Keynote Address to Young Authors’ Conferences
November, 2007
by Marianne Love
I’d like to thank Elinor Michel, Susan Hodgin, Bonnie Warne and Barbara Crumb for their generous collaboration in issuing me an invitation to speak at this prestigious event for young authors. You’re, indeed, brave souls! I am honored to be here.
Before going any further, I’m asking for a standing ovation---not for me but for Bonnie, Elinor, Susan, Barbara and all hard-working teachers who recognize and appreciate your talents and especially those who have encouraged you to come today.
Elinor, Susan, Barbara and Bonnie and many other dedicated teachers have worked for many years to develop the Northwest Inland Writing Project into a wonderful tool for inspiring and guiding other teachers and hundreds of students in the craft of writing.
Through their vision, they’ve developed two regional writing conferences into stimulating and practical enrichment opportunities for aspiring young authors from throughout the area to get acquainted, to learn, to practice and to share their creative talents. So, let’s show the dedicated organizers the appreciation they deserve, especially Bonnie who has worked so hard here to bring us all together here in beautiful St. Anthony.
Thanks also to all of you students who saw my name and mug shot on the conference poster and still signed up. You’re very gracious and open-minded. Seriously, I’m thrilled with this opportunity to share, with students, my passion for writing for the first time since my retirement from Sandpoint High School in 2002.
I view today’s opportunity as an important duty. I sincerely hope that my simple thoughts and anecdotes throughout the day will inspire many of you to persevere with your writing desires---especially when you learn that even above-average klutzes, devoid of other creative talents, can make it in writing.
So, let’s get on with the show. I’m going to start today by going interactive with a segment from my first book Pocket Girdles. Let’s practice. Whenever I raise my hand, you say, “Marianne’s madder than a hatter” WITH GUSTO until I tell you to stop. A few rehearsals. . . . . .
Now, when I read and get to the refrain in this story, do your part and loud! Read story segment . . . .
This story about youthful crime illustrates just one reason why I became a writer. I had brothers. Two of these were older brothers. For a long time, I was the only girl. Those monsters picked on me all the time. They drove me to criminal acts for which I got caught---like stealing the neighbors’ mail. I also nearly burned down half the woods after my brother Kevin mentored me on how to play with matches.
I was miserable, thanks to Mike and Kevin. So, I had writing material.
I also had a mother whom I often considered my childhood nemesis. She was hard driving and intense. She was also talented as an artist, and she could draw beautiful horses. I had no talent as an artist. Try as I might, I could not even draw a recognizable horse tail after dozens of lessons.
My mother was also a proud lady---educated in private Catholic boarding schools. I, on the other hand, was a clumsy, unpolished tomboy who failed miserably in all my mother’s earnest efforts to sophisticate me.
That created writing material.
My mother later became the antagonist in many of my funny stories about the perceived and often real miseries of my childhood.
Even later than that and, happily, to this day, she has transformed into my biggest fan and best reviewer while listening to me read my rough drafts aloud. I’ve yet to meet anyone who laughs harder than my mother whenever I share with her chronicles of my most recent exploits. She always needs a kleenex box.
There were other reasons I became a writer.
I became a writer because I could not sing. My only distinction in seventh grade choir occurred when I got caught with friends removing the nuts and bolts from the school auditorium chairs.
I became a writer because I could not sew. I ripped out thousands of faulty seams and got white ribbons at the county fair.
I became a writer because I was a certified klutz. I got white ribbons in modeling at the county 4-H style review where my so-called friends would hurl catcalls as I stumbled down the walkway toward the modeling stage.
I could play sports like baseball, basketball----and football, but girls’ sports were not encouraged or supported back in the dark ages of my youth. Besides, Marvel Ekholm, my principal, yelled at me out the sixth grade window at Stinkin’ Lincoln Elementary School that “girls do NOT play football---especially while wearing dresses.”
That ended my gridiron career.
I became a writer because I was not pretty nor cool enough to be a queen or cheerleader or even to nab a steady boyfriend.
In spite of my TDD (Talent Deficit Disorder), I loved people. I loved horses. I love to laugh, and I loved knowing things-----first---before anyone else. I loved telling the story---first---before anybody else. In general, I loved telling stories and still do.
I was also hungry. I ate a lot, which did lead to stories, like the one about the 13 cinnamon rolls I consumed during one sitting at Eleanor Delamarter’s house
BUT
that constant hunger also included a voracious desire to succeed at something---anything. I wanted fervently to have a talent.
Those ingredients, along with my eventual recognition of the true silver lining of my youthful shortcomings and personal disasters, planted the seed for what I do today. Plus, some little doors opened along the way.
While enrolled in 4-H as a member of the Mountain View ABC’s Club, I was elected reporter at age 11. My first story appearing in our weekly Sandpoint News Bulletin went something like this:
On Saturday, Feb. 11, the Mountain View ABC’s 4-H Club met at the home of Mrs. Lucille Hudon. Fourteen members were present, and election of officers was held.
Genevieve Hudon was elected president. Pat Nikkola was elected vice president, and Frances Paulet was elected secretary-treasurer. Marianne Brown was elected reporter.
Project books were handed out by Mrs. Hudon and Mrs. Winifred Nikkola. The meeting was adjourned and refreshments were served. The next meeting will be held at Mrs. Hudon’s house on March. 10.
Seeing my story adorned with a headline attached in the local paper was probably the most exciting thing that had ever happened in my life to date. The feeling was incomparable.
So, when I went to junior high the next year and found out there was a school paper called the Cedar Chips, I signed up. Most of the heavy-duty reporting jobs were taken by upperclassmen, so I had to settle for the job as seventh-grade snoop. That meant keeping track of ever-changing romantic overtures between boys and girls and recording the momentary love affairs for posterity.
The writing went something like this:
Gregory M. has been passing notes in math class to Janice S. Could this mean 1 and 1 make 2?
Billy F. always carries Susan S.’s books. Is there a love story in the making?
Dale I. requested “You Ain’t Nuthin But a Hound Dog” for Susan B. on KSPT Radio Station Saturday night. I’m sure this must mean puppy love.
Later, I’m assuming the ninth grade honchos and newspaper adviser, Miss Ann Curtis, felt I deserved a chance for bigger and less presumptuous writing, so I was assigned the “Homeroom C” beat for the monthly mimeographed paper.
By the time, I became a mighty ninth grader, I knew what I wanted for a future and firmly validated my desires on a school interest test---a test where I earned a much higher grade than on any of my algebra exams. I even outsmarted the test.
We indicated our responses by poking a straight pin through the multiple-choice answer we thought most fit our desires. It took only a couple of questions for me to spot the pattern. Every answer that included anything remotely connected with writing got my pin prick.
I deviated a couple of times, just so the administrators would not suspect any cheating.
The scientific? results indicated that I had 98 percent interest in becoming a freelance writer. I was ecstatic. My future was now officially plotted. I envisioned myself living the country life, taking time out from watching my horses or going for hikes down dirt roads to sit down at the typewriter and write for great magazines or even maybe write a book.
In 11th grade, my long-held hunger received its first significant tidbit of satisfaction. The main door to my desired future miraculously opened one day when journalism teacher Bob Hamilton pulled me aside and told me I had talent as a writer. I’d never heard any such welcome words in my life. On another day that same year, he told me he wanted me to attend the spring journalism conference at the University of Idaho.
“I don’t have enough money,” I told him.
“I’ll find the money,” he said. “I’d like you to be editor next year.” I went home and told my mother. Obviously pleased, she said they’d come up with the money. In Sandpoint, almost since the paper’s beginnings back in the 1920s, serving as editor of the renowned Cedar Post high school newspaper is tantamount to winning an Oscar. If you pull it off, you earn a respected status among an illustrious group of SHS grads who are equally proud to let folks know of their stint as Cedar Post editor.
Bob Hamilton taught me the basics of journalism and turned me loose as a reporter and editor. He remains my foremost mentor to this day.
I later attended the University of Idaho with help from two locally-funded scholarships, one for journalism, one, for teaching. As a person who took responsibility seriously, I found a way to combine both through an education major called English Area, which included a heavy concentration in journalism.
I wrote a few features for the Argonaut, including one called “Carter Hall Girls Get the Shaft,” which chronicled the experience of my friends whose elevator got stuck between floors in the Wallace Complex and who passed the time during the rescue operation playing pinochle.
After college, I began teaching at my Sandpoint High School alma mater, advising the yearbook alongside my mentor, Bob Hamilton who still advised the Cedar Post. I freelanced occasionally and worked three summers as a feature writer and beat reporter for the Sandpoint News Bulletin, that same paper which printed my first story about the 4-H club meeting.
I cannot think of much time spent since high school when I wasn’t writing something for someone. Through those decades, my writing experienced continued growth, thanks to editors, ranging from hard-nosed to compassionate to hands-off. I’ve appreciated them all, and have learned to be highly self-critical of my work, which has appeared in several publications.
I’m Catholic so I’ve written features for the Idaho Catholic Register. I’ve written off and on for the regional Spokane Daily Chronicle, Spokesman-Review and Pacific Northwest Inlander.
I’ve lived in Sandpoint forever, so lots of my stories appear in Sandpoint Magazine. Probably my most famous or most-read piece of writing is a Sandpoint Magazine interview with Lord of the Rings King Viggo Mortensen.
That story transpired because Viggo blew my daughter Annie a kiss when she put up a sign at the Wellington, New Zealand, world premiere of “Return of the King.” Viggo was on the red carpet doing an interview with the hordes of media when he read Annie’s sign that said, “Sandpoint Loves Lord of the Rings.” Viggo stopped his interview, asked if that was Sandpoint, Idaho, and when she nodded, rewarded her with the airborne kiss. Viggo has property near Sandpoint. When the Viggo interview appeared on my website, it received 4,700 hits in one week, and I received several letters from 40-something women from around the world who swoon whenever the word “Viggo” is uttered.
As mentioned before, I love horses, so I’ve freelanced for the past ten years for the Appaloosa Journal, a worldwide magazine. That has involved stories about Appaloosa owners from Sweden, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States----and, no, I didn’t get to go to all those places----thanks to the Internet our writing options are endless and much more available than they were even 20 years ago.
All tolled, I’ve probably written around 500 published pieces in my life---including obituaries, speeches, introductions for publications, commentaries, histories, stories of tragic deaths, and features about welders, politicians, opera stars, salty old cowboys, phenomenal students, brave soldiers, ancient canoes, cattle ranches, cancer patients, wine tasting events, corporations, dinosaurs, storms, real estate booms, athletes, heroes, radio DJ’s, secretaries, teachers, school administrators, actors . . . . the list goes on.
Eventually, after writing a column for a local paper where I could focus on topics of my choosing---a clear, recognizable writing voice developed. That same voice had also been loud and clear in the classroom where it told stories to suit just about any teaching topic.
One time a student brought in a copy of a Patrick F. McManus book called A Fine and Pleasant Misery. After reading a couple of stories aloud to the class, I asked if I could borrow the book and take it home for my husband. After all, this author was from little ol’ Sandpoint, and he wrote funny stuff about the outdoors. Bill would be impressed when I introduced him to this local author whom I’d never heard of.
Bill was not at all impressed. Why? Because my Louisiana husband already had heard of Patrick F. McManus and had already read his stories for years in outdoor magazines.
Only later did I learn that I’d really always had heard about this guy, who spent part of his childhood just a mile away from our North Boyer farm. I had never zeroed in that he was a famous author, mainly because of the tone his sister Patricia, our longtime family friend, used when referring to that awful brother Pat. Maybe some of you know about the famous troll in McManus’s early stories----she was my friend, Pat Gass, and his older sister Patricia.
Later, the troll actually helped me realize my dream of becoming an author. She sent some of my stories to “that brother of hers” for review. Seven months later, after I’d completely given up, he wrote back, saying “. . . by all means, aim for a national audience. The stories are nostalgic and funny. Just insert more dialogue.”
After I came down from the ceiling, I got busy and wrote the rest of Pocket Girdles, a collection of stories about growing up on our North Idaho farm. That was in 1994.
Pat McManus and his sister, The Troll, were kind enough to endorse my first book.
Later, came Postcards from Potato Land, in 1997, which continued the slice-of-life saga of living on a North Idaho farm.
Finally, this past May came Lessons with Love: Tales of Teaching and Learning in a Small-Town High School, a collection of serious and funny stories involving my 33 years of teaching at Sandpoint High. The book also includes a story penned by my son, Willie. "Confessions of a Reborn Student" serves as Willie's payback for a story I wrote about him called "Labor of Love: Reborn Student."
So, that’s the journey of one person toward authordum. It’s been a long, hard and very satisfying road. I’ve endured endless hard work and many, many moments of self-doubt. My family has suffered through most of those, but I have learned, like Pat McManus told me, the writing projects and the writing lust never end.
These days, I’m having the time of my life, every day posting on a blog called “Slight Detour: Mutterings of a Country Hick.” (www.slightdetour.com) People in my house know not to bother me each morning from 7-8 a.m. because I’m in my zone upstairs writing---often giggling---as I write about family happenings, farm life, local hot-button issues or thoughts based on what I’ve read in the newspaper.
It’s a good gig, and I can guarantee you that the pin pricks these days would indicate a 100 percent interest in living the life of a freelance writer. After all, I’ve fulfilled my fantasies of a life centered around fascinating people and horses. I laugh a lot. I’ve made my mother proud, and I’ve found a talent that suits me. I’ve never needed a shrink because I work out my aggressions and sensitivities through writing. I married a man named Love, which provides a nice advantage as an author. I get to know a lot of things about people before anyone else, and most folks love to have me tell their stories. I also know that endless unwritten adventures lie ahead for me to recount in my unique way.
And, so to all you aspiring young authors, we all have our story. That’s mine, and I’m sticking to it. Nobody else has one exactly like it. You are still writing yours. My wish for you is that your individual tales will take you to experiences, places and people you never dreamed possible---and that as they happen, you will chronicle them in your own way. It will not be easy. It will involve hard work, education, persistence and rejection. You will benefit from all four, even if it doesn’t seem so at the time.
Your writing will not necessarily put you on the Forbes Magazine list of the filthy rich, but you will know a wealth that no economic downturn nor greedy person can ever take away from you. You will amass the wealth of immortality through your creations with the written word.
My wish for you also includes a day just like today where you can get nervous, you can stand in front of an audience of budding young writers just like you, you can tell your unique story of authordum, and you can help move the circle onward.
Good luck on your journey, and thank you.
Addendum: For a sample chapter of my new book Lessons with Love, visit www.lessonswithtalesofteaching.blogspot.com where you'll also find ordering information. All three books are available at www.amazon.com or at www.keokeebooks.com
