Insights and Musings from TGI’s Emerging Writers

My mother used to visit my husband and me in Connecticut for a few weeks in the summer. She was in her early eighties then and, except for some hearing loss and eyesight issues, in remarkably good health.

One July I asked my friend Sue to drive out with me to Ohio to pick her up. On the way back, we decided to treat Mom by swinging off I-80 in mid-Pennsylvania to Woolrich, the company town headquarters of the eponymous sporting wear line.

My mother had some kind of recessed, Paleolithic hunter gene. She loved to shop and when she discovered a great bargain, an archetypal hunt lust was satiated. That afternoon we shopped the cavernous factory store until finally, knowing we still had a six hour drive ahead of us, I eased Mom reluctantly back to our car with her bags.

Sue and I take a lot of trips together. She drives and I navigate. I believe my genetic lineage descends directly from Odysseus; Sue’s, from A. J. Foyt. In that pre-Smartphone/GPS technological era, I was the maven of maps. Worried about time, I spotted a road that avoided the long highway looping around Williamsport. This one looked to be a straight shot back down to an I-80 interchange­.

Pine Mountain Road, as its name promised, wound through a pleasant green forest. Shortly, we began to climb. As distances between houses grew, I reassured my mother, inquiring somewhat nervously from the back seat, “Are you sure we are on the right road?”

“Of course.”

My mother, always the worrier.

The houses became smaller, quainter, more like cabins. Towering pines blocked out nearly all the sun. I noticed the road sign had four numbers on it now, instead of the usual two or three. We continued to climb. Abruptly the paved surface turned to dirt. I heard my mother in the back, rustling around in her purse. Mom kept things inside it carefully sorted into various, little plastic baggies and I was used to hearing her sound like a loose squirrel whenever she fished out something she wanted.

We passed a sign to keep alert for moose. I asked Sue if she knew when mating season started. She didn’t. She’s from Boston. We passed another sign naming the area a state forest—something to do with bears. Behind me I heard an occasional, faint clicking sound.

The road surface turned rutty and gravelly. Sue downshifted, even though the J-30 had automatic transmission. The engine sounded different, whiny, as we continued to climb. I mentioned to Sue that my ears were popping. Her's were too. My mother began to whisper to herself, which she often did. I think it had something to do with not hearing well anymore.

Sue downshifted again. The odd clicking sound in the back grew rhythmic. I asked Sue how many more gears the J-30 had.

“This is it,” she said, when suddenly the road crested. The engine returned to normalcy and we speeded up. I was glad because so far, we hadn’t saved any time driving in first gear.

We flashed through more pine forest and soon began to descend. I consulted my map again. Our route wasn’t shaded green like most maps do to show the strips of mountains piercing up through central Pennsylvania. In fact, it promised a straight drive down to the interstate.

At that precise moment the road angled sharply to the right into a steep, 180° switchback. The J-30’s rear end fishtailed on the loose gravel, tires skittering to find traction as Sue fought the steering wheel.

When we finally pulled out of the skid and slowed, Sue and I both let out expletives.

And in the backseat, my mother’s voice rose, calling out an audible to the heavens:

"Hail Mary, full of grace . . . may the Lord be with us, now and at the hour of our deaths. Amen."

Enjoying Grammar

Earlier in the Writing and Oral Traditions Program, we participated in a weekend session involving the importance of play in the classroom. This latest weekend’s editing session got me thinking: Can grammar be enjoyable? Even that very question is enough to make an average teacher recoil.

Lucky for you, however, I am not one of those average teachers. In fact, lucky reader, I give you permission to call me Ishmael, for I am about to chase the question of fun and play through the rough seas of “correct” language.

Since what you are reading is a work of informal commentary, I have already demonstrated one of my highest priorities: Write as correctly as your task demands.

If you are writing a song, for example, and that song is entitled, “Who Do You Love?” do not change “who” to “whom” for the sake of correctness. Chances are the audience will not appreciate. If, however, you are writing a formal letter and you begin with, “To Who It May Concern,” you might want to revisit your pronoun usage for that heading.

But are the lines between formal and informal always as clear? Let’s imagine Bo Diddley wrote a song about when to use standard English, because a high school English class asked him to come and play his famous song, and he decided to do them one better? The song might come out something like this:

Whom Do You Love? (Bo knows Grammar)

I wrote 47 shades of modifiers
Got a question mark for a necktie
Brand new construction on the verbal side
Made out of Warriner's guides

Got a euphemism sittin right on top
Minced outa cooing doves
Come on now - I’m gonna use the imperative,
Tell me, whom do you love?
Whom do you love? Whom do you love?

Indefinite "she" took me by the hand
Said I’m a vague pronoun reference, don't you understand
Whom do you love? Whom do you love?

I answer my phone I say, “This is he.”
I use a linking verb cause that's the way I “be.”
Whom do you love? Whom do you love?

The night was black, the voice was blue
Around a corner mixed metaphors flew
"Onomatopoeia!" somebody screamed
You should a heard just a what I seen
Whom do you love? Whom do you love? Whom do you love?

Yeah when I use “who” it's in the Nominative Case
Never ever in a prepositional phrase
Whom do you love? Whom do you love?

Compound verbs, Complex Mind
Grammar instruction never been this fine...

Whom do you love?

Hooking Them

Okay, so that was a bit of showing off, but my point is that fostering awareness of the rules of grammar combined with a sense of story and fun may be the way to hook students. If they are involved in creating something – a story, a scenario, a game – then they will invest themselves in the quality of their final product, and they will learn the skills by applying them in a less restrictive process.

Here are some options:

Students make a grammar game of their choice, with a start, an end, and a list of required areas such as “Pronoun Agreement” or “Verb Agreement”, or “Frequently Misused Words.” The fun is in the design of the game.

Students re-type one paragraph from a novel or short story, having secretly changed three punctuation marks, and then pass to next group. The other groups have to spot their three changes.

Students listen to “Conjunction Junction”, and then write their own songs about, for example, prepositions, gerunds, you get it.

Students create a series of rejected love letters and the respective responses, based on grammatical mistakes.

Students create a series of skits with “unintended consequences” after characters use the wrong words to their disadvantage.

Students write a call-in talk show or a “Dear Abby” column whereby all the callers or writers suffer from grammar-related ailments.

Students write on a topic such as “Raising awareness about youth homelessness in our state,” but change their audience: A group of parents, a group of teachers, a group of friends, the governor. In doing so, they change their language considerations to fit each audience.

A Grammatical Vision

To close: Anything we want to accomplish, whether it is starting a garden, building a bookshelf, or making homemade jam, begins with a vision. That vision is not to master all the individual skills – those are the steps toward the vision. To make kids memorize the steps without giving them a purpose is what happens when we teach grammar in isolation.

I wandered around the unfamiliar community center searching for a group that looked like they would fit the description of a children's writing group. As I walked into a room on the second floor, a woman slammed down a notebook in exasperation and exclaimed that she must be nuts to want to be a writer because writing was hell!

Well, not only did I realize that I had found the right group, I knew that this was a place where I belonged.

She said that she had writer's block and came for inspiration. We then went around the room and told a little about ourselves. Several people there were published children's writers. I was immediately both awestruck and intimidated. I wondered if I should even stay...

Then people were asked if they wanted to share. The intended audience for the writing ranged from picture books to young adult fantasy. What I was most impressed with, however, was the quality of the writing and the helpful comments and advice that came from the group. The procedure after the piece is read is to verbally give comments and to ask questions of the writer. Then we are all expected to write notes on little blue pieces of paper commenting on what we liked about the piece, one tidbit of advice for the piece, and one question that we still had.

I did get up the courage to share my writing that night and I will save my little slips of blue paper for a very long time. I loved getting gems of advice on my writing. It was so hard to share with a group of strangers. But, those strangers could not have been more welcoming and encouraging.

The second writing group I began attending was a group in Clinton. Although most of the writers were aiming their stories at young adults or adults, they were also welcoming and kind with their comments.

Listening to the group, I began to get a feeling about how to say a suggestion in a positive way that would not hurt the brave writer willing to share. And, even though I still intend to write more for children, I learned something from each and every writer at both groups.

Another thing I found interesting was that both groups had different suggestions for me on the same story. Which brings me back to this past cohort weekend spent on editing. Our presenter Jane Lincoln Taylor said multiple times that a writer needs to consider an editor's comments and then make a choice to follow the advice or to pass. I decided to follow some of each group's advice.

Writing. What can be a harder personal burden than to decide to become a writer? Maybe the woman in the children's writing group was right. Writing is hell.

And... I'll let you know how the next writing group goes.

Listen to this:

Since I live in Pennsylvania and teach at TGI’s campus in Connecticut, I am, by definition, a Road Warrior.

Crazy as it may sound, I have been commuting to this gig for more than 17 years. Let the record show that I have made the 300-mile round-trip journey approximately 250 times. That’s 75,000 miles (the distance required to drive around the equator of the Earth three times).

Think of the vast stretch of time: An astonishing 2,000 hours of White Line Fever. Said another way, that amounts to 166 back-to-back days of 12-hour driving. Where have they all gone, those precious ticking moments of my rapidly-shortening lifespan?

Some of those moments were spent daydreaming, some were spent cursing the traffic on the Merritt Parkway. But most were spent with my constant traveling companions—recorded books. Like many long-distance drivers, I learned long ago that nothing makes the miles roll by faster than a really good audio book.

Once I am entranced by a good reader and a gripping story, I can push through exhaustion, road rage and sheer boredom--finding my way to my destination with a smile on my face and the knowledge that I have learned something. And, I should mention: These audio books are free! My local library has an extensive collection of recorded books on CD. Full Disclosure: I tried Audible—too expensive.

In no particular order, here are the recorded books lying on the floor of my van right now:

The Whistler/ John Grisham
The Future of The Mind/Michio Kaku
Holy Blood, Holy Grail/Michael Baigent
Writing Creative Nonfiction/Tilar Mazzeo
The Professor in the Cage/Jonathan Gottschall
The Death of Ivan Ilyich/Leo Tolstoy
A Plague of Doves/Louise Erdrich
Spoonbenders/Daryl Gergory
Murder is Forever/James Patterson

Why do I carry so many? Some will be duds: After listening for a few moments, I will be annoyed by the reader or will discover that I don’t care about the premise. But a few will be gems and will wrap me in an aural blanket of listening bliss as the landscape zips past my windshield at 75 miles an hour.

A Fast-Growing Medium

Turns out, I am not alone in discovering the benefits of listening to books, often read by the author, while I do something else.

Consider the headline of a recent article in the June 3, 2018 edition of The New York Times: “Listen Carefully, Book Lovers: Top Authors Are Skipping Print”. Journalist Alexander Alter notes the impressive rise in audio sales as publishers respond to consumers’ desire for books that can be enjoyed by the ear rather than the eye.

“Audiobooks are no longer an appendage of print, but a creative medium in their own right,” Alter writes. “The rise of stand-alone audio has also made some traditional publishers nervous, as Audible (owned by Amazon) makes deals directly with writers. While e-book sales have fallen and print remains anemic, publishers’ revenues for downloaded audio has nearly tripled in the last five years.

"The battle over who will dominate the industry’s fastest-growing format is re-shaping the publishing landscape, much as e-books did a decade ago, driving up advances for audio rights and leading some authors to sign straight-to-audio deals.”

“We are scripting to a new aesthetic,” said Donald Katz, Audible’s founder and chief executive. “This wasn’t a full-fledged media category before, it was a tiny little Siberia stuck in book publishing, and it shouldn’t have been.”

Audible executive Davis Blum says that this change will require that book lovers expand their ideas of how they perceive literature. “We’re trying to break down the boundaries of what people think content ought to look like,” Blum says.

Listening to your favorite book is easier than ever. Advances in digital technology now allow cellphones to function as audiobook players. Consumers bought 90 million audiobooks in 2016, totaling sales of $2.1 billion. According to Alter, more writers and publishers are warming to the concept of delivering stories through the spoken word. Audible is now approaching writers directly to buy the audio rights for their latest works even before their book proposals are submitted to mainstream publishers.

A New Frontier

Once again, TGI finds itself on the cutting edge of contemporary culture. TGI’s Writing and Oral Traditions program is different from every other writing program in the nation because it focuses on the marriage of the spoken and written word in the creative process.

Since the launch of the program in 2000, we have understood that orality informs the writer and provides us with access to a neural pathway which carries messages into the storehouse of memory, imagination and insight in a way that mere ink on the page can never do. By combining the ancient art of storytelling with the latest trends in literary experimentation, TGI’s emerging writers have the opportunity to explore an alternative medium for delivering story.

The Graduate Institute Publishing Center is currently offering TGI writers the opportunity to publish in both print and digital form before a world-wide audience on the Amazon.com platform. Are audio books, with easily downloadable content, far behind? Keep posted as TGI's first-time authors learn how to distribute their work to story-lovers connected by the rapidly-growing matrix that is modern-day publishing.

Some researchers think we are entering an era when technology will allow the spoken word to open our ears in a new way. Among them is Psychologist Carol Gilligan, who reminds us,

“To have a voice is to be human. To have something to say is to be a person. But speaking depends on listening and being heard; it is an intensely relational act. Voice is natural and also cultural, a powerful psychological instrument connecting inner and outer worlds. Speaking and listening are a form of psychic breathing. This ongoing relational exchange is mediated through language and culture, diversity and plurality. For these reasons, voice is a new key for understanding the psychological, social and cultural order.”

As intelligent and empathetic listening becomes a skill necessary for meaningful participation in our steadily-growing understanding of what it means to be human, perhaps this new interest in the pleasures of both orality and aurality will help to lead the way.

The Little Dolphin That Could

Our recent cohort session on humor in storytelling reminded me of this moment in time:

It was the year of 1995, and all was not well.

Andy and I had been married for approximately eight months, and we were still finding our way through life. We got together, both in debt, plunged further into debt with the wedding, and found ourselves struggling to get out of debt as we were both working in the restaurant business with no healthcare or retirement plan. But we were still young, in our late twenties, and had a lot of living to do.

Two weeks prior, I had quit my job at the restaurant Andy and I worked for as I was tired of always having to find coverage if I was sick -–that was how the mom and pop places worked.

So I ventured over to Bennigan’s and brought Andy with me, which turned out to be worse. It was like working at a restaurant that was run by high school students for high school student customers who were trying to get served without a valid ID for high school student tip money. After about two weeks of covering for the oh-my-God-you’ll-never-guess-what-happened-to-me staff of Bennigan’s, I had enough.

I threw down my green smock and walked out the door, again taking Andy with me.

Mexico

My friend Andrea had the perfect solution: “Why don’t you come to Mexico with me and Marcella? It’ll be a blast!”

Broke, and armed only with credit cards, we embarked on a week-long vacation to Cancun, Mexico.

But out of the many highlights of the trip, one of my favorites was found a bus trip away in…

Xcaret- nature’s sacred paradise.

The beginning of the word is said like the beginning of the word escarole if pronounced in an Italian accent or the end of the word babushka if pronounced with a Polish accent. The end of the word pronounce like “Ay” or simply just “A.” At any rate, this Xcaret held the most coveted activity on Cancun—swimming with dolphins. This activity was not as common as it is today, and you had to get there early as the spots filled up quickly. So when the bus pulled up to the entrance, our first challenge started.

With a map already strategically printed out the evening before, I led the way. Sprinting through hordes of tourists who were trying to find their way, over baby carriages, and through finally manicured bushes to get there first. Andy was close behind me, but Andrea and Marcella had fallen back a pace. That pace was the difference between scoring a swim with the dolphins and watching other people swim with the dolphins. We were among the last five to be counted for the days totals, and we were told to return with our tickets at 11:00 a.m.

So we spent a ten-minute hour on the beach until we found ourselves suiting up in pink and blue life jackets as we got our safety lecture from the dolphin trainers. As I struggled to put the vest on, my mind drifted back to the gay couple we had met the evening before. While on our fifth rum punch on a booze cruise, I had told Wayne that we had plans to swim with the dolphins if we were lucky enough to score a ticket. He screeched.

“Or unlucky enough!!!” He clutched his white tank like he was having heart failure.

“Girrrrrl, you better watch out! There have been stories about people getting fuuuuucked up by dolphins,” he practically sang it.

“Dave, honey, tell these girls what we just heard about today, to---day!”

Dave captivated us with a tale of woe in which an unsuspecting tourist was swimming with dolphins when it treated her like a giant human ball--poking her in the ribs, swatting her around with its tail, and dragging her underwater to the point where she practically drowned.

Wayne sipped his cocktail, until he was just sucking at air.

“Don’t do it, girl,” he said.

He placed his hand on my forearm, “Don’t do it.”

The Moment of Truth

As we inched into the water, we were with two other people on our side of the tank. They had two different dolphins for the two different groups of people on either side of the tank, and the dolphins would get familiar with us before we did our grand swim across the 150’ length of the tank. I do not remember much except the cold blubbery skin slapping up against my legs, and then the trainer saying that the dolphin would respond if you just said her name, “Dolly.”

I was entranced. A moment in Mexico for a Broadway classic?

“Hello, Dolly! Well, hello, Dolly!” I crescendo-ed.

Apparently Dolly liked this a lot. She swam through my legs, jostling me around a bit, and nudged up right alongside of me, where the trainer on the dock snapped a photo.

Fear dissipated…love ensued…Xcaret lived up to its name of nature’s sacred paradise.