Does anyone blog anymore?

Last week a friend showed up on my porch with a Christmas basket. He’d found my address on this site. He also told me he’d found “my blog." (And yes, I think he used air quotes when he said it.)

Holding that heavy basket with a pineapple about to poke my eye, I wondered what he meant. My mind flipped through the possibilities. Was he talking about my alter ego as a fashion anthropologist? My ancient flirtation with food blogging under an alias? My occasional and long-ago posts in search of stories from Core Banks? My Year of Submission? And how on earth had he found any one of these?

But no, of course he meant this one. On the website with my contact information. Left behind for years, along with all those others.

I maintain an online magazine (essentially a blog) for the public speaking school I co-direct. It’s full of how-to articles for the students we coach. But I’ve given up personal blogging. And I guess I assumed everyone else has, too. So I Googled “does anyone blog anymore.” And it turns out, they don’t. And they do. Sort of like me.

Clean hands. Pure hearts.

We took the elevator down to the vault, not sure what we'd get to see. But I knew that's where they kept the treasures. I'd even seen a few of them before. F. Scott Fitzgerald's briefcase. The typewriter Joseph Heller used to write Catch-22.

Maybe you're not a geeky person like I am: I get very excited to think that my hand is touching the same thing someone great has touched. That, miles or decades or lifetimes apart though we may be,  we are somehow in the same place at the same time.

(The one time I was left alone with the Heller typewriter, it took all the self-control I could muster not to walk over and put my fingers on the keys. Self control, and a healthy fear of hidden security cameras.)

The Fitzgerald Ledger
But if you do ever have that same crazy sense of things, you'll understand why I was so excited. Elizabeth Suddeth, Director of the special collections at the University of South Carolina library, had pulled out F. Scott Fitzgerald's ledger. The one where he'd written every tiny detail of his life, as my old professor and friend Dr. Matthew Bruccoli used to tell us, because Fitzgerald believed one day he'd be famous.

The page I touched in the Fitzgerald ledger.

Go ahead. Touch it. 

Could I trust my ears? Had Elizabeth just told us we could put a finger on the ledger.

Didn't we at least need to wear those white cotton gloves?

"Clean hands. Pure hearts," was Elizabeth's response.

Turns out she and the library's archivists believe you take more care with documents and items if you're not wearing gloves. And, of course, we didn't rub our greasy hands all over the thing.

Rare first edition of Phillis Wheatley's poems, the first published book of poetry by an African-American.

The Thomas Cooper Society
One of my favorite volunteer activities is being a board member of the Thomas Cooper Society, an organization that supports these special collections at the university library. And not just because I occasionally get to go to the vault and see things that make my little nerd heart soar.

A more recent acquisition.

This business of collecting books and documents is so incredibly valuable. I know, because I've used some of these resources myself for documentaries I've worked on. As have other researchers, who come to this library from around the world.

You can learn more about the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections here. 

Am I an official Puppet Slammer now?

I'm always interested in new ways of telling a story--so when I saw there would be a free puppetry class, taught by the talented members of Facto Teatro, I had to go.

I had no idea when I signed up online that one of my favorite friends was also attending, that I'd adapt a Liberian folktale ("Head, Body, Legs")  into a script, and perform 48 hours later in a full-on, big-time puppet slam.

If you like to make people laugh--and I do--then there's nothing that feels better than hearing an audience crack up over a story you're telling. And nothing makes you worry like fearing that they won't.

Building the set and the puppet.

So while we fretted over how to make our main character's head roll around on the ground and worried if the waves of our cardboard river were moving in sync, I knew that success rode just as much on the timing and the character voices. And when we scrambled onto the stage with our tabletop set, I wasn't sure what would happen.

I'm happy to say the audience laughed. A lot. Thank you Indie Grits film festival, Columbia Marionette Theater, Lyon Hill, Facto Teatro, and my classmates for a great experience. 

Alejandro Garcia fine-tuning "Head" (left) and one of our talented classmates using paper puppets to tell a magical story from her childhood.

I learned a ton, had a great time, and would love to make puppet slamming (if that's the right term) a regular part of my life.

I wrote about the storytelling lessons that my friend, artist Alejandro Garcia-Lemos, and I took away from the experience for the online magazine I manage for The Buckley School of Public Speaking, so if making a puppet show interests you, there's more over there.

To see the incredible work of all the puppet artists, here's a recap from Indie Grits.

Getting personal....and liking it

Personal essays.
I battled my mixed feelings about them the entire time I worked as an editor for skirt! magazine. Nikki Hardin, the magazine's founder, is superb at writing them. It was one of the reasons she created a magazine that featured personal essays. But I worried that some essays we published from other writers might sound like whining by people with more good fortune than they deserved.

That began to be all I could think about when I'd write my monthly editor's letter. Don't let me be guilty. Please don't let me sound like a spoiled brat.

Fast forward. It's Valentine's Day 2017.
I'm huddled around the table with my classmates in The Nickelodeon's podcasting class. Friends wondered why I was taking it. I'd been writing, producing and editing projects since before I was in college.

Those projects, though, didn't have the feel of This American Life. I wanted to see if I could write a personal story and bring it to life with sound.

That's not a heartbeat on Valentine's Day but a soundwave: Our teacher, Cooper McKim, giving us some tips for putting our stories together.

On that night, we were reading our scripts. And when it was my turn, I was incredibly nervous. Alone in front of my laptop, I thought I'd written something funny.  

But you never know.

My topic was my basketball fandom.
I follow the University of South Carolina's women's basketball team. I'm more than a fan, even. At the time, I was mentoring one of the players.

So when I watched my team play the invincible women of the University of Connecticut, it was nerve wracking.

That was the personal story I had decided to tell.

My voice cracked as I read the first lines. My hands shook. I was breathless, going too fast. 

I teach public speaking and present in front of huge groups of people, but all that experience--apparently--was worthless at the moment.

Then my classmates laughed. I started to relax.

They laughed some more. 

They liked my personal angle.

So, with a few minor copy changes, I went for it.
Being able to use my voice--my actual voice as well as my writing voice--to create a finished product was new for me. I liked it.

Taking the class helped me think about new ways for telling my stories. It reminded me of what I've always liked about personal essays, the vulnerability that the writer risks and the way it makes me feel connected to the writer.

Here's the end result on SoundCloud.
If it sounds a little "rustic," I hope you'll forgive that: All the audio was recorded on my cell phone, edited with free software downloaded from Hindenburg:

The joy of a live audience and collaboration

When musician Ayala Asherov first approached me about creating a work for children, I was excited but not sure how it would come together.

It turns out that working with Ayala and our other partner in crime, composer Dick Goodwin, has been one of the most delightful creative projects of my life.

Story and Chamber Music Concert
As Ayala described it, she wanted us to create something like Peter and the Wolf--a story with music--only a) shorter and b) written for a chamber group--so that schools could incorporate it more easily into classes and afford to host a performance.

So that is how I wound up imagining a story about a creature who might have trouble finding a dance partner. Porcupine. And how together, we created Porcupine Saves the Dance.

Dick Goodwin in the background on the left, Ayala Asherov in the foreground at the far right--the two composers preparing for our performance of Porcupine Saves the Dance.

Writing With Music in Mind
Collaborating with Ayala and Dick gave me some new perspectives as we worked out the story. Themes and ways to distinguish characters were important to the music.

At one point, I had written "Porcupine was discouraged." Dick asked if I could show what that looked like, so he could use music to illustrate it. Of course. It's what I should've done anyway.

But the music pushed me to get there.

"His shoulders slumped." Cue the oboe. 

"His needles drooped." A run of notes on the cello.

Then, "Porcupine sat down." Percussion.

The music, like images in a picture book, could also take the place of words. That was fun to work out. And to hear your story set to music is exciting.

Getting Story and Score to the Stage
We used an actor to read for our first few performances and I sat in the back of theaters, listening, thinking of ways to make it better.

I thought the actor was good. But Ayala believed, strongly, that I should read the story. "It's just different when you read it," she kept telling me. "You draw the kids in."

I wasn't so sure about that, but it's hard to say no to Ayala. That's why I'd gotten involved in this project in the first place. Ayala, the irresistible force. (Also needs to be said: Dick Goodwin is one of the most supportive and insightful people you could ever hope to work with.)

I had to admit, I sort of wanted to get in on the act.

In some ways, the music works the way illustrations do in a picture book.

Getting to Know Your Audience
Now, a great occasional treat for me is to read Porcupine Saves the Dance to a crowd of elementary-aged kids. They like the story and the music and the musicians. And then when they find out their narrator is the writer, they have so many questions for me. They seem genuinely excited to see a writer in person. How about that?

We had the old gang together this month to perform for around 150 kids.

And I got at least 140 hugs after.

Pretty incredible.

And not something you think about when you're scratching out lines and wondering if you'll ever get the words right.

Experiencing StoryCorps

I've always enjoyed the the way you get to eavesdrop on the conversations that make up StoryCorps features. A few weeks ago, I had the unexpected good fortune to be part of a StoryCorp recording.

Filling out the required paperwork

My longtime friend Hugh Jacobs wanted to capture the story of his mother. She died of cancer when he was 16. He worried that her grandchildren and great grandchildren wouldn't know anything about her. So he asked me to help him tell those stories, by interviewing him.

When the door finally opened, we found out that our old WIS-TV friend and co-worker Joe Pinner was there just before us, recording his own stories.

It was cold. We got there a little early. Hugh seemed nervous. And I was curious about how it would all play out. We'd met for lunch the day before to talk about the stories he wanted to tell. Recalling his mom's death had brought up a lot of old, difficult memories.

Getting ready to record Hugh's stories

The StoryCorps mobile studio is a lovely little gem of a thing, with a producer sitting in to make the recording and ask the occasional question to help make the story clearer. I had a few notes and asked Hugh both planned and unplanned questions, trying hard to listen, hoping I was capable of prompting him to tell the stories I knew he wanted to record.

Wrapping up the details and getting a CD of the interview.

I hope Hugh got everything he needed. I know I got the thrill of doing something unbelievably cool. Not only was I allowed to indulge my inner Charlie Rose, but I learned new things about someone I've been friends with for 30 years. Thank you, StoryCorps! And thanks to everyone in Columbia who worked to bring them to our city!