Sanibel Island Writers (Studs) Conference
Sanibel Island Writers Conference men strut their studliness
BY NANCY _STETSON Florida Weekly Correspondent
W hen Tom DeMarchi, director of the Sanibel Island Writers Conference, was trying to brainstorm ways to raise

COURTESY PHOTO Poet Jim Brock, who also teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University, poses for the Studs of Sanibel Writers Conference Calendar. The writers conference begins on Thursday, Oct. 4 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 7.

scholarship money for students

to attend, he thought: why not ask the male lecturers and presenters to pose for a Studs of Sanibel Island Writers Conference Calendar?

"It was really just a joke conversation that I had one day with my wife," DeMarchi says. "We said, 'Wouldn't it be a goof if we would do a Studs of Sanibel Island Writers Conference calendar?' I think my wife thought of it. She thinks William Giraldi is adorable. I think she wanted to see him topless!"

The only problem was, some people thought he was joking.

Let's face it, when you think of writers - male writers- your first thought usually isn't: what hunks!

Writers are admired for the beauty of their prose, the way their sentences are put together, not for the beauty of their physique and the way they're put together.

With a few exceptions, the average reader doesn't even know what most writers look like. There's Tom Wolfe, always dressed like a dandy. And some might consider Ernest Hemingway, Florida's patron saint, a looker. (I guess you could consider him a hunk if you're into that whole Santa Claus/Burl Ives/Grandpa kind of look …mixed with macho posturing and a wide self-destructive streak.)

"I thought Tom was joking and didn't acknowledge (the e-mail)," says literary agent Christopher Schelling, a scheduled speaker at this year's conference, which runs at BIG Arts Center from Oct. 4-7. "He wrote back about it. He did ask me to pose." Schelling declined.

"I don't think shirtless pictures of me are going to raise money," he says. "The way I squirmed out of it was to tell him that the agent is the pimp, and the writers are the whores - they're the ones who are supposed to be in the calendar. I was pleased I'd come up with that. But I'd completely thought he was joking at first."

DeMarchi was serious, though the entire calendar is tongue-in-cheek.

"I said, 'This is your duty, you cannot deny the people the pleasure of staring at you,'" DeMarchi says. "He said, 'No, no, no.'"

But luckily 10 others said, "Yes, yes, yes." Or at least, "Oh, OK." Writers such as Pultizer Prize-winning novelist Robert Olen Butler ("A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain," "Severence"), John Dufresne ("Deep in the Shade of Paradise," "The Way Water Enters Stone," "Love Warps the Mind a Little") and Jonathan Ames ("I Love You More Than You Know," "Wake Up Sir!") And yes, the unwitting instigator of it all, William Giraldi, whose work has appeared in "The Believer," "Tin House," "Mississippi Review" and others, also posed. DeMarchi himself posed for a month, as did Samuel Pepys, the dog who serves as the conference mascot..

"The authors are incredibly supportive and generous; if they could help in any way, they were happy to do so," DeMarchi says. "My reaction is one of awe and appreciation, that they would do this. After all, outside of the conference, they don't know me. We're not childhood buddies. They're all just so generous and giving and good-natured. We got lucky - they wanted to be part of it and help us out."

But if you're expecting the calendar to be a male version of "Calendar Girls," where mature British women posed nude behind strategically placed objects, guess again. The women were brave enough to bare all, but most of the writers declined to disrobe. Most of them even keep their shirts on.

Perhaps the raciest photo is that of poet Jim Brock, who also teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University with DeMarchi. Brock channeled his inner Burt Reynolds for the calendar. Posing like the actor in his historic 1972 "Cosmo" centerfold photo, he reclines in front of a bookcase with a white Mac laptop open in front of him, strategically placed in front of his…um…laptop area. But this is a PG version; he's also wearing a white undershirt and white boxer shorts.

"It's very funny, self-mocking," DeMarchi says, then goes on to describe a few of the other photos. "Robert Olen Butler is holding up a pen, with a sardonic, sexy look in his eyes. Jonathan Ames is standing in a boxing ring, topless, waiting for the bell to ring. John Dufresne is peeking out from behind a copy of 'Lolita.' All you see is his head and eyes."

Short story writer and essayist Steve Almond, author of "(Not That You Asked)" and "Candyfreak," also agreed to pose.

"Literature is not a lucrative field at this point, in a culture that doesn't read very much," he says. "Sometimes as a writer you have to play to the base, put the beef on parade. It's totally degrading and probably profitable. That's how it works in America.

"Women get objectified enough in this culture, it's about time dorky male writers got objectified. I love it! I can't get enough of it. Usually I'm only objectified in degrading ways by my wife and baby girl. I'll let my baby girl pee on me, that's how much I love her."

Almond submitted a number of photos for the calendar, but says he thinks they're "using the one of me with my baby girl on top of my shoulders, and my bulging writer biceps in full view."

When told that doesn't sound all that risqué, he replies, "I'm a family man now. I keep the dirty stuff in the books and out of the photos."

DeMarchi's printing up 100 copies of the calendar but hasn't determined the price yet. If it takes off like the calendar of the Rylstone Women's Institute who inspired the movie "Calendar Girls," he's willing to print more, and also make them available on the conference's Web site, www.fgcu.edu/siwc.

"We are very lucky to have a hunky bunch," he says.