CELEBRATING!

Howdy, Campers ~ and Happy Poetry Friday! (Link to PF is at the end)

Look what I found in the depths of my closet:

No TeachingAuthor we've asked remembers who created these t-shirts nor for what occasion...which makes me laugh.                                                                                            

This is our final post celebrating our 15th (FIFTHEENTH!) blogiversary. 

Bobbi wrote a post titled What Comes Next?, Zeena posted Congratulations on 15 years!!! Here's to 15 more!!! Mary Ann posted 15 Years? No!!!  Esther posted  Happy15th Book and Gift Card Giveaway!  and Carmela, our Mother Board Blogger, posted 15th TA Blogiversary and Book and Gift Card Giveaway!

Let me be upfront with you. In my very first post, I wrote, "I learned that in teaching, as in poetry, less is more."   So here's the truth: this post is too long and I'm tired because I'm a puppy mom. I'm sure one day I'll get more sleep, but for now, I'm going to honor my tiredness and turn off my laptop without spending hours making it perfect. 

Because we all know there is no such thing as perfect. 

Over the years...

By the time I wrote my first TeachingAuthors post on May 8, 2009, I'd taught workshops in schools across the globe. But--whoa!--now the head of the UCLA Extension Writers' Program was on the phone, asking me to teach...TALL people?

In that first post, I blogged about how scared I was to teach adults:

"I practiced...by teaching teens at my home. The most important thing I learned from that was not to throw every single solitary thing I’d ever learned at them (those poor overwhelmed kids!)."

Over the years, as a teacher, I have learned to say less (except today on this post...forgive me). 

I've also learned to be more authentic. More human. More me. 

Here's an example:

This morning, my critique group of incredible, smart writers met. We meet every other Thursday at a deli in mid-town Los Angeles. We order breakfast, talk about our joys, our struggles, our kids and/or animals...and when we've finished eating, we get down to business. 

I was feeling weird and less-then last night because I had nothing for them to critique. 

It's dang hard to be honest, but today, when it was my turn, I told them that I was not nearly as brave as they are (believe me: they are seriously brave). When my manuscripts are rejected, or an agent asks for a revision, it takes me forever to send my revised story back. I'm timid when it comes to submitting and submitting and submitting. I'm sure my stories will never be good enough. 

How did it feel to be that honest with them? Good. 

Great, actually. I got support, practical advice and lots of love.

I did bring three picture books published in 2024--I love sharing them and hearing my group's reaction to the work of other authors and illustrators. That was really, really fun. We were all in it together, asking questions like, Did anyone edit this book? and Is this poetry or simply lyrical writing? and OMG I love this book!

I left feeling uplifted.

I've learned (am still learning) to trust that "still, small voice within."

Here's what I tell myself...and my students:

>There is no "right way" to write a book, train a dog or live your life.

>Ya gotta be honest. Telling the truth is hard. It's also what reaches a reader. 

> Listen to that still, small voice within. (Mary Ann's still, small voice has told her to write the book she must write before she dies. Not mine. Mine says to write the book that plops on my head unexpectedly and drips all over my t-shirt.)

>It's up to you to figure out what your fingerprint is... 

...whose advice to take, when to leave a critique group, a conference, an agent (and when to let that manuscript rest for awhile.) 

What's your fingerprint?

Here are three poems 

I've written over the years for our blogiversarys:

TeachingAuthors.com turns 2!

OUR  BLOGIVERSARY! 
by April Halprin Wayland

We six who ride our blog horse here

are rather like that Paul Revere

“One if by land, two if by sea,”
was revolution’s poetry

We TeachingAuthors gallop, too,

to share our lantern light with you

we aim to help, support and cheer

so you can write with joy, not fear

in this New Land: Kidlitosphere

(c) 2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

TeachingAuthors.com turns 4!

       A Blooming Blogiversary

     Sheaves of paper, leaves of prose
     Typing wobbly rocky rows

     Planting tender inkling seeds
     Sowing words on glowing screens

     Underground the spark is struck
     Growing with some care and luck

     First a shoot, then a sprout
     Weeding all the adverbs out

     Seedlings reaching toward the sun
     Readers, writers we are one

     Blooming in the blogisphere
     Post by post, year by year
poem © 2013 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

TeachingAuthors.com turns 1!

BLOG-I-VERSE-A-TREE
by April Halprin Wayland 

How does it feel to cross over this creek,
to fly from tree to tree to you?
To find, in the midst of the jungle a few
readers discerning, kind and true?

How does it feel, week after week,
to water a seed, now one year old?
To watch its young, green leaves unfold
as it gives me back a thousand fold?

I feel I’m Bird, just opening her beak,
at the top of a tree, on the first day of Spring,
easily found on Google or Bing,
joining five friends to Tweet, to sing!

© 2010 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

Here's how I ended my first blog post...it's even truer--today:

So, it's been a process. I've become a TEACHING AUTHOR through the students I've worked with from kindergarten to AARP, through my colleagues, through my own teachers.

I’ve taught in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program for 10 years now [Update: this year marks my 25th year of teaching in UCLA's Writers' Program] and this year: 

I. Finally. Understand:

Teaching is generosity.

I feel incredibly lucky to be part of TEACHING AUTHORS, and look forward to more of this great adventure of camaraderie and discovery and learning from you.

(photo by my husband, who is proud that he's
hard to find on the internet)

Thank you, Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge  for hosting PF!

written with love by April Halprin Wayland 

with help from the film stars of my instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/aprilwayland/?hl=en):

7-month-old Sadie 

and 5-year-old Kitty

WEDNESDAY WRITING WORKOUT: Never Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Good Story

Today's Wednesday Writing Workout  - intended to get you THINKING about Fiction vs. Fact - comes to you courtesy of my Chicago writer LisaMaggiore.  I knew pronto her “Ava” picture book manuscript was a Winner when I first read it. Sky Pony Press obviously agreed because they published AVA THE MONSTER SLAYER: A WARRIOR WHO WEARS GLASSES, illustrated by Ross Felten, in 2015.  

I’m happy to report: Lisa’s currently working on an AVA sequel as well as a YA novel. She lives with her husband and four children in the city.  For the past 20 years, she was a dedicated social worker – a profession she proudly admits helped her write about tragedy and love. 

Like her Heroine Ava, Lisa excels at both conquering Scary Moments – and – telling stories.  If you don’t believe me, click HERE to listen to and watch her perform her Live Lit LOUDER THAN A MOM performance last February in which she shares her TRUE story of giving both to her daughter at a Chicago gas station! 

Fortunately, when it comes to fiction, Lisa makes sure she never lets the Truth get in the way of a good story. 😊

Thank you, Lisa, for jump-starting our TeachingAuthors readers' brains, showing and sharing how they can do the same.  

And, Readers: don’t forget to click HERE to enter our TeachingAuthors Book Giveaway of Matt Bird’s THE SECRETS OF STORY (Writer’s Digest, 2016)!

Enjoy and learn!

Esther Hershenhorn

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

TRUTH VS. AUTHENTICITY

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

Some believe the words belong to Mark Twain; others believe the words appear in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs.  Either way, its meaning can be confusing when writing

a story.  Should the truth be omitted or entwined in a story?  And how does being authentic come into play?

As a writer who has taken on a YA historical fiction project, writing in the realm of truth

and authenticity requires a fine balance.  My protagonist, Tin, is male an Amerasian, both of which I am not.  He has lived in an orphanage, survived war, and been a refugee in America - all of which I have never experienced.  Some literary critics have argued that if you’re not writing from your own direct experience, what’s being written cannot be true.  I can begin to question myself as a writer – how can I tell a story that I have never experienced in a truthful and authentic way?

I fell in love with my idea for my YA historical and as writers know, you must love your story, or why would anyone else?  To give myself permission to write this story, I decided to strip away ideas that I had about truth and authenticity and look up the definitions.

This is what I found in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.

Truth: the body of real things, events and facts; a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true.

Authentic: true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.

These definitions really helped to guide my writing and here’s how.  When I teased away the truth, what I found is that my story’s mission is about drawing out a minority voice and combating oppression, two ideas in storytelling that I’m

deeply passionate about.  My protagonist, Tin, is a fictional character, based on

years of research and interviews with Vietnamese refugees.  But I’m mindful of

giving him an authentic voice because I have worked on being an empathic

interviewer and observer.  I did those things by taking careful notes while conducting interviews, attending Vietnamese events, and easting at Vietnamese

restaurants.  It also helped that my oldest daughter is half Vietnamese; her father and his family escaped Saigon as it was falling to the Communists in 1975.

When I discovered Tin’s authentic voice, I added “truth” but flavored it with

fiction.  Since this is a historical novel, I had real events, facts, and ideas that were accepted as true but how much of that truth I placed in the story was up to me to decide.  Truth is measurable, since it is based in a recorded fact, but truth

is also how someone felt emotionally.  That is not something that can be

measured since it’s linked to an emotion through a personal experience.  

And this is where I think writers can get the two mixed up.  Authentic voice is not

necessarily hinged on truth, rather on what your character would/do if you

were not looking. It involves being vulnerable and sharing emotions, exposing

fears, uncovering anxieties.  The authentic voice pulls the reader into a place of

understanding, if done right, on why your protagonist took a certain action, even

if the reader may not agree with the protagonist’s decision.  The truth does not

mean giving the reader what he wants to hear, but as Ernest Hemingway described as the authenticity found in novels, “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards, it all belongs to you.”

As a writer working with truth and authenticity, you must enter the reader’s brain and heart.  Truth can do the brain work and engage the reader in the

journey in a curious and excited, even scary way.  Authenticity works the heart,

by helping the reader belive that the journey will be worthwhile and fulfilling.

And at the end of the day, I’m hoping that the reader is engaged in my mission: telling a truthful and authentic story that is bigger than any of us.

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