By Thedim Fiste

Toro! Toro! Toro!

Founder of Santa Barbara’s Writers’ Conference Barnaby Conrad is not only a Montecito fixture who lives in Carpinteria’s Rincon Point, he is also a best-selling author, whose first bestseller, “Matador,” was published in 1952. Since then, he’s written, by his own account, 30 books, four more of which became bestsellers. He has another due in July: “The 101 Best Scenes Ever Written, From Plays, Films, and Literature” (Quill Driver Books), that, especially for a writer or would-be writer, is absolutely riveting reading (I’ve read the manuscript); he expects to follow that up with “101 Best Non-Fiction Scenes Ever Written” next year.

Among those 101 best fiction scenes, is one from the 1920’s classic “Bambi,” by Austrian Siegmund Salzmann(writing as Felix Salten), in which the little stag-to-be loses his mother. Barney analyzes this scene in his book, and credits its power to move us to the author’s spare use of detail, to what is not described. After Bambi’s mother ushers her little charge to safety, she runs off warning her son about the dangers of “man”; a gunshot is heard, “and,” the book intones, “Bambi never saw his mother again.”

It’s not Shakespeare, but it brings men and women, boys and girls, to tears. Conrad dissects equally powerful scenes written by authors as diverse as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack London, Mark Twain, Daniel Defoe, Elmore Leonard, Margaret Mitchell, and, well nearly a hundred others. Barney hoped to release the book before this year’s writers’ conference, but has to settle for a July release.

Barnaby, now 84, and his wife, Mary Conrad, founded the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference in 1972. “To be accurate, it was founded in the fall of 1972,” he corrects, “but the first conference was held at Cate School in 1973,” he says as we settle into our chairs at Montecito Coffee Shop, often called either “The Pharmacy,” or “Tom’s” (It had been Tom’s Coffee Shop until Debbie purchased it a couple years ago and changed the name).

“There’s so many wonderful things going back and reading those books,” Barney says before we order lunch, “that you thought were great. Maybe they aren’t, but on the other hand, many of them were just as good as I remember them.”

Joining us is Shelly Lowenkopf, who edited Conrad’s latest book. When told it’s nice to see him, he replies “It’s nice to be seen.” Although not yet 84, Shelly is no spring weed, so his apparent surprise and gratitude upon being “seen” is understandable.

“The whole book was Shelly’s idea,” Barney says. When asked why Shelly didn’t write it, Barney quips, “Shelly is full of ideas for me to do!”

The two men chose the 101 scenes dissected in the book from their extensive knowledge and familiarity with a broad range of literature.

“Remember that great scene that Orson Welles did in ‘Third Man’?” one would ask, for example, forcing the other to research it in Montecito Library. “I got all my books out of there,” Barney says, adding that Montecito Library “is a great resource.”

“The whole thing,” smiles Shelly, “is to keep him busy, because when he’s writing, he’s a different Barnaby Conrad. He’s anecdotal. He sketches things on these placemats and we sell them off for big bucks across the street (at Pierre Lafond).”

“I made him edit it though,” Barney jokes, and reveals that he put the entire book together in just 18 months, from idea through finished manuscript. “I just thought it was a terrific idea and couldn’t believe it hasn’t been done, but apparently it hasn’t,” Conrad explains.

Lowenkopf then drifts into a conversation about the concept of “back-story.” He explains that “back-story is sort of the fanny pack a character wears when he or she comes into a scene: its experience, expectations, what got them there.”

“You have to do it so it doesn’t look like ‘back-story,’” Barney interjects. “That’s the trick,” he continues. “You can tell a real writer when he gets that information in without hitting you over the head with it.”

“Wile E. Coyote should be the patron saint of characters,” Shelly opines. “This character is goal-oriented to the extreme. Optimistic, but going off the edge, and only finds himself clawing to get back to safe ground. That’s the kind of character people like to read about.”

Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture

Changing gears, Barney brings up a subject that’s percolated to the top of his list of pet peeves. “There’s a film coming out called ‘Manolete’,” he says, “with Adrien Brody and Penelope Cruz, and I hate to say they ripped off my books, but they did.” Conrad claims he was the only person to have written about Manolete in English, “so obviously they got their information from my book, ‘Matador,’ or ‘The Death Of Manolete.’

“It really frosts me,” he continues. “‘Matador’ was sold to John Huston and it’s never been out of option, but it’s never been made. Now, along comes this guy and is making Manolete in Spain – Brody looks exactly like Manolete – so, what I’m doing is going back to print (Ellen Reid is the local publisher) and it will be out in two weeks. It’s a handsome book. Mostly pictures,” he says.

“About ten years ago,” Barney says, “The New York Times asked twelve very famous writers like Philip Roth and others, what their favorite opening sentence was of any book they’d read. When it came to Elmore Leonard, who I didn’t even know, he said, ‘My favorite sentence is the opening from Barnaby Conrad’s ‘La Fiesta Brava,’ which is: ‘On August 27th, 1947, a multimillionaire and a bull killed each other and plunged an entire nation into deep mourning.’” Barney explains that Manolete and the bull killed each other at the same time, that at age 30 Manolete was about to retire from the arena but was prodded into another season by a 21-year-old competitor.

When “The Death Of Manolete” is re-issued it is going to feature a gold star in the right-hand corner that will read, ‘Soon to be a major motion picture.’ “It’s my only revenge. I’m not saying who’s making it or whose picture it is, or who’s in it,” Barney says. “They are still filming it,” he continues, “so they won’t be out until the end of the summer. But with two big stars, they have to give it a lot of publicity, and my book will be out.”

How many words one can officially or at least legally use from one work of fiction or non-fiction in another work, I wondered?

“It’s a tricky question and I always get different answers,” he replies. Barney believes he can safely use 350 words from a short story and 500 from a book. “In some cases,” he concedes, “I’ve quoted more than five hundred words, but I think it is still fair use. It’s tutorial. I’m saying, ‘Look at how he does this; look at how he does that.’ Not to make money off that particular selection, but to show somebody how good the writer was and how one can learn from him.”

Favorite scene? “I’m a great fan of Evelyn Waugh, who wrote “A Handful Of Dust.” At one point in the book, the woman, the wife, has a lover named John and a son named John. At some point they come to her and say, ‘We have terrible news; John has died.’ She says, ‘Which John?’ and they say, ‘Your son John,’ and she says ‘Oh, Thank God.’ I think that’s the most chilling of all. It’s hard to forget.

His favorite opening sentence was written by Ambrose Bierce in 1894: ‘I murdered my father; an act which made quite an impression upon me at the time.’

“But, for an opening scene,” Conrad says, “it’s funny that you mention Elmore Leonard; you can’t beat his opening scene in ‘Freaky Deaky,’ where the woman calls up and says ‘Are you sitting down?’ The gangster type says, ‘Yeah, I’m sittin’ down.’ She tells him there is a bomb in the chair and when he gets up it’s going to go off.”

Elmore Leonard has made three appearances at the Writers’ Conference.

Barney compared giving up the Writers’ Conference (to Marcia Meier) to that of owning a boat: “The second happiest day in your life is when you buy the boat; the happiest day in your life is when you sell it.”

“We’re still participants,” he adds, “but don’t have any of the heavy lifting. It really is a fulltime job; my wife did most of the work and I got most of the credit, which is the way I like it. A perfect combination, but it’s going to be better than ever.”

John Grogan, author of “Marley and Me,” the year-long bestseller about life and love with the world’s worst dog is one of this year’s featured speakers, along with Erica Jong (“Fear Of Flying”), T.C. Boyle, and perennial favorite Ray Bradbury and others. The Writers’ Conference takes place this year at Fess Parker’s Double Tree. Barney says that Westmont, the conference’s most recent home, “wasn’t ideal,” in that venues were difficult to get to and to find. More importantly (although he is now a teetotaler) “It’s got a bar, and writers do like to convene in bars.”

Barney Conrad’s other tutorial works are “The Complete Guide To Writing Fiction,” and “Learning To Write Fiction From The Masters,” both of which are available at Tecolote BookShop in Montecito Village.

For more information on Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference, you can call 805-964-0367 or go to: www.sbwritersconference.com or e-mail sbwritersconference@cox.net.