LUCY BURDETTE: I'm particularly excited about today's guest--you'll see why. Pat is one of my good buddies in the Friends of the Key West Library, and she is an old friend of Hallie's. When I heard she had taken Hallie's writing class at the Studios of Key West, I asked (begged) her to blog about it. Welcome Pat!
PATRICIA (PAT) KENNEDY: Hello to all you fascinating Reds! It has been quite awhile since I’ve chimed in here – July of 2022 to be precise when I complained about the never-ending presence of “piles” at my home -– papers, shoes, electronic devices, grocery bags, stuff. Since the piles never seem to diminish, I just gave up and moved to Key West for the winter.
I spend my time in sunny Florida participating in and supporting the arts. Recently, I participated in a “Writing from Experience” workshop at The Studios of Key West, led by Jungle Red’s Hallie Ephron. I had never taken a writing workshop being somewhat shy about sharing my work with strangers – and Hallie too. I’m an amateur and she’s definitely a pro.
I had an interesting childhood as both my parents were profoundly deaf so we four siblings (none deaf) grew up in a signing household. Recently my sisters and I were interviewed by StoryWorth on their national podcast about the challenges of growing up in a different family life. It was an emotional experience for us. More so when we heard the final 18-minute podcast. I can’t listen to it without getting weepy.
This experience rekindled my desire to write more about my parents – especially our mom. Our dad was tall, handsome, gregarious – a real star shine kind of guy. Our mother was shy and very angry. And she had good reasons to be that way. We learned by dribs and drabs how challenging her life had been at a school for the deaf run by the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Louis, Missouri. And the challenges of being a deaf mother with un-sympathetic in-laws who lacked confidence in her ability to be a suitable “mother.” She fought back.
As Hallie said to me, “you have a deep well of experience to write about.” My reluctance has been how to write about HER experience but write in a way that reflected her lack of traditional English composition skills. She was an American Sign Language user so her English was rudimentary.
As you probably know already, Hallie is a superb teacher. And a kind one too. Fourteen of us produced short essays for each of the three classes – some were absolute stunners which left me intimidated. I passed on reading aloud during the first and second sessions but knew I had to come up with something for the third. Hallie’s teaching and comments about my classmates’ work were precise and spot on. She emphasized the importance of “voice” and how it drives the whole trajectory – and authority – of a piece of writing. “It must be authentic. Obviously if one is writing about one’s experience, then one must use the first-person voice.”
I had been trying to write about a life-changing experience my mother had as a four-year-old child, but I was using third person omniscient. I could see that the piece was stilted and false, but I didn’t know how to fix it. Suddenly, with Halie’s simple “change the voice” instruction, I saw another way to write the story but as I experienced it. An hour later I was doing final edits and ready to read to the class. My sisters and I are now moving forward on collaborative pieces to add to this first piece.
If you want to hear the StoryWorth podcast that so influenced me to get going on writing, here is the link.
Are any of you writing teachers? Any pearls you want to share with us? And it would be fascinating to hear from you, dear readers, how a teacher has changed or improved your writing.
Patricia Kennedy is a retired marketing consultant for healthcare organizations. She lives in Plymouth, MA and Key West during the winter.
What a wonderful experience, Pat . . . and I'm sure your essay was lovely. Now I'm going to listen to the StoryWorth podcast . . . .
ReplyDeleteIt was definitely interesting to talk “out loud” about our family life to a national audience. We siblings have remained very in touch over the years with our number one topic being a continual discussion re “why do you think mom acted that way.” We loved her but she could be quite a challenge.
DeletePat, thanks for telling us about your mother and father and your class with Hallie. It's great news that you and your sisters are writing about your parents now. I think most children assume that their parents are like everyone else's and the way they are raised is the norm, but now you can share how extraordinary your experience was. I look forward to the podcast.
ReplyDeleteI got a bad grade on my first college paper even though it was like all my high-school papers that had gotten A's. I went to talk to the teaching assistant, a Welsh graduate student who'd been an undergraduate at Cambridge University, and he explained to me (with kindness!) what was wrong with my paper, which was a summarized regurgitation of the reading and had no point to make, and talked to me about what he expected from a college-level paper. It was a two-semester political science class with a total of six papers to be researched and written, and he reviewed every one with me after he'd graded it and showed me what I could have done better. His advice not only improved all my college papers for all my classes but also my writing for the rest of my life. Thank you, Paul Thomas.
It can be so difficult to write one’s own thoughts vs a regurgitation as you stated. A good teacher can help the writer gain the confidence to make that switch.
DeleteAgreed that a good teacher can help the writer gain confidence.
DeleteHow wonderful, Kim! And what a great Welsh name!
DeletePart of the problem is the way essay writing is TAUGHT in high school... it has kids repeating the same thng three times instead of *making an argument* - building to a *point* - I'm glad you had a kind patient teacher.
DeletePat, how wonderful you found a way to tell that story. My heart breaks for your mother and what she had to go through. I look forward to listening to the podcast and reading your pieces.
ReplyDeleteHallie is indeed a superb teacher. Sixteen years ago I was floundering the middle of my first mystery. I went to the Seascape weekend workshop taught by Hallie, Roberta, and Sue Hubbard. We had one-on-one time with each teacher as well as small group sessions. After my session with Hallie, I revised that scene and chose it to read to whole group on the last day. I was so pleased when she said she thought I had made it so much better (or something to that effect). Now I have 35 novels in print!
I was so impressed with Hallie’s teaching skills. I mentioned that she was kind in the class but also so insightful and direct about specific ways to improve. There was a lot of agreement-nodding amongst the fourteen students with every assessment she gave. Fourteen! The ability to manage that many students was in of itself a super power.
DeleteEdith, *I REMEMBER* that morning when you read your revised pages. And it was obvious to all of us there that you could write. Because it's about getting out a first draft, of course, but also being able to respond to notes.
DeletePat, your childhood is a deep well. My mother was badly crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. I knew that my childhood experiences were different from that of my classmates even then. She was in constant pain.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have realized throughout my life is that every family has some type of challenge and every child in that family experiences it in a different way. Some turn it into business or art. Some drift their whole lives and some write books.
I loved your comment “and some turn it into a book.” Oh, that is our goal.
DeletePat, thank you for sharing your story about your mother and father. My heart breaks for your mom because of what she had to go through. That’s on them, not your mom. Many years ago I decided that I refuse to feel bad about being deaf. If anyone has a problem then it’s on them. I look forward to reading your collaborative book. Do you and your sisters still talk in sign language 🤟 ?
ReplyDeleteWhen I wrote sentences in my sixth grade class, my teacher asked me why I wrote !!!! ! I also wrote investigate instead of invent. She showed me the difference between these two words in sign language 🤟 yes, I definitely needed to work on my vocabulary and I started to pay more attention to words. She also introduced us to mystery novels.
Pat, making the podcast sounds like a life-changing experience. What a gift to your family.
DeleteHallie is a great teacher! I've taken a couple of workshops with her, and learned something new each time.
When I was teaching sewing in around 1990-92, I offered a month of free sewing lessons for a raffle prize at the elementary school. I got a very unusual--to me--phone call from a TRS, Transmission Relay Service for the deaf. The caller was the woman who won the prize for her daughter, who wanted to learn to sew, and she was calling to arrange the lessons. I went on to teach Laurie for almost two years, and got to know the family a bit. Both parents were deaf from birth, and Laurie, at 10, did a lot of the family communication. She and her little brother were fluent in ASL, so she was her parents' intermediary with the non-ASL world. She grew up very quickly, interacting with adults so much, and she was one of the most intuitively empathetic individuals I've ever known.
Judy, you are so right about how everyone experiences family dynamics differently, and as Oprah said, every family is dysfunctional.
Laurie sounds like my siblings and me, being pint-sized interpreters for all sorts of situations. I even went with my mother to her gyn appointments. Now, that was embarrassing for a 12-year-old.
DeleteInterestingly, my siblings and I NEVER used ASL to communicate with each other. So, no we don’t use it now. However, I often instinctually use ASL to “speak” to a driver in another car as in, “please stay in your own lane, idiot.” And when someone comes up to me and speaks in a foreign language, I immediately turn to ASL. Not very effective in either instance.
DeleteYour story reminded me of a college friend who spent her junior year abroad. She was on a weekend visit to Munich when someone spoke to her in German and she responded in Sign Language.
DeleteAt author conventions, I notice that I meet several authors who know some sign language because they worked with Deaf children.
May I ask if you and your sisters met Deaf children of your parents' Deaf friends ?
I love these language stories! My hearing son, d-i-l, and I (to a lesser extent) have been signing with their (hearing) baby girl since she was about 8 months (real age, and as a 3-month-early micropreemie, that was more like five months). Now at 16 months she understands and uses maybe a dozen signs, and is also starting to speak verbally. All fascinating.
DeleteEdith, I love your story about your hearing son, daughter in law and their baby girl signing. Does that mean I can sign with you when I see you at the next conference?
DeleteOnly if you want milk, have had enough, or want more, LOL!
DeleteEdith, that is a good start. LOL!
DeleteEdith, my nephew's first wife grew up knowing sign language because her father was deaf. They taught their daughter from infancy, which turned out to be a blessing, since she was profoundly autistic. Being able to communicate by ASL went a very long way towards a smoother childhood for her.
DeleteI really messed up my posting somehow. Sorry about that.
DeletePat, Laurie and her brother used ASL with one another all the time.
We have a friend, 41 years old, who reads lips in three languages. He's amazing, and most people don't even catch on that he's deaf for a long time.
Edith, I have a set of twins who were born very early. I worry that signing may delay verbal speech. You cannot assume she is developmentally delayed.
DeleteMy daughter was speaking in complete sentences as 12 months. We spoke to her in complete complex sentences from the beginning. She tried to speak for her brother, and we had to insist he speak for himself. At 16 months, he was also speaking well.
At some point we were told the developing child needs to hear the words, to build a good vocabulary.
This kiddo is not particularly delayed, but it takes a little while to catch up to her birth age. Believe me, everyone around her talks to her all the time! I have studied child language development, and there is quite a bit of variation in acquisition. I had one very early speaker and one with a more average progression. For any child, it's easier to pick up sign language than spoken, but if the child is hearing, they WILL achieve fluency, and in several languages if they are exposed to them. It's a wonderful thing.
Delete
ReplyDeleteThe podcast is fascinating and moving, Pat. It would be wonderful if you gathered your essays together with your siblings and created a book out of it.
We’re working on it.
DeleteWhat a great project, Pat. I would love to read the finished product.
ReplyDeleteThank you. It will be a labor of love for sure
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you're working on this project with your siblings! It makes me think of our Latino congregation at church, where the children are bilingual and often help the parents with translation when necessary. I'm glad Hallie helped you find your voice. I'm sure she is the most excellent teacher. In high school, my sophomore year English teacher told me that I would be a failure in college because I couldn't write. I was angry (I too had a shy and angry mom and a dad who had the 'show-off gene' and could be very charming) but it made me determined to show him. He was wrong AND he was a bad teacher, but he did motivate me.
ReplyDeleteGosh, Gillian, what a terrible teacher. As a former teacher I'm always saddened by such stories. (Selden)
DeleteGillian, my 8th grade math teach told me I'd be a failure in life because I wasn't good at algebra. Shows you what they know, huh?
DeleteDon’t you just get instantly angry when someone tells you what you are not….at least in his/her opinion. So much better to focus on the pluses. That’s what Hallie was so skilled at in the class. “Here’s a section in your piece that really worked for me. See if you can take that idea and expand it.”
ReplyDeletePat, we met briefly at the Ann Cleve’s event at the KW Library when Hallie Ephron introduced us. As a bilateral cochlear implantee your family interests me greatly. When I began losing my hearing in my mid-40s I recall thanking God that it didn’t happen much earlier in my life; particularly when my children were younger. Your experience and your siblings’ being interpreters must have been very challenging. I am happy to offer any insight to you based on my experiences.
ReplyDeleteOh, Emily, I’d love to get together. Can you email me at pat@pkcboston.com so we can set up a date. Thanks.
DeleteEmily, I didn't realize you had cochlear implants and had mid-life hearing loss. (I've been deaf in my left ear since my forties and now have some hearing loss in my right ear.) I'd love to hear your experiences sometime.
DeleteEmily, happy to know that your cochlear implants with speech processors work for you. I got my cochlear implants in my late 20s because hearing aids did not help at all. A dear Deaf friend has strong feelings AGAINST cochlear implants and her hearing aids work for her since her hearing loss is not as bad as mine. I made a decision Never to tell her that I have cochlear implants. Before I got my cochlear implants, I did my homework and I KNEW it would take years of auditory training and voice lessons. Losing your hearing in your 40s, meant that you never grew up in "special education" classes nor did you have to go away to boarding school at the age of 4. I have known Deaf children who went away to Deaf boarding schools as young as 4 years old. These days technology is wonderful. I just saw a social media story about a Deaf woman using Convo interpreters (phone app) when meeting with her friends. She has one friend who always translates in ASL for her while talking to other friends. This time her friend did not need to translate. She used the Convo interpreter to converse with EVERYONE.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I realize how very blessed I am to have not experienced being sent to deaf boarding school and pray that my comments weren’t offensive. I am aware of the divisiveness of cochlear implants vs. no cochlear implants. For me having been a fully hearing person the decision to have cochlear implant surgery was relatively straightforward.
DeleteEmily, I hope everyone will understand that hearing loss is different for each person as are the multiple help-solutions.
DeleteEmily and Anonymous, hearing loss is definitely different for each person as are the multiple help-solutions.
DeleteMy mother was sent away to a school for the deaf at 4! So traumatic. And I had a dear, dear friend who also had a cochclear implant in her late 40s. She did amazingly well — could even hear the car radio! The world of the deaf is so interesting.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I am so sorry that your mother was sent away to a school for the deaf at age 4.
ReplyDeleteI apologized to my relatives for giving them a mixed message. While my relatives were trying to explain to their 3 year old about my deafness, I said "No because I do not want your kid to think I'm a freak". I was 19 and feeling very insecure about everything. It did not help that they had a "friend" who proclaimed to be fluent in ASL, yet that "friend" never signed with my relatives - only to me. I found out years later when she admitted to me that she lied to my relatives because she wanted to meet me. I gave mixed messages because while I was comfortable signing, I did not want to be treated with pity because of my deafness. Now with hindsight, I could have owned my deafness and spin it into a positive thing instead of freaking out.
By the time I was 30, I am glad I had the foresight to let my other relatives explain to their four year old that if they wanted my attention, they needed to tap me on my shoulder. They did not make a big deal about my deafness. My other relatives' four year old always felt comfortable with me. Now the children are young adults.
In hindsight, I wish that when I was 19, I had the confidence to own my deafness and say that is the way it is and I do not have a problem with it. I wish that I let my relatives explain to their 3 year old about my deafness without making a big deal about it. And that I could have used this as an opportunity to show the 3 year old how to communicate with me and how to get my attention. The three year old did not learn sign language until years later and even now they have mixed feelings about my deafness. That is my biggest regret.
Thanks for your comments! It’s so hard for a child or adolescent to feel different in any way. It’s a journey of acceptance for oneself too. To take this to the ridiculous, one of my children was mortified because of dry-skin! So much nicer to be a grownup and not care much about how others might perceive one’s “flaws.”.
DeletePat, do you have a website or email newsletter so we can receive updates like when your book is published? Thank you.
ReplyDeleteNot yet. I’ll let people know when we get to that point.
DeleteShe's working on it!!!
DeletePAT! This is so exciting that you are doing this...and I can imagine the electricity between you and Hallie! Life-changing for you both. You are both treasures. Love you so much....
ReplyDeleteHi Hank….the support of all Jungle Red writers for each other and their readers is amazing
DeleteJust remembered a writing teacher who gave me interesting feedback on a story that I wrote and my dialogue needed a lot of work. That was BEFORE I had a user friendly computer and the Internet. She suggested that I write a letter to a popular TV talk show and ask them for a copy of their transcript so that I would get a better idea of how hearing people talk. Now that I think about it, perhaps it's why my focus is on writing novels set 100 years ago because I cannot keep up with the fast changing language of modern times with new words like "badass" and I'm sure there are new words that I do not know about Yet.
ReplyDeleteDiana, that's a very good point! Language changes so quickly! As a teacher I would always stop briefly to have my students explain new slang to me, so I could understand. They found it very amusing. Also, since I lived in a middle school community for decades, I naturally did not swear. I first heard a lot of expletives from workmen on my farm. Their speech was littered with friendly curses and vulgarities. I was bemused. For example, "dumb-ass." What an all-purpose word! "Hey, Dumb-ass," was a greeting to another worker. Or: "What a dumb-ass job that dumb-ass has done." At the time I'd never heard it before. My nephew explained to me that the word "ass" could be added to almost any other word, to become a new vulgarity. Bad-ass, kick-ass, dumb-ass, smart-ass, hard-ass, broke-ass, and on and on and on. (Selden)
DeleteSelden, thank you for sharing. So funny how language changes so quickly
DeleteMy dad was fascinated with new words too. He had a hard time learning to say “condominium” for example. This was years ago, of course,
ReplyDeleteThe "D" can be difficult to pronounce! Easier for me to fingerspell that letter.
DeletePat, Hallie is amazing and I can't wait to read your story whenever you share it with the world. I'm looking forward to listening to the podcast, too.
ReplyDeleteI look an adult ed writing course the year after I graduated from college. The instructor (I won't call him a teacher) told me that I had no talent and should give up any idea of writing. It took me about ten years to get up the nerve to try writing anything again, but when I did, I had a wonderful writing teacher who gave me the confidence to send my first novel off to publishers. I've since decided that the first guy was a failed novelist who took his disappointment out on his students.
It's a good reminder, how a mean teacher can sabotage an aspiring writer.
DeleteAnd a good reminder how a good (and kind) teacher can inspire a fledgling writer.
DeleteOh yes I had a teacher like that too. I did not touch any of my writing after her comments for at least a year.
DeleteProud daughter of Pat chiming in here. The podcast is so worth a listen. As a granddaughter of this deaf couple I had some experience in my childhood with them, but was pretty uninterested in their story! Only as I have gotten older (and much older) and learned more specifics about my grandmother have I begun to feel a real emotional bond to her. I think her story is so important and in particular I love that her daughters and granddaughters are talking about her in such a positive way and validating her difficult experiences. She would be thrilled with it I think! She probably didn’t even know herself how to process most of it. Mom, keep writing the story!
ReplyDeleteHow lovely you could join us, Victoria. I just listened to the podcast. Wow. What a gift.
DeleteHi, Tory! Your mom is very talented. Multi-talented.
DeleteThanks,Tory. So happy that you feel an emotional bond to your grandmother too. She deserved it.
DeleteWelcome Tory! Your mom is so amazing, and we're pleased to have you here today too!
DeletePat, what a challenge for your mother being deaf and raising four children, especially being shy and angry. I'm not saying your father had it easy, but his gregarious nature was sure to have been helpful. I think it's a wonderful tribute to your mother that you and your siblings are writing about your mother's life, and since we all have our own individual interpretations of experiences, it will be so interesting to see how your mother and her challenges affected each of you in your own way.
ReplyDeleteThe difference in my childhood was that my parents were so much older than most other parents of my friends. My mother was 43 and my father was 52 when I was born, with them both turning a year older before I was six months old. My oldest sibling was ten years older than me, then my other sister was eight years older, and my brother was three years older. There was a child in-between my brother and sister, but she didn't survive past around six months. I sometimes used to think my parents must be my grandparents in reality or that I might have been adopted, but I looked too much like one of my older sisters for that.
For a long time I have thought how interesting and informative it would be to take a writing course of Hallie's. My problem is that I would be to embarrassed to write anything. I'd like to just take her classes and learn, but not have to write and be critiqued.
That's why the #1 rule for the class was "what goes on i this classroom stays in the classroom." Only the author is allowed to "share" - it's a shame to be bottled up but wise to listen to your internal censor and figure out why.
DeleteKathy, I feel your reluctance to join in one of her classes. Hallie and I have been friends for 45+ years and I've always been shy about showing her my work. So, as she often says, I just held my nose, wrote my story and read it out loud in front of her. Very liberating. Go for it!
Delete