Message
In a writing workshop I once took, the
literary novelist Ethan Canin told us that reading is "about connecting with a
sensibility." This resonated with me as
a writer because I know that when something I read compels me, it's because I
feel like I'm connecting to a certain world view in a piece of writing, a
specific take on a timeless theme, a fresh, original voice. A teacher I had in college used to like to
say "there are no new plots, just new characters" - and I'd like to take that
one step further. New
sensibilities. Lucky for all of us
writers - each of our sensibilities is truly individual. No one else in the wide world sees the way we
see - through our unique experience, through our distinctive eyes.
And that's the heart of point of view.
Not just who's telling the story or how
it's being told but the entire world view that an author translates through a
piece of writing to a reader.
Different readers connect to different
point of views, to different sensibilities. It's why I can read something and think "Wow, this engages me. I'm
hooked." And the guy sitting next to me
in the café can tell me he couldn't get through it. It's two sensibilities connecting - or
not.
So that's why I think Point of View is
essential as a writer and a reader.
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 I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone and Ballads of Suburbia
by Stephanie Kuehnert
In honor of the re-issue month for Songs for a Teenage Nomad, I wanted to write about a book that really infuses music into its prose and, well, I couldn't choose just one because both of Stephanie's books are tributes to the role music plays in a life. She and I joked at a book event once that her books were sort of the older siblings to my book - they're cool and raw and mature (so's her prose). These books aren't for a younger set, a lot of tough themes here, but my older students just eat them up. Give them a listen, er, read.
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 Writing Exercise
I could easily cheat right now and slip in the Song Journal project as the writing exercise for this month - it goes so nicely with Stephanie's work. But that's on my website and I wanted to go a step further here and really look at the idea of the Ballad. What a ballad is has changed in some ways over the years (thank you Google search!) but what caught my attention was the idea that it was a song with a story, a narrative, and often times it chronicles something scandalous. Sort of an early form of tabloid. When I think of ballads, I have to admit, I think of 80s rocker bands trying to get a song that will play well on the radio, but in digging deeper, I just fixed myself to the idea of a song that tells a story about something with a darker theme - lost love, betrayal, a lie. Or, if one is not in the darkest of moods, simply a song that tells a story.
So write a ballad about something - something in your life, something you saw on the news, something you heard, something that has a clear narrative arc. Play with the idea of a short piece that tells a longer story. I mean, that's what great songs do, right?
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 Outside Reading School Project
Okay, here's where I am going to cheat (hey, it's a busy month). I'm going to stick with ballads. I would have students who are reading Stephanie's books write a series of ballads about a single, researched event. Something current or historical. And I'd have them do some research on ballads - a more dignified version of that Google search I did. :-)
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 Songs for a Teenage Nomad
by Kim Culbertson
Sourcebooks Fire (September 1, 2010)
Check out the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Songs-for-a-Teenage-Nomad/30906999373
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