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What sparked your interest in writing; or why did you become a writer?
I used to be a dancer and choreographer. A dancer’s concert life is short. What you require of your body is quite extreme. Legs aren’t really designed to extend up to your ear. I wanted to stop dancing before I injured my body irreversibly. I wanted to walk into my old age, intact. But I still felt I had something to say. I needed a means of expression.
When my dance company, One Plus One, was touring in South America, I started writing a novel backstage during the long waits. For two years I worked on that autobiographical novel about moving to Europe to dance and discovering my boyfriend back home was killed in a motorcycle crash. I never submitted it. It was pretty awful, but I knew I wanted to write. I eventually got a master’s degree in library science, so I could be a librarian and support myself, while trying to write. But instead of becoming a librarian, I became a storyteller. When I’m not telling or writing stories, I work as a substitute children’s librarian at the Urbana Free Library and I love it.
What do you think makes an appealing story? Why are you drawn to the types of storytelling that you perform or write?
I’m drawn to lively stories, about characters who appeal to me. I’m attracted to a good use of words. I love words--those that surprise me, but feel true, those whose sounds please my ear. I like clear writing.
For stories I want to tell, I tend to choose those that tell me something about myself. Or I choose a story that includes a value that I need to learn or that I…value.
For you, a professional dancer, how does dancing compare to storytelling/writing?
Dance requires so much discipline — hours of daily physical work. And then performing requires a huge expenditure of adrenaline — of nervousness. Writing requires discipline, but you don’t injure your body for lack of working. Therefore, I can let my discipline in writing slip — which I sometimes do, with no injury to my physical health. But then, the writing doesn’t get done.
Writing feeds something in me. It exercises my mind — makes me solve problems creatively — takes me into worlds of my own invention, places I enjoy going. You can express ideas that you don’t even realize you know. You can discover what you know, by writing.
Storytelling, also, requires an expenditure of adrenaline, and sometimes I wonder about whether I want to feel those jittery nerves that you sometimes feel before a performance. Usually the performing is so gratifying that it’s worth the nerves. And the nerves supply the performance with energy. I don’t generally get overly nervous performing for children — doing author visits and storytelling in the schools. That’s almost always pure fun.
How did you become interested in dancing or performing for audiences?
When I was a child, my parents would take us kids to music concerts, the theater, to the ballet and to modern dance performances. My sister loved theater. I loved the dance. The next day, I’d put on a record and dance all over the living room--catapult over the back of the couch, bounce off the sofa cushions. It was Heaven.
I was a shy child and dancing was a way to express myself without words.
Why do you do the things you do? What gears you toward the creative side of life?
You visited schools at Bloomfield, N.M. in May: What did you talk about and what did you learn from the visit?
I started with a little mime and moon-walking, while the students entered, to give them something to focus on. I tried to greet each group in Navajo, Spanish, and English. (Ya’at’eeh). Then I read Zinnia and told stories from my first book Blossom Tales, as well as worldwide stories accented by dance and world percussion instruments. I’d ask the students if they told stories, wrote stories, danced, read, used the library. Encouraging all those activities is important. I told them about revising, how that is the most fun of writing.
At the Bloomfield Public Library, I did a program with Peter Thomas, the Navajo translator for Zinnia. We told the story of Zinnia: How the Corn Was Saved. Peter read a page in Navajo, then I read it in English. The Navajo language is beautiful, fascinating and unusual to my ear, filled with clicks and varied intonations. Navajo was spoken within families, but it was not a written language until the 1950’s. Salina Bookshelf is helping to instill the excitement and rebirth of the Navajo language for a new generation of Navajo and Euro-American students, by bringing out their beautiful books. I’m so pleased to be a small part of this mission.
Please comment about your author signing during the 2005 American Library Association Conference.
Last year I signed books at the ALA in Orlando and met the Salina staff, Eric, Kenneth, Jessie, and Brian. I had such fun with them. These are people who are passionate about their mission and also are quick to laugh. I value those qualities in friends. We had a wonderful time again this year at the ALA in Chicago where LaFrenda had joined the staff.
What inspired you to write Zinnia: How the Corn Was Saved? Did you hear or read about the story or did someone introduce you to the story?
ZINNIA is a folktale I found in a book of gardening stories. I adapted it for a collection called BLOOM TALES, which I was submitting for publication. BLOOM TALES nearly got published, but before it did, I submitted my collection of shorter folktales, Blossom Tales: Flower Stories of Many Folk to Moon Mountain and they published it, as a beautiful picture book. The contract forbade me to publish another collection of flower stories.
Around that time, I read about Salina Bookshelf in a professional newsletter, submitted ZINNIA to them and they accepted it. I’m so glad it worked out this way. I’m delighted to be published by Salina Bookshelf. As far as I know, there is no other publisher, producing books of this caliber, for children, bilingually, in first nation languages.
I’ve always been drawn to Native American cultures. As a kid, I played “Indians” with my best friend Karla. I write about that a little, in MADDY. I love the concept of giving thanks, which is what I understand Native American spirituality is based upon. The European concept of owning land was odd to Indians. You gave thanks to the earth, you didn’t own her--or little parcels of her.
In your author’s note, you wrote, “Navajo stories were once only sung or chanted.” Do you think this process is preserved in Zinnia?
I hope so.
What was your initial response when Zinnia was published and you held your first copy?
I was deliriously happy. The first copy I held was unbound, a scroll of pages. I had seen nothing of the illustrations, so it was completely new to me. I was surprised and delighted by how modern the illustrations appeared. Kendrick is an exceptional artist.
The author, particularly at the beginning of a career, rarely gets a say in who illustrates his work. Matching the author and the illustrator is the artistic job of the publisher. I’ve been extremely fortunate with my books, so far.
Your new book, Frog Brings Rain, will be out soon, what are your expectations or outlook for this title?
I know I’ll love Kendrick Benally’s illustrations. I think the story is wonderful and I figure I’ll love the book. Kenneth Lockard does a great job of designing the books. I’m really looking forward to seeing it. I’ve not seen a single page of it yet.
How did your idea of writing Frog Brings Rain originate?
Frog Brings Rain is a retold Navajo folktale, first collected by Frances Newcomb who ran a trading post with her husband in the early 1900’s near Blue Mesa. I loved the story on my first reading. I have a thing for frogs. My very first picture book (that I also illustrated, but) which has not been published is entitled FROG PLUS FROG. It tells the story of my dance company, One Plus One, touring through South America, Europe and the U.S. I understand that Kendrick, also, has a thing for frogs. The book might be a match made in heaven. I’ll have to wait and see.
After Zinnia, I wanted to do another book with Salina. I asked the publishers, Eric and Kenneth Lockard, if Kendrick might illustrate this new book. I guess they liked the idea.
What lessons do you hope readers will learn or remember when they finish reading Frog Brings Rain?
First, I want readers to love the story and the pictures. I’d like the book to contribute to their love of reading. The story is one of generosity, and it is dedicated to my sister who is immensely generous. She takes care of her community, as Frog does in the story. My sister, Monica, drives hundreds of miles to take her daughter and teammates to their soccer games. She’s active in youth ministry and volunteers as a camp counselor at her church’s summer camp. She’s always been generous. She does what needs to be done for her community.
Are you excited to have Kendrick Benally illustrate this title, after seeing the beautiful job he did with Zinnia?
Yahoo. Zippity do. Hee hah. Yes.
Where did you grow up? Did your childhood have any influence in your career choice(s)?
Yes, absolutely. I grew up in Arlington Heights, a suburb of Chicago. It was a time and place when children were given great freedom. I was encouraged by my family in all artistic ventures. So I made art out of found objects and I drew. We produced original plays and created carnivals.
Our neighborhood was packed with kids and we played hard. We played baseball. Our street still had original barns and we played in them. Houses were being built in all directions and we played in the half built foundations and the resulting hills and creeks. We played in the woods and fields and climbed the water towers. We played in a deserted antique factory, the creamery, which had once bottled milk. It was right next to the railroad tracks, so that the milk could be distributed, I guess. A crashed airplane in a nearby field was a great source for our games for a period of time. Our expansive play area was a fertile ground for active imaginations. I wouldn’t trade my upbringing for any other.
Which brings you more enjoyment: dancing or writing?
I experience times of ecstasy in each. I couldn’t say which I preferred. They feed different needs, one of the body, one of the head. Each is a necessary expression for me.
Besides writing what other activities interest you?
Salsa dancing, other partner dancing, improvising dance, playing in water--not so much swimming laps--but swimming deep (in a pool). I guess you could say I was dancing in the water. I leap really well underwater, these days. I spend time upside down underwater. Perhaps that’s akin to the low-flying trapeze work I used to do. I rollerblade and bicycle. I love to walk in nature. We live on a lake and watching the ducks, the muskrats, and the geese, is a favorite past time. Yoga is invaluable to me. I love spending time with my husband Morgan, visiting my parents, visiting my brother and sister, hanging out with friends, both at home and visiting them on our travels. I love to read and watch movies. I enjoy doing author visits in schools and telling stories. Life is good.
Besides Frog Brings Rain, please list or describe any upcoming projects.
I’ve recently written a sort of razzle dazzle picture book biography about Josephine Baker, the great African-American dancer who was a sensation in Paris in the 1920’s, when she couldn’t make it in this country due to racism. I think her time has definitely come. I’m looking for a publisher for that.
I’m finishing up revisions of a novel, MADDY, about an eleven year old girl who grows up slowly when her best friend grows up fast. She “finds” herself by making art. The original idea of the character more or less came from me as an eleven year old, but the story is set in contemporary times and Maddy has taken on her own personality.
Next I’ll work on revising a novel entitled WAITING FOR RAIN about a twelve-year old boy who finds the entryway to the Amazonian rainforest from his attic in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
I just premiered a new oral story about salsa dancing. That was fun.
Having recently completed a workshop out of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on how to structure a workshop for teachers, I look forward to passing on my art form to teachers. Since I work with drama and movement to get kids to improve their writing (or their speaking), those are the techniques I’ll pass on to teachers, in hopes of reaching more students. These techniques also inspire students to love reading.
Life is busy.
...
Email Patricia Hruby Powell at
phpowell@talesforallages.com
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