freelance writer, poet, book editor, reviewer and teacher. She had a column in Romantic Times Magazine, a popular romance fiction magazine started in 1981 and ceased publication in 2018. Gerry was a graduate of ASU and the University of San Francisco; the latter is where she earned a degree in Theology at the age of 60. 

Gerry withdrew from her tasks as president of the Arizona Authors Association in 1998 when she moved out of state, but remained on the Board until her death in 2005. She turned the Association presidency over to a friend who had no experience as an author. During that time, membership declined and the organization faced a rough patch. 

The Association did not file a report with the Arizona Corporation Commission, as was due each year in April. The bank balance in December of 1997 was over three thousand dollars; a year later it had plummeted to little more than a hundred dollars. For the first time, the literary contest had to be canceled and refunds given for entry fees. 

In the next post, we'll feature the resurgence of 1998.

How the Ariona Authors Association started - by Kathleen Cook

As the current newsletter editor, I felt it only appropriate to celebrate the 42nd anniversary of our first publication, in August of 1978, with a special feature. I'd like to start with a brief history of our founder, Boye De Mente.

Flamboyant and brilliant, De Mente was born in the tiny town of Mayberry, Missouri, in 1928. At age 13 he worked in an ice cream parlor and was given permission to eat all the ice cream he wanted. It was there that he first practiced discipline, limiting himself to one peppermint ice cream per week.

Throughout the years, that discipline served him well. He skipped a grade in elementary school and worked as a bell hop for a local hotel through his high school years. He earned extra credits by taking on more courses than average and graduated high school in less Boye De Mente Founded than three years. Immediately after graduation, the teenager joined the Navy, serving first in 1946 on the USS Fillmore and then at the Cryptographer School in Washington, D.C.

Due to his family name, he was mistaken for Hispanic and sent to the Spanish Language Department of the NCSA, in Naval intelligence. Following his naval discharge, De Mente enlisted in the ASA, or Army Security Agency. With his cryptology background, he earned promotions and again was assigned to Washington D.C., where he operated the big, bulky computers, state of the art in those days, designed to decipher codes.

Because of his Spanish experience, he expected to be shipped to Latin America, but he was instead assigned to Japan. He served on a team of code breakers at the ASA Tokyo headquarters. In 1950 when the Korean War flared, President Truman extended every enlisted man's service by up to eighteen months, which kept De Mente in Tokyo for an extra year and a half. It was during this time that his natural talent for writing came to the forefront. He founded a newspaper called the ASA Star. From that point on, he never stopped writing.

De Mente published the nonfiction book, Japanese Simplified, during his time with the ASA. He created a phonetic system for pronunciation that cut the time needed for Americans to learn the language. He earned two years' credit from Jochi University in Tokyo before he was discharged in 1952 and sent back to the states. He then hitchhiked to Phoenix and enrolled in the American Institute for Foreign Trade (now known as the Thunderbird School of Global Management). After graduating in 1953, he returned to Tokyo, earning degrees from Jochi University in both Japanese and economics.

In 1954, De Mente edited Preview Magazine. Published in Tokyo, it was the second largest English language magazine in the region, superseded only by Reader's Digest. He later served as editor of The Japan Times, then the largest English language newspaper in Japan. While working in that capacity he met Ben Carlin, an Australian with an amphibious jeep who was determined to circle the globe. Ben invited him to share part of the journey in the vehicle, the Half-Safe, named after a popular deodorant. They would travel from Japan to Alaska in the jeep.

Boye later recalled, "I was holding down two jobs and still not making decent money, and I had two very jealous girlfriends who had just met and were on the warpath, so I decided that getting out of town was the smartest thing I could do!"

That treacherous voyage was chronicled in De Mente's book, Once a Fool: From Tokyo to Alaska by Amphibious Jeep. Featured in the Saturday Evening Post and Life Magazine, the voyage even made the Guinness Book of World Records.

De Mente decided to recuperate from the trip in his old haunt, Phoenix, but he was soon asked to take an editor's job in Tokyo again, as chief of a new magazine called Oriental America. He took his new bride, Margaret, with him. Within months, the name of the magazine was changed to The Importer, which became the leading trade journal in Japan. The Importer provided a vital link between businesses in Japan, the US and Europe. One of the companies served by De Mente's publication was Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, which five years later, was shortened to Sony. The company grew in tandem with The Importer magazine.

After many more successes, Boye, Margaret, and their daughter Dawn Ruby, returned to Phoenix in 1962. A second daughter, Demetra, was born in Arizona. De Mente wrote full time and eventually established Phoenix Books/Publishers, to publish both his and other Arizona authors' works. During the ten years between the start of that operation and the founding of the Arizona Authors Association, De Mente received numerous calls from authors all over the state, asking him for advice on writing, publishing and marketing.

He knew that Arizona needed an organization to address these and many other questions from first -time authors. He suggested the idea to his friend, David Rich, an attorney, world traveler and writer. Together, they worked out a charter for the association in March of 1978. Here's how David describes that period:

"Boye De Mente and I formed the AAA in the late 70s. I incorporated AAA as a nonprofit with the Arizona Corporation Commission and wrote its first bylaws. We were an active organization with monthly seminars on many aspects of writing, with me presenting on legal issues. We didn't have the contests that you have now. We were one of the organizations featured in a publication listing the top civic organizations in AZ ... sometime in the 80s."

At the time, Diamond's Department Store in the Park Central Shopping Mall in downtown Phoenix sponsored an Author's Day for Arizona authors with published books. The event, taking place annually each spring, drew many authors from around the state. De Mente contacted the woman in charge of this event and discussed the possibility of forming an organization to help Arizona authors and provide professional support. The woman gave him the store's mailing list, accumulated through years of hosting this event.

De Mente then contacted all of the authors on the mailing list and said, "Hey guys, let's form an authors association." He chose a hotel conference room on the west side of Phoenix to host an event the following month. There were around seventy-five people at the first meeting, and nearly all of them signed up for membership in the Arizona Authors Association.

More to come on the history of our association in future posts.