Teen Poetry Highlight: The Final Installment

As a last hurrah to National Poetry Month, we would like to share one final (anonymous) poem derived from the talent in our Young Writers’ Studio. So without further ado…

[Untitled]

The smoke screened illusion
hazing vision and judgments
in this religion of smoke and spit.
Worshipping wholly unholy celestial bodies

Electric prayers received
in the daring haze of four A.M. sermons;
prayers made with thumbs
substituting amen with a semicolon and a closing parenthesis.

A part time god with a lowercase ‘g’,
only present by desire
not by necessity,
draws from you the four letter hallelujah
praising the vessel for the euphoria it brings.

Words repeated mean so little,
but say so much.
They are shelled out to reignite a dying flame.
The words lose passion, becoming perfunctory.
They say dead wood creates the best flame,
but it burns away the fastest.

The veil may blind the lady Justice,
but the smoke renders her judgment obsolete.
And when the rolled paper wings burn out,
like Icarus, the Disciple falls.

The screen is pulled back
and the bond is severed.
The illness from a corrupted belief
metastasizing in the heart
causing an infection.

And all that’s left is the ash on the broken altar
over which she was bent;
the virgin Mary who lost her title.

___________
Again, thanks so much to our great teen writers. Here at Thurber House, we feel that we had a successful celebration of National Poetry Month, and we definitely owe a portion of that to our teens, whose talent gives us another reason to love poetry.

If you’re working on something, keep chipping away at it one stanza at a time. National Poetry Month lives on in the hearts of every passionate poet out there!

Teen Poetry Highlight: Part Two

The wait is over! We are happy to share with you another great piece of writing from one of our teens at Young Writers’ Studio.

In case you missed our previous post, we asked our teens to submit a poem they wrote and help us celebrate National Poetry Month by allowing us to share it with the Thurber world. A HUGE thank you to Meaghan Summers for submitting this piece!

BLOOD
If blood is thicker than water,
If its color stains the seas,
For brothers, what’s better
Than to slice a drop to thee?

If blood be a raging temper,
stay put in the veins.
But if blood isn’t a pretender,
may the waves act the same.

If blood won’t raise its sword,
Or say a single word,
Then what fortune do they desire
When it’s spilled from flames of fire?

If blood knows not about
Terrors of time and crime,
When corpses turn out,
What becomes this little rhyme?

Terrors of time and crime,
When corpses turn out,
What becomes this little rhyme?

_________

Meaghan Summers has been going to YWS for a good 2 years now and has loved every minute of it! She mainly writes poetry but she also tries to write beginnings of novels or short stories in the science fiction or dystopian genres. She is attending Wittenberg University in the fall to pursue a career in writing.

Don’t forget to keep celebrating National Poetry Month! We have one more poem to post so check back in a few days!

Teen Poetry Highlight: Part One

In thinking about how we could continue to share our love of writing during National Poetry Month, we felt that the sharing of poetry was an important component to a well-rounded celebration. So, we decided to tap one of favorite writing resources: Young Writers’ Studio.

We asked our teens to submit a poem for us to share with the Thurber world. They did not disappoint. However, because we enjoy a little suspense here at Thurber House, we’re only going to share one poem with you today. Check back throughout April to read the rest!

Crash in Reverse by Tova Seltzer

You and I
Were like a car crash played in reverse
We were wrecked from the beginning
And our collision put us back together
Our metal parts crumpled out smooth
The scattered shards of glass were blasted off the ground
And melted back into our window frames
The light spiraled down from who knows where
And jumped back inside our headlight bulbs
And by the time we’d stumbled off the way we came
Somehow we were good as new

—————
Tova Seltzer is a junior at the Wellington School. She loves to read and write fiction and poetry. She’s passionate about animal rights, Florence and the Machine, and delicious food. In her spare time, she co-heads her school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, participates in theater, and plays tennis, along with way too many other things. She’s been going to Thurber House summer camps, and now Young Writers’ Studio, for as long as she can remember.

Short stories have been on the brain lately for all of our teen groups.

Our Young Writers’ Studio has been challenged to create a short story over the course of a few weeks that they work on at home and then workshop and develop each session. It’s proven to be quite a challenge for many of our teenage, loquacious writers. Writing a short story means that you have to clearly get your point across in few words while still keeping the reader entertained and emotionally involved. It’s a matter of pacing the information you give your reader. You have to provide just the right amount of detail to provoke questions, but not provoke so many questions that they’re left confused at the end of your 800 words. They all typically agree though, that the hardest part, is actually having to stop writing once you hit that ever too short word limit.

On the flip side, our Flip the Page committee has been hard at work sifting through all of the wonderful submissions that we’ve received for our Spring 2013 edition of Flip the Page: Central Ohio’s Teen Literary Journal. Everything submitted had to be 800 words or less, so whether poetry or prose, everything was short. When it came down to the tough decisions, the successful pieces were ones that portrayed a complete idea, story, or situation, within the span of just a few pages. Being that the committee is compiled of Young Writers’ Studio teens, it was easy empathize with that challenge. 

For a lot of our teens, simultaneously working on both sides of the sword has given them an opportunity to take both positions (one as a reader, one as a writer) and put them into a new perspective.  You truly cannot have one without the other, and I think they have found that when you practice both, it makes you better at both.

Regardless of how you feel about short stories, our teens are pretty great.

Katie Poole
Program Coordinator

A big Thurber House welcome to Ed Piskor!

We’d like to welcome alternative comics artist Ed Piskor to Thurber House! Ed is the latest resident of our (slightly haunted) third floor apartment as the winner of Thurber House and the Columbus Museum of Art’s second annual Graphic Novelist Residency.

Ed began his career at the young age of 21, drawing the well-known American Splendor comics written by Harvey Pekar. He’s also published the graphic novel Wizzywig, about the history of hacking, and he’s currently working on the weekly comic The Hip Hop Family Tree on culture website boingboing.net.

Ed will be here for three weeks while he works on his latest project, and he’ll be participating in a few events while he’s here. On Wednesday, March 20, Ed will talk with our Young Writers’ Studio about his work – Young Writers’ Studio is our group of 9th through 12th graders who meet every other week to share what they’ve written, critique their peers’ writing, learn new writing techniques, and enjoy the company of their fellow writers.

The Museum of Art also has an exhibit of Ed’s art on display, which will be up until June 2. In conjunction with the exhibit, he will give a free artist’s talk and interview about his creative process on Sunday, March 24 at 2 p.m. Be sure to stop by the museum on Sunday and hear what Ed has to say!

Spring Preview: Exciting Events to Add to Your Calendar

Spring is in the air – and you won’t want to miss any of the great events Thurber House has planned for the season!

Do you know a high school-aged student with a love for writing? Our Young Writers’ Studio gives them a chance to get together with like-minded peers and work with a professional writer to hone their talent. Remaining dates for this season are: March 28, April 11, April 25, May 9, and May 23. Call 614-464-1032 ext. 13 for registration information.

Spaces are available in several of our Adult Writing Workshops – are you interested in writing graphic novels, journaling, plotting a romance novel, or composing poetry? Click here to check out the classes and our award-winning lineup of instructors.

Speaking of graphic novels, we will be welcoming graphic novelist (and OSU alum) Paul Hornschemeier to Thurber House next week as our latest Writer-In-Residence. We’re excited to be partnering with the Columbus Museum of Art for his stay here. Welcome back to Columbus, Paul!

The application deadline for the John E. Nance Adult Writer-In-Residence Program has been extended to May 1. This program is a residency for a working writer in James Thurber’s boyhood home, and it gives the writer the gift of time to develop his or her work-in-progress.

Have you heard about the Kente project? We are partnering with Columbus Children’s Choir, Thiossane West African Dance Institute and Columbus Children’s Theatre for this project – the four organizations will work together to present West African folktales through dance, drama, spoken word, and song. We will host Dr. Buchi Offodile for a week-long residency while he teaches students at Thurber House and local library branches about folktales. You can find out more about the Kente Project via their website, Facebook page, Twitter, and YouTube channel.

We have four more Evenings with Authors events left in the Winter/Spring season. What a fantastic opportunity to meet some of your favorite best-selling authors! Lisa Lutz will be here March 20, Beth Gutcheon will be here April 4, Anne Perry will be here April 18, and J. Courtney Sullivan wraps up the season on June 5. Tickets are still available for all four events – order them here or call 614-464-1032.

And if you’re like us and can’t help but look forward to summer, we’ve got you covered there too. Summer Writing Camp registration is underway! Fabulous programs for kids in grades 2 – 8 are planned. Need more information? Click here. We also have an exciting lineup for our summer Literary Picnics, so keep an eye on this blog and our website for more information as they are announced.

For more information about these offerings (and two very special literary events we have coming up in May), be sure to like us on Facebook.

“Don’t get it right, just get it written.” -James Thurber

James’ sound advice is often heard at Thurber House’s Young Writers’ Studio.  As we approach YWS’s historic, five-year Anniversary, I’d like to thank the staff at Thurber House, the numerous teen writers who have invested their talent and time and the authors, writers and educators who have shared their wisdom with all of us over the past five years.

YWS continues to offer teen writers the chance to receive feedback on their writing, learn new techniques, explore different writing genres and have fun in a supportive environment with teens who love to write.

Join us the following up-coming Wednesdays:

January 19

February 2
February 16

March 2
March 16
March 30

April 13
April 27

All sessions are from 6:30 ? 8:30 p.m. at Thurber House, 77 Jefferson Avenue, the restored home of author, humorist, and New Yorker cartoonist James Thurber. Each session is $15 and can be paid at the door, or register online for all ten sessions for $150. A limited number of scholarships are available. For more information call Pat Shannon at 614-464-1032 ext.13 or visit http://www.thurberhouse.org. Space is limited and is first-come, first served.

Click here to register for all ten sessions online.

Some Writing Resources:
Denison University Summer Writing Workshop for teens: http://reynolds.denison.edu/about/

Figment is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. Whatever you’re into, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cell phone novels, you can find it all here.Sign up Today, it’s free and easy

A Typical Night at the Thurber House Young Writers’ Studio

It is a twenty-minute drive from my house in the suburbs to James Thurber’s in the city. I want to drive alone but my mother doesn’t let me. On Wednesday night it is raining, and I can barely make out the lane lines on the road; Mom tells me about the book that she has brought with her to read in the upstairs bedrooms of the Thurber House while I participate in the workshop. The windshield wipers swish quickly, back and forth, back and forth.

We coast the loop in front of our destination, headlights glossing the rain in yellow, splattering across the windshield. There is a notebook tucked under my arm and I sprint from the car, whimpering in the frigid downpour, towards the safety of Thurber’s front porch. When I twist the doorknob it rattles in its socket, but the door pushes open and, at last, I am dry.

“Hey!” Kelli is sitting in the living room and she hands me a Sharpie, pushing a sheet of blank nametags in my direction across the table. We talk about our lives, and the weather, and I tread across the creaky floorboards into the parlor, where everyone else waits.

It is loud, and warm. People are laughing, hugging notebooks to their chests, the lines of their faces fold into blithe, easy smiles. I stop worrying about my chemistry test, the book report that I need to do for tomorrow. The relief is total and immediate.

When I sit down a garland from the mantle dangles into my lap and I guide it back into position, wrapping its edges around the wooden frame of the mirror. We talk, loudly, all of us, until Kelli comes into the room with a stack of papers to hand out.

We dive in; one person is reading her work and everyone else is silent, intent. We love what she’s done – we tell her this, and she smiles. For half an hour we analyze her work, every facet, every dip and dive and curve of the language and the plot. We write her notes and offer advice and, when we are done, we clap. She blushes.

We eat cookies and chocolate in the dining room; we drink water, or juice, or soda. En masse, we pile back into our seats and pull out pens, setting them to paper for the next hour where we will bear our souls to the ink. It is silent but the air is thick with creative voice, and when I look around people seem happy, here, doing what it is that they love.

It is still raining outside, two hours later. I thrust my notebook into my mother’s lap so that she can read what I’ve just written, something that I am always, always proud of. She lets me drive home.

By Ellen Waddell, New Albany High School Student

Registration for the Winter/Spring Young Writers’ Studio session is available at www.thurberhouse.org

Young Writers’ Studio Starts Wednesday!

Do you love stories, poetry, fantasy, comics, graphic novels or just have fun playing with words? Then Thurber House’s Young Writers’ Studio is THE place for you.  You’ll meet other young writers and artists, learn from experienced teachers and create new pieces from inspiring prompts and engaging writing exercises. This fall we’re going to explore the do’s and don’ts of novel writing, how to create substantive tension, situations and complications in fiction, and play a few creative games from THE WRITER’S TOOLBOX.  We’ll also have a visit from a local author to discuss craft and the writing life.

Young Writers’ Studio is for 9th through 12th grade students and our fall session starts on Wednesday, September 16 at 6:30pm at Thurber House.  All levels of writers are welcome. We typically spend the first hour workshopping writing brought in by young writers.  Then we take a snack break and round out the second hour writing.

Don’t worry about grades, but just getting better at writing in a very supportive and fun atmosphere!