Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow
“One time in another universe …”
Thus began the progressive collaboration, where one writer’s sentence built off the last on a giant sheet of paper until you have a short story, unfolding right under a canopy on the Promenade at Grand Canyon University on National Day on Writing.
It’s not a land far-far away, despite the popular fantasy genre’s urging, the present being so often painfully present. So the next writers continued the fantasy with ambitions for authenticity, a handsome prince, lots of money and a pet rat – the latter two suddenly lost.
Psychology major Amber Morey stepped to the sheet, eyes glancing skyward, pen poised.
“I got my money and saved the rats,” she wrote at the event, held nationally by the National Council of Teachers of English on Monday and at GCU on Tuesday.
Then what?
That’s the idea of narrative, really. Then what? Or as the GCU English department asks in its tagline for the event, “What’s your story?”
Morey admits hers is not often expressed in writing, “but I like it better than math,” she said.
Other avenues of expression were available, such as writing a letter from a dog. Photos of many dogs in the Maricopa County Animal Care and Control Shelter were printed out, and passersby picked one and wrote up the dog's story, which will be used by the shelter to personalize it to find a human companion.
“Use your imagination and speak in the language of the dog,” urged Dr. Stacy Graber, associate professor of English. “It’s an ode to Kafka.”
At least it’s not cockroaches, as in Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.”
Graber says it’s a terrific teaching method for her English/secondary education majors, but writing is for everybody – for details, for humanity, for ideas. “Writing does it all.”
Student Alondra Pena picked a photo of a pit bull that looks like her own dog, Rain.
“We got him when it was raining,” she said. “Now he loves to play in the rain.”
Sounds like the beginning of a YA novel.
Pena said pit bulls get a bad rap, so she wrote in the dog bio: “I love toys so much and enjoy tug-of-war. Children are my sweet spot. I love kids. I feel like a protector hero.”
Pena is a forensic science major but has two journals going at once and writes notes in the app on her phone.
“Sometimes I don’t want to talk to people, but I want to express my feelings,” she said.
They also did it with sidewalk chalk, answering why they write.
“Because I can,” was one.
They wrote six-word biographies on sticky notes and pinned them on a bulletin board.
“Jesus died so I can live.”
“No groceries so eggs for dinner.”
The latter bio was from Kimbel Westerson, an assistant professor of professional writing who has kept this yearly celebration alive for several years.
“That’s my life in six words,” she said.
The other activity was a takeoff on the graphic novel. In one frame, students drew a scene from childhood, and in the other, a scene from today – above a narrative of those days.
Some were reading books in bed as a child and were doing the same in their dorm room.
Others were wishing their parents wouldn’t argue and years later were worrying about a weekend ahead with family.
Alia Croce, an English/secondary education major, said it’s a great idea for her future teaching years, especially introducing students to graphic novels. At one time she thought graphic novels were fancy cartoons. Then she read one, fell for the genre and has a favorite – “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale.” It’s Art Spiegelman’s depiction of interviewing his father, a Holocaust survivor.
She said they combine literary elements of emotions and narrative with art.
Croce drew a pumpkin carving scene, one from 2011 with her brother (her pumpkin carved into a castle for Cinderella), while 14 years later, she was with a friend on the Quad during a pumpkin painting event for GCU students. This time she painted a poison apple.
“A lot of times people have an idea of writing – that it’s super academic and boring and just done for school,” she said. “This opens up the creative approach – and gets you in touch with your inner child.”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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