Hello and Goodbye

by Victoria, Thurber House Intern

Hello and goodbye blog readers! It’s Victoria the Intern (at least for another eight hours) giving you the final update as to what I’ve been up to at Thurber House.

Since my last update, I’ve embraced my very limited artistic ability by creating some fun, inspirational, and only slightly lame posters for Thurber’s summer camp. I got to release my inner murderer/grand thief/CSI detective as I helped brainstorm ideas for various summer camp mysteries. And, I also connected with my inner mailman too, as I spent some time delivering and mailing out Flip the Page books.

Since this is my last day, I always try to walk away from an experience with a new quote due to my slightly unhealthy obsession with them. It’s only fitting that the one I’ve collected from Thurber House be from Mr. James Thurber himself: “Don’t get it right, get it written”.

If I’ve learned anything this week, it’s that being a writer is hard; despite whatever romantic notions people have about words effortlessly flowing onto pages (I can personally attest that that is not the case). More often than not, I try so hard to write right that I forget about what’s really important – writing. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how you write something, it’s that you did. And so, I’m going to try to apply Thurber’s words of wisdom to my future as a writer and spend less time focusing on how I’m going to phrase something and instead just write it.

All in all, I’ve had so much fun spending the week here! I was a little worried at first because I didn’t know how the other workers would react to having some awkward, lingering high school student take up space for the week, but they have all been amazing. Everyone here has been so incredibly nice, helpful, and supportive as they showered me with Snack Packs, answers, and encouragement.

And that was my final update! Thanks to everyone who took the time to read my silly, little posts. I’m so happy that I got an opportunity to intern here at Thurber House, which I now know for sure is, as my friend’s little sister said, “the best place on Earth”.

Staff Note: All of us at Thurber House loved having Victoria here! She was incredibly helpful, didn’t complain about the boring tasks and had great input in some of our camp activities (we’re a little scared at how readily she helped create our camp mysteries!). We wish we could have her for longer but we know she will do amazing things! 

Donut Fair, Books, and Thurber House

by Victoria, Thurber House Intern

Hello again blog readers! This is a midweek update as to what I – Victoria the Intern – have been up to here at Thurber House.

Three days into my internship and I have learned a lot of things – the life and writings of James Thurber, the importance of organization, and the superiority of Nickles Donut Fair (absolutely true). I’ve also managed to start up my own collection of pens, become an Excel spreadsheet master (which is harder than it looks, let me tell you), test out every single marker/pen/glue stick within a five-mile radius, and do a lot of inventory.

But, mostly I’ve just been helping Thurber prepare for their Summer Camp, which looks like so much fun that I’m contemplating building a time machine and going back in time to when I was a 2nd - 8th grader just to join! Seriously – awesome games, interesting writing prompts, and stories galore – what better way to spend your summer?

For my summer, I plan on reading all the books I’ve been assigned to read for school next year. This should take about the entire summer since I decided to take four different English classes (I know, I’m crazy). Here are a few books not for school that I plan on reading:

On my Want to Read List: In Search of Lost Time (Marcel Proust), Nine Stories (J.D. Salinger), and The Fault in Our Stars (John Green).

On my Currently Reading List (AKA the books that are collecting dust in my room): Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut) and a truck full of my guilty pleasure – Sarah Dessen novels.

And that was your midweek update! Check in on Friday for the final entry! 

Children’s Writer-in-Residence: Where are they now?

For the past 12 years we have been proud to bring a children’s author to live at Thurber House, share space with the ghost, and hit the ground running on whatever story they are writing.

Alan Gratz, our 2011 Children’s Writer-in Residence, has some really great things happening right now. Just out this March, Prisoner B-3087, is already making an impact. Based on the true story of Jack Gruener, Prisoner B-3087 tells the story of a boy who survived ten different concentration camps. The novel gives a younger age group an unapologetic picture of what life was so unfortunately like for many people during World War II.

Along with the success of Prisoner, comes a project that we are happy to have been a part of. In the spring of 2014, Gratz will be releasing the book he worked on during his residency at Thurber House! Luckily, the ghost didn’t give him too much trouble and he was able to really get some work done; Thurber House even gets a shout out in the acknowledgements! Titled, Mangleborn, this novel is the first of his highly anticipated middle grade fantasy trilogy, The League of Seven. The series is set in an alternate America, where seven super-powered children fight to stop the mad scientist, Thomas Edison, from summoning giant monsters–until they learn that one of the League may be the biggest monster of all.

We are so happy to see that the work Alan did during his residency is coming to fruition! Congratulations Alan!

Are you a children’s author? Check out more information about our Children’s Writer-in-Residence program!

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.

Countdown to camp…

Registrations are still rolling in and the excitement is piling up as we prepare ourselves for 8 weeks of jam-packed, writers-cramp causing, mind stretching creativity with Columbus’ finest young writers. At summer camp, we’re all about the creativity, and we want our young writers to leave worries about the “perfect grade” at the door; or as Thurber would say, “Don’t get it right, just get it written.” Campers let their imaginations go further than the farthest far away land, and from courageous cupcakes to the creatures that live in your gas tank, there are no limits to what they can create. 

While camp is designed to serve as a fun, educational outlet during the summer, we would be lying if we said that we that we don’t look forward to it just as much (if not more) than the kids. At camp, we are continuously impressed with the high levels of talent that walk through our doors. It reminds us why creative writing is so important, and pushes us to want to be better writers ourselves. We cannot wait to see what our campers have in store for us this summer!

For more information about Thurber Summer Writing Camp, click here.

The registration deadline for camp is May 3^rd. We hope to see you there! 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Summer Camp!

It might be snowing outside, but it’s already starting to feel like summer inside Thurber House! Our camp brochure just arrived hot off the press and registration is officially open. In a short amount of time we already have students signed up for each week of camp and registrations are still flying in.

Why is our camp so popular, you ask? Let us tell you.

Top ten reasons why your young writer will want to spend a week of their summer with us.

10. Tours of the infamously haunted Thurber House.
9. No grades – we’re all about the creative side of writing this summer.
8. Awesome field trips that will take them to new worlds without leaving Columbus, we promise.
7. The cool camp T-shirt.
6. Each camper gets a journal to track their amazing ideas that they don’t have to share with anyone else – not even their little brother or sister.
5. We may be a little biased, but we’ve got the best teachers around. Encouraging creativity, love of writing, and laughter is their specialty.
4. They’ll explore every kind of writing from steampunk to poetry AND have fun while doing it.
3. Town Crier. They have to come to camp and to find out why this is #3 on the list.
2. Your young writer will be surrounded with other kids who like to write and create new things, just like they do. We’re not shy about why we love writing and they shouldn’t be either!
1. Did we mention the super cool T-shirt?

If those ten reasons didn’t intrigue you enough, check out our website (www.thurberhouse.org) for more specific information about what each week of camp will cover. You can also register online or print out the brochure and send it to us. We have something for everyone and now that the 10 best parts of camp have been made public, you’d better hurry! The deadline to register is Friday, May 3rd.

Click here for our website, where you can find more information and registration forms. Still have questions? Contact Meg Brown at megbrown@thurberhouse.org.

Flip the Page is hard at work!

With only two weeks left in the submission process, the Flip the Page committee completed their first meeting and began sorting through submissions. We are so appreciative of everyone who has submitted thus far and we cannot wait to see everything else that Central Ohio’s teens can do. Full of humor, poetry, and stories of teen angst, this issue of Flip the Page is sure to be a great one! Don’t miss out on being a part of this great opportunity!

The deadline for submissions is March 1st, which is only TWO WEEKS AWAY! Don’t forget to submit your piece of writing (that is 800 words or less) to flipthepage@thurberhouse.org. Please click here for more information and to download a submission form.

Fable Writing Workshops are back!

Mythical creatures, allegories, and moral are all important when it comes to creating your fable masterpiece. And guess what?! There are fables out there just waiting to be written, so we’re asking 4-6^th graders to join us at a local library to help make sure those fantastical tales are told! Each young writer will learn about James Thurber’s fables and then work with our fantastic teachers, Kathy Matthews and Valerie Cumming to create a wonderful, wacky fable of their own. Whether you’re rooting for the tortoise or the hare, there’s an adventure for everyone.

Wait! The adventure doesn’t stop there! All young participants and their families are invited to the Celebration Party at Thurber Center on Sunday, March 10 from 5-7:00 p.m. to take part in arts and crafts, an open mic fable reading, and to receive a booklet of their library’s fables.

Don’t delay, sign up today! You never know…a sneaky tortoise might surprise you and take the last spot!

The workshop is free, but you must register at the library you wish to attend.
Saturday, Feb. 23:
10:00 a.m.-Noon p.m.: CML’s Whetstone Branch, 3909 North High Street; 645-2275
Saturday, March 2:
2:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.: Northwest Library, 2280 Hard Rd.; 807-2626
Monday, March 4:
4:00 p.m.-6:00p.m.: Westerville Public Library, 126 South State St.; 882.7277
Celebration Party: Sunday, March 10 from 5-7:00 p.m. at Thurber Center, 91 Jefferson Ave., next door to Thurber House