Creativity Interview: Erica Brown

I met Erica briefly at YALSA's Young Adult Literature Symposium in Albuquerque.  My friend, Flo Trujillo, Día Dynamo and Youth Services Coordinator at the Farmington Public Library (NM) proudly gave me a copy of Blended Zine edited by Erica and staffed by her fellow teens in San Juan County, New Mexico. I was so impressed by the quality of the work in the zine and by the fact that this is a teen production.  What a fine model of school, library, and community cooperation.

My name is Erica Brown, I’m 17 years old, a senior in high school and I have been home schooled my entire life. I’m involved in several programs besides Blended such as Mayor’s Teen Advisory Council, UMATTR (http://www.umattr.com/), coaching second grade cheerleading for Upward basketball, and Student Leadership and the Worship team through my church. In January of 2009 when I was 15 years old, I applied for a position at Blended Zine. I had submitted before and thought it was a really cool project, so I wanted to get involved. I was hired as a general staff member and joined the 12 person staff. In June of ’09 after the current editor graduated, I was promoted to the position of editor.

Do you think of yourself as creative?
EB: I would definitely think of myself as of creative. My whole life I’ve loved experimenting with different art forms whether it was painting, drawing, writing or music. I always try to do something different and think outside of the box. Creativity is one of the most defining aspects of my life. I like to be different from what most people are doing. I like to be crazy and stay on the edge of new and exciting things.


In what ways does creativity shape your life?
EB: I love creativity in any form. I love dancing and learning new things and figuring out things that haven’t been done. I also love music. I love just experimenting with music to make something different or a new sound. Something I really enjoy is making sidewalk murals with chalk. Chalk is one of my favorite mediums. For Blended over the past few years I have submitted a broad range of pieces. Drawing, etchings, paintings, digital art, and in our most recent issue, poetry! I really like expressing myself in so many different ways.

Blended, May 2010

 As for balancing school and creativity, I think the two can be a wonderful combination. I truly believe that creativity produces rational thinking because when you don’t limit yourself to the norms, you open up your mind to so much more! You can look at things from more perspectives. One of my favorite subjects is math. Although math is very precise, there are limitless possibilities that are just wonderful to explore, and for me personally this sparks a lot of curiosity. No matter what subject you are researching or writing on, creativity can helps you see things from new perspectives or different viewpoints.


That’ s why Blended is such a great program for teens to get involved with. It sparks creativity. We've had many teachers tell us that they've had students improve in school after submitting and getting published in Blended. I think that’s one of the greatest effects a program like this could ever have.


Blended, December 2010

 Blended Zine has been one of the biggest parts of my life for the past two years. I was so blessed with the opportunity to be part of the program and it has changed my life in more ways than I can list. I am currently working on the eighth issue, and my fifth and last issue as part of the staff. It has been a truly amazing experience!

Tell us about your most memorable teacher.
EB: I have been home schooled my entire life [so] my most memorable teacher is definitely my mom! She has taught me the importance of thinking for myself, being my own person and just being myself! Although, I have been taking college classes part time since my junior year, in my second semester I took inter-personal communication. My teacher was wonderful! She definitely made a profound impact on my life.

Release Party December 2010

Blended Zine is published three times each year by the Farmington Public Library, Farmington NM. All submissions and published pieces are from students, ages 13-19, living in San Juan County. The Mission Statement states "Blended strives to be a positive influence and helps teens stay connected and involved with the community. Along with the Farmington Public Library, Blended enlightens, enriches, and changes lives by providing innovative, optimistic and constructive influences for adolescents.

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Uno, Dos, Tres: One, Two, Three Featured Title for Summer Reading Program

Pat's picture book Uno, Dos, Tres: One, Two, Three is a featured title for this summer's Collaborative Summer Library Program's (CSLP) theme "One World, Many Stories." TeachingBooks.net has created an audio clip of Pat talking about how she came to write the book, and reading from it.

Creativity Interview: Sylvia Vardell

Although April is National Poetry Month, poetry lovers relish poetry throughout the year. A lovely woman who’s a poetry lover and an extremely effective poetry advocate is my friend Sylvia Vardell. Not only does she write inventive books with ideas for sharing poetry, she proposes sessions and conferences to build an audience for poetry. Sylvia is awesome!

SV: What a thrill to be invited to participate in this creativity focus. Thank you!

Am I correct that you invented a poetry tag on-line? How do you create such imaginative projects to excite others about poetry?
SV: Yes, the idea of “Poetry Tag” was mine. I enjoy approaching learning from a “game-like” point of view because I know that children learn from play and I see no reason to stop playing just because we grow up! I try to think of new ways to approach old things and keep it fun and participatory. That’s one of the things I love about poetry, in particular, it is naturally participatory.

Do you speak more than one language and if yes, has that affected your interest in words?
SV: Yes, my parents were German immigrants and my first language was German. We learned English together. I do think this has tuned my ear to be more aware of words and how they sound—which has translated into a real delight in the aural qualities of poetry.

What sessions are you chairing this fall that connect educators to poetry?
SV: I love doing conference presentations, particularly about poetry which lends itself to ORAL presentations, it is a great way to showcase poets (who are not always invited to the party), and injects some variety into the conference docket. I have three coming up in November. First, I’m sharing poetry selections from our university “Librarians’ Choices” project of best 100 books every year. That will be alongside two of my doctoral students and will be at a local conference of early childhood educators.

Then, I’ll be at the biennial YALSA (Young Adult Library Service Association) symposium in Albuquerque with a wonderful panel of poets that includes Jen Bryant, Ann Burg, Margarita Engle, Betsy Franco, Pat Mora (!), and April Halprin Wayland. We’re trying something different for this audience of teen services librarians—I’ve planned a series of “interview” questions that poets will answer (like “If you were to pair your poetry with music, what music would you choose?”) and then we’ll have time for a “Poetry Improv” exercise where the poets will share poems in response to prompts (i.e., “No one “gets” me” or “My current Facebook status”). It should be fun!

Finally, I have a session at NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) in Orlando along with two fellow poetry bloggers (Tricia Stohr-Hunt and Elaine Magliaro) and 4 poets: Lee Bennett Hopkins, Pat Mora (!), Jame Richards (her FIRST time!), and Marilyn Singer. We three bloggers will be featuring the poets on our blogs for 2 weeks before the conference, inviting reader participation. Then we’ll share the results as well as other strategies for using technology to connect kids with poets and poetry. Finally, we’ll share the conference highlights on our blogs afterward, as well. It’s a new model for conference presentations that I’m excited about and extends the conference for people who can’t be there.

I do think of myself as a creative person, although oddly enough I have no aspirations to write poetry myself. I see my writing ABOUT poetry and my teaching and presentations as legitimate creative acts, too. I like making things— books, blogs-- but to the outside world they may seem like practical products, rather than creative objects. Either way, I love doing it—and that’s the key, right?!

 

Sylvia is a Professor at Texas Woman's University, an author of professional books on poetry and children's literature, and co-editor of Bookbird, the journal of international children's literature. She blogs at Poetry for Children.