Kelly Barnhill's Blog, page 31

More Bad News in Education

Apparently, biology teachers are afraid to teach biology. Here's a nice little study published in the New York Times. When teachers are afraid to tackle basic principles in their field of expertise then we have a big friggin problem on our hands.

It's one thing that I had some run-ins with parents when I had the audacity to teach Harry Potter, The Crucible, Holes, or a few different short stories by Kelly Link or Jeff Vandermeer. Literature, by its nature, is subversive. I get that. And I was prepared for it.

But this is bigger than the bible, and it sure as hell is bigger than Darwin. This is basic information about how cells work. We can see evolution happening. Right now. Kids can do experiments on algea, mold, bacteria, yeasts, and even fruit flies. Ever heard of disease-resistant bacteria? Evolution. Ever learned about the effects of industrialization on certain breeds of Eastern moths? Evolution. Or the changing flora and fauna in response to invasive species?

Organisms change. We live in a dynamic world. To deny children access to the fundamental principals upon which life operates, perpetuates and thrives is nonsense to the point of criminality. And it's one thing to do this because of one's own religion. I absolutely understand the difficulty in separating the religious self from the professional self – we still have to do it, but I get it that it's hard. But to deny children the fullness of their education because you're afraid of religious conservatives? Because you're afraid of controversy? Or because you're reluctant to have to bother with unpleasantness? Sorry, but that's cowardice.

Education is no place for cowards. We need to believe in our subject matter. We need to prepare children to know more than we ever thought possible – not give them mean skimpings and hope for the best.

To you biology teachers who are avoiding talk of evolution: Knock it off. Be brave. Be thorough. Be clear. Teach.

P.S. My kid is doing a project on the Scopes Trial for National History Day right now. Have we really made THIS LITTLE PROGRESS? C'mon, people. Let's get to work.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: biology, cowardice, education, evolution, NYT, scopes trial

Everything I Know About Writing I Learned From Reading Fairy Tales

All right fine, that's not exactly true. But it's a little bit true.

When I was a kid, my dad had a book of fairy tales. It was a huge thing – phonebook sized. We struggled to haul it to my parents' bed for bedtime stories. The cover had long since been worn away to nothing, so my dad re-bound it, using a checkerboard cut to size. We called it The Checker Book, and my dad read to us out of it night after night.

Later, I couldn't get enough fairy tales – Grimm, d'Aulnoy, Perrault, Lang, Anderson, collections from Russia, Vietnam, Persia, Scotland and Norway. I gathered stories in my arms. Sucked them dry.

Later, because I was SUPER GROWN UP, I turned to more sober fare. I learned to parse language, analyze, make connections, dissect. But there was something about fairy tales. Something that wouldn't let me go.

I return to fairy tales – in my thinking, in my dreaming, in how I organize the world, in how I operate with others, and in my writing. Take this for example:

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(the actual fairy tale starts in the middle of the second minute)

The servant shall be king. Good prevails. The world is both dark and light – the light needs the dark, just as the dark needs the light. There are rules – and we break them at our peril. There are rules – and we follow them at our peril. True love exists – it is instant, revolutionary and life-changing. Those who think they deserve success achieve none. Those who presume nothing achieve all. The princess shall be rescued. Greed is punished tenfold. Kindness is rewarded beyond all imagining. Our perceived weakness hides the key to our triumph. The mighty bear the weight of their own destruction – and they can't even see it.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: brothers grimm, charles perrault, Childrens literature, fairy tales, fiction is my job, michel ocelot, princes et princesses

Even though the thought of re-interpretations of Classic John Lennon Songs makes me Very Very Cranky

But this is friggin' beautiful. And maybe it's the exception to the rule.

I'm not really one to shove video onto my blog – and really, to be honest, the video itself kinda ruins the song (I suggest looking at pictures of ponies or kittens or baby beluga whales)- but this one got to me. In particular, I thought the interpretation of the line about religion struck a peculiar resonance. In Lennon's original version, his voice pulls away – just slightly – when he sings "and no religion too", and I always felt that as the voice of a man who did not believe – imagination, in this instance, being stronger than belief. Indeed, in his interpretation, imagination trumps belief. And it always seemed mournful to me – cold and empty and alone. But in this version, the soulfulness of the line – and the deliberate slowing of the rhythm, the close, resonant harmonies – leads me to believe that their intention was quite different. In this case, imagination deepens belief. If one is to imagine a world without religion, then a relationship with the Divine becomes the responsibility of each individual. Or, in other words, it's faith anarchized, democratized, internalized, and therefore free to all.

Now many of you know that I'm a practicing Catholic (practice? Ha! I don't need no stinkin' practice!), and while I've had my differences with many (all?) of my church leaders over the years (angrily, vociferously, while still believing in the ability of people to change) and have had my share of doubts over the years (like, every blessed day) I take a great deal of joy in my faith. Being in church moves me to tears, the person of of Jesus the Revolutionary spurs me to action, and I believe in the call of scripture to radically change the world.

But now I have to wonder if I sometimes abdicate the responsibility I have to love God and love the world to the comfortable momentum of my church. Perhaps I do. I have a responsibility to love the world. I have a responsibility to seek the Divine in my life. Do I do it? A little bit, I guess. Do I do it well? Um…..not so much.

One of the things I've loved in reading about mystics – both Christian mystics and mystics in every religion – is that sense of immediacy and urgency and wonder in which they imbued into their day to day life. When you operate under the assumption that the physical world and the spiritual world are as close to one another as the breath and the mouth, it lends a certain shimmer to the world around you.

The mystic sees God in the wind. The mystic feels God in the ground under her feet. The mystic has no need for fussing over heaven or hell, of the rightness or wrongness of one religion over another, because, as far as the mystic is concerned, God is here, heaven is here – and God is in the faces of the people demonstrating in Egypt and in the bodies of those struggling for a basic existence in Haiti, and in the hands of the doctors and nurses in hospices all over the world, gently ushering the dying from one world to the next. God is you. And me. And the world. And in the end, whatever religion any of us are doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Sometimes, this work really messes with your head.

I had a dream that I caught up with my main character – exactly where I left her. She was in an alley, next to a dumpster, in between two brick buildings. The building on her left was vacant – and had been for some time. Plywood covered the windows, metal panels blocked the doors. The building on her left housed a furniture maker, but it was closed on Mondays. There was no one to help her.

She was in mid-run- caught, and still, like a photograph. Her lead leg extended outward, her back leg curled behind. She hovered over the ground. As I approached, though, her eyes glimmered, her skin rounded, and she peeled her body away from its spot. She wobbled a bit, found her balance, and then narrowed her eyes on me. She crossed her arms across her chest and stuck out her chin.

"Oh," she said. "It's you."

The girl she was running with didn't move. She remained pinned in time, exactly where I had left her. Her eyes were wide and livid, her mouth open, her bandaged hands oozing blood. One drip had leaked free and was floating, immobile – midway between her hands and the ground.

A pack of dogs hovered at the corner in suspended animation – frozen mid-leap. One of the dogs wore a tee-shirt that said "Math Camp."

I knew who that dog was. Poor, poor Brian. I hope I can save him.

My character crouched on the ground. Gave me a grin. "WELL," I said, exasperated.

"Well, what?" Nika said.

"Are you going to just sit there?"

"Yup. Can't do much else."

"Aren't you mad?" I jammed my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. I knew every detail of where we were – the damp pavement, the rough bricks, the deep shadows. I knew the exact smell of sawdust and cat urine and spilled propane and old trash. I knew the shape of the graffiti, the position of the old boxes and empty bottles and blowing paper on the ground. Where I left her – it wasn't a nice place. It wasn't nice at all.

"No time to be mad," she said. She cleared her throat and spat on the ground. "In fact, there's no time here at all."

"Aren't you going to tell me what happens next? You've been telling me what happens next from the get go. This is a hell of a time to clam up."

She shrugged. "Figured it was your turn." She stood. "Better get cracking."

And then she put herself back into position. Mid-run. Hovering over the ground. Waiting. Counting on me. Of all people.

And I have no idea what happens next.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: lying for a living, main characters asserting themselves in all sorts of annoying ways, math camp, new books

On Networking (and why I kinda suck a it)

There's a reason why I wouldn't be able to survive in Corporate America. First of all, I look terrible in blazers. Second of all, I don't wear heels. And third of all, I can't network. Like at all.

(Oh Working Girl! How you've imprinted yourself upon my imagination forever!)

Even the word "network" makes me go all heeby-jeeby and flop-sweaty and I can't do it. Not only that, I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to get out of networking. Gigs? New best friends? Award nominations? I have no idea.

Instead, I chat, eat food and get the heck out of there before someone sees that I don't know what I'm doing.

Still, despite the fact that I'm communication-deficient, I decided to go to the Minnesota Magazine Publisher's Association's yearly freelancer and editor Mingle. Essentially, it's like those parties that we went to in college when people wore stickers indicating if they were interested in men or women (or both), or if they were in a committed relationship and just wanted to hang out and have fun. I always thought that the parties that color-coded its attendees were more fun than the usual fare, because it eliminated confusion or crossed wires and everyone could relax and enjoy themselves. This was a similar concept, except, we were coded according to Writer or Editor or Publisher or Photographer, or whatever.

Now, unfortunately, that meant that, from time to time, some folks saw the W on my name badge and took it as an opportunity to give me the good ole fashioned brush-off, but on the whole, I had a nice time. I got to show off my Luddite-special super old cellphone to people (it sorta looks like this one: except that mine is bigger), and talk about new projects, and mostly it gave me an opportunity to get a better understanding of the landscape of magazine publishing in my state. And let me tell you: there's a lot. I was stunned. I have some experience with the magazine world around here from my work with the (sadly defunct) Twin Cities Statement magazine, but the nature of that work consisted of the editor calling me up and asking for stories on various topics. I never had to pitch stories. I'm not entirely sure I know how to do it.

In any case, I'm glad I went. It was nice to chat with grown-ups, it was nice to learn, and it was nice to pretend that I was doing something for my career (largely untrue, of course, but since I lie for a living, why not lie to myself).

Here's me from the behind, my signature orange purse slung across my back, sans blazer, sans heels, my undyed, unprocessed, untamable hair wound into a clip, chatting to the lovely Kelli Billstein.

Maybe I can learn the ways of Corporate America – all I need is my boss's rolodex, a can of aquanet and a pack of Virginia Slims. (Because I'm sure nothing at all has changed from the days of Working Girl, right?)

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: freelance writing, I wish I was better at this sort of thing, lying for a living, magazine writing, MMPA, networking, Virginia Slims, why I cannot be a corporate cog, Working Girl

The Perils of Harry Potter (and how the whack-job book burners may have been sorta right)

In my first year teaching, one of my reading groups had chosen Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as their shared book for that month. And boy did I catch hell from some parents. I got all kinds of nonsense  – from "the scar on his forehead is an obvious allusion to the Mark of the Beast", to "I don't want my child reading about witchcraft. I have a hard enough time controlling him as it is", to "you shove a bunch of goddamned fantasies into these children's heads and they won't be able to know what's real any more."

Because I believe in books and I believe in Story (and I secretly believe in magic), I laughed off the parents' concerns, and relegated their voices under the category of "Total Nuts That I Have To Put Up With." I made some accommodations for the children whose parents wouldn't budge, but mostly I just thought those parents were being silly – and I told them so.

And I never thought about their concerns again. Until recently.

Two thirds of my children are Harry Potter fanatics. They've read those books, re-read them, re-re-read them, and refer to specific passages as they correspond to particular events or decisions in their lives as sixth graders and third graders, respectively.

They can tell you, in exquisite detail, the points at which the movies diverge from the books; they can tell you – chapter and verse – the moments in the books in which character is revealed, in which clues are hidden, in which mysteries are unraveled. They have spent months assembling character-based costumes – both for Halloween, and just for fun – and have assumed the identities completely – Hermione, Bellatrix Lestrange, Mad-Eye Moody and Professor McGonagall. My children live in the Potterverse. Those books have seeped in through their fingers, permeated their bloodstreams, fed their dreams.

And maybe this is problematic.

My husband was driving my oldest home from a basketball game this weekend. As they drove past the snow-covered field, Ella glanced over at a black lab leaping upwards to snatch a red frisbee from the air. Her eyes widened and she let out a panicked gasp.

"OH MY GOSH!" she screamed.

My husband jolted in his seat. "What?" he asked.

Ella sighed and relaxed. "Oh," she said. "Phew. Never mind."

Ted, his heart still racing, said, "What happened?"

"Oh," Ella explained. "It's nothing. I just looked over at the field and thought I saw a giant spider."

Ted drove in silence for a moment. Finally: "A giant spider?"

Ella sat primly in her seat, her hands folded in her lap. "Well, obviously. You see something out of the corner of your eye, something black and hairy with legs flailing every which way as it hurls itself into the air. What was I supposed to think?"

Ted, biting his tongue to keep from laughing, stayed silent.

"It was perfectly reasonable," my daughter insisted.

And maybe she's right. It likely is perfectly reasonable – if your brain has been hijacked by Hogwarts and your brain is filled to bursting with magical adventures.

Of course, if the book burners had their way, she'd be exclusively reading the Bible and the Left Behind books, which means that, given the imagination on this kid, she'll be blowing horns at city walls, expecting them to come tumbling down, and will likely assume that every empty pair of shoes is evidence of the rapture.

I think we'll stick with the giant spiders.

 

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: black labradors, book burning, giant spiders, Harry Potter, Potterverse, Professor McGonagall was the model for my teaching career, the perils of reading

By the pricking of my thumbs, and so forth.

Macbeth and Banquo meet their destiny. And boy will they regret it.

So I'll admit it. I never really liked Macbeth. And it wasn't just the disastrous production of it that I saw in high school, either (though, admittedly, there are some bad tastes that can linger in the mouth for years – nay, decades after eruption), nor does it have anything to do with the fact that the boy who played Macbeth in the aforementioned high school production did once ruthlessly and callously and carelessly jilt the easily-brokenhearted Kelly (née Regan) Barnhill.

But seriously, I never really dug the play. And mostly, I never really understood the moment that broke Macbeth, nor was I ever able to place myself in that moment when he transforms from honorable soldier and loyal citizen to bloody madman. Indeed, the transition seemed to me to be so abrupt, so out of character, that I never really bought it.

Does the good man really go bad, I wondered? On that dramatic a scale? Wouldn't he have a tiny bit of crazy-madman-power-hungry-killer dude in him before his little run-in with the witches? Or was someone else pulling the strings.

Now, obviously, most people point to the general string-puller as Lady Macbeth, and it's true that from the get-go she's much more keen on murder, much more hungry for power as her husband is, but in the end, she's just as crazy, just as broken, and just as manipulated as he is.

So who, then, is the manipulator? The play is, and has been, mum.

But this weekend I went to see my beloved (and beautiful and talented) sister, Sheila Regan, perform in Nightpath Theatre's production of Macbeth: Rehearsing, directed by Maggie Scanlon. Here's a picture:

See what I mean? Beautiful and talented. And a frickin' scary witch.

And I brought my two daughters with me, which I felt was a bold move. This was, after all, avent-garde theatre (with the e and r reversed!). There might be nudity! There might be bad words! There might be fake blood that looks real that makes my eight year old cry! I fussed and fussed. But in the end, I didn't have a sitter, so I took her along.

And it was marvelous. The conceit of the play was somewhat reminiscent of Vanya on 42nd Street, in which the audience is invited in to see a play as it's being rehearsed – and by doing so, exposes the beams and struts of the story. There are pauses and breaks. The director forces the audience to look again – more deeply – into the nuances of ambition and greed, and the terrible curse of perceived deservedness. We feel Macbeth's public shaming by the king, not once but twice. And his decent into madness is predicated, not by vice, but on the promise that the kingship is already his. He just has to take it. He deserves it. Poor, poor deceived fellow.

Now, the most interesting thing that the show does is its assertion that the three witches have a particular end in mind – and Macbeth is merely a pawn. Throughout the show they are stalking, manipulating, insinuating and pushing – not in word, of course, but in body. It is magic-made-physical, and it is glorious.

And the best part – my kids totally got it. I think if I had taken them to a full-on performance, they would have been bored out of their skulls. But this stripped-down version, with its intimacy and immediacy – this they got.

"I think I'd feel sorrier for Macbeth if he hadn't started killing all those people," my eight year old said. "Still, I feel a little sorry for him."

"Yeah," I said. "Me too."

She thought about the play a little more, then asked: "And does Auntie Sheila have magical powers? Because it really seemed like she had magical powers. Actual ones."

"I know," I said. "I'm pretty sure she does.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Macbeth rehearsing, Nightpath, theater, William Shakespeare

Visual Artists Are Friggin' Brilliant

 

So, many of you already know how much I adore the cover of my book. It's actually a pretty stressful thing – handing your hard-wrought story over to the art department of your particular publishing house and hoping for the best. Hoping that somebody gets your story – and gets it in a way that they're able to transform the experience of the story (separate, you understand from the story itself) into a single, cohesive image. This requires a person who is fluent in the language of line, the language of rhythm, and the emotion of form.

 

None of these are skills that I posses. I am not a visual artist. I have neither the eye, nor the fine motor skills, nor the ability to see the world in terms of its elements.

 

Anyway, I waited and waited for my cover, and I fussed and fussed, because I just didn't know what I was in for. What if I hate it? I asked myself. It was the first major loss of creative control of my story, and it wasn't a comfortable place to be in, I'll tell you what.

And then, they sent me this:

And I love it. Of course I do. I can't think of a better visual representation of my story. It's perfect.

And now. Today. Thanks to the miracle of Google Alerts, the brilliant lady who constructed this image has put a little bit of the process on her website. And it is AMAZING.

First of all, her name is Juline Harrison, and she is brilliant. You can visit her website here. She makes beautiful creations out of cut paper, and I think her work is divine. And here, she shows us the original cut-paper piece, before it was altered and colored and covered with words.

See what she did there? What an amazing person. Thank you, Julene, for your soulful interpretation of my story.

 

And hooray for visual artists! I'm in awe of the lot of you!

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: cut-paper art, hachette, julene harrison, lbyr, Little Brown, The Mostly True Story of Jack

Hooray for Etsy!

So I've been complaining a lot lately about the impact that my daily writing habit has on my hands. Not only (being that I am now at the ripe old age of 37) am I noticing the first inklings of early arthritis, but what's even more problematic is the cold.

Typing makes my hands cold. Really, really cold.

I imagine them crystallizing, cracking, and shattering into bright, sharp shards.

Writing longhand makes my hands cold too, but I don't notice it as much because I can tuck my left hand between the chair and my thigh to keep it warm. I've also done this with my right hand, too, opting to write (slowly) with my left. I can't recommend this. It makes the editing process an absolute nightmare.

Still, though I write my first drafts of my novels in longhand, I do all of my revisions on the computer, I compose blog posts on the computer and I compose short stories on the computer as well. The point is: I type a lot.

And so my hands are ice cold a lot. Thus my ceaseless complaints.

Enter: MY MOM.

First of all, for those of you who don't know my mom, let me assure you: she rules. Second of all, after poking around on the internets for a while, she finally stumbled on Etsy.com and for that we can all rejoice.

Oh, Etsy! How I love you! How I love your gentle pull towards time wasting! How I love your persistent insistence for beauty! How I love your assertion that beauty has a place on all things – on the body, in the nooks and crannies of the home, in the yard, in the world. How I love your simple democratization of beautiful things – from my hands to your hands and back again.

So my mom found these.

Fingerless gloves. Soft wool. Beautiful colors. Made by a lovely lady from Lithuania, hand-wrapped with an inscription on the package, and sent to me.

To make me happy.

To turn my pain and discomfort into an occasion for beauty. An occasion to that which is pleasurable, body-affirming and good.

Thank you, Etsy! And thank you, my wonderful mom.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: aging, arthritis, beauty, Etsy, knitting, the democratization of capitalism, Things That Make Kelly Happy

The Two Towers…..sort of.

It's my book! At the ALA Midwinter Meeting! The lovely folks at Little, Brown (and can I say again how lucky I am to be an LB author? Seriously, sometimes it blows me away.) have, through devilishly clever engineering skills and architectural prowess have constructed this:

A shining tower of books! My book. The mind reels.

But wait! There's more! In their infinite wisdom and enduring capacity to bestow graces upon writers (the laborers in the fields, the builders of stories, the gatherers of rubies from the mines) they have built for my book not one but two towers!

(for some reason this photo is very small and cropped. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the limit of my technical powers. I assure you though, there are two, and if you squint and look sideways you can totally see them)

Two towers! Given that the genesis of my book was in the pages of Tolkein's essay "On Fairy Stories" (printed out by my dad, who, in no uncertain terms, positively ordered me to read it. What a bossy-pants!) the fact that there are Two Towers of my little book fills me with joy.

Hooray for ALA conferences! Hooray for Jack! Hooray for the lovers of books and the collectors of books and the thinkers of books and for books themselves! Hooray for LB, who took a chance on these characters, these whispery voices in the dark, and helped me pull them into the world.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: ALA, alamw11, Being a Writer Sometimes Rules, Debut Novels, The Mostly True Story of Jack, Towers of Power