lightbulbheart performance, storylady, writing

Writing Workshop Wonderland!

I’ll be away from my Saturday home at Locke Street Farmers’ Market on September 07 so I can take two writing workshops with Marie Louise Gay! She’s in Guelph that day as part of the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival. First up is “Inspiring Children to Write,” followed by “Writing for Children.” I am so excited to spend the day with Stella maven and curly hair inspiration MLG! ♥️

Locke Street Farmers’ Market Folks, you are in goooood hands on 09/07! Graemazing will be at Market to amuse and amaze! Locke Street Family Day is also happening 11AM-4PM, with bucketloads of fun, including a bouncy castle, face painting, and lots of family entertainment.

I’ll be at Donut Monster (Locke) for storytime on September 10. When I return to Market on September 14, we’re going to sing songs and read stories about books and reading!

lightbulbheart Easybake, karaoke visiting hour, mental health advocacy, roadtrip, workshop, writing

Thesis Thankfulness – 16 years after the fact

Mental Health Advocacy, Inclusion, and the Empowerment of a Marginalized Community Through the Utilization of Theatre: A Historical Overview of Our Own Voice Theatre Troupe, Memphis, Tennessee

👆That’s the pretentious clunker of a title I gave my 2003 Master’s thesis…

It’s now been 16 years since I boarded a plane for Memphis to gather oral histories for my thesis research on Our Own Voice Theatre Troupe. Upon re-reading the final document, I am encouraged both that I’m now a much better writer and that my core research concerns have only strengthened in the intervening years. In many ways, OOVTT is responsible for the shape much of my work has taken. They provided me with a devised theatre roadmap for how to work, as well as a shining example of mental health advocacy in action. Karaoke Visiting Hour and There’s An Easy-Bake Oven Where My Heart Should Be would not be possible without them. I am much obliged for our visits, for being able to see them perform at home and on the road, and for their whole-hearted participation in the very first Easy-Bake Workshop. Special thanks to Khyber Daniel for our conversations this week and his prompt to dig my thesis out of cold storage!

Screen capture of University of Memphis Library catalog record for Amber's thesis.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a copy of my thesis is now held by the University of Memphis Libraries!

I am also incredibly grateful to my old friend and librarian, Dorothy Hargett, who allowed me electronic access to the full-text of my thesis this week! (I lost all my floppy disks a few moves ago.) I was fortunate to be one of Dorothy’s co-workers for almost a decade, and she was an actual angel whenever I needed care or a listening ear. Absolutely none of that has changed. When in doubt, ask a librarian! In Dorothy’s honor, I provide this paltry example of how I attempted to repay her kindness over the years (these beauties were taken for a library customer service presentation she created):

That’s some quality overacting right there.

lightbulbheart childhood, Easybake, roadtrip, writing

XOXO from NC

04 – 07 JULY

Charlotte, NC with my college roommate and her family!  I got some real sleep and introduced a wee one to some books and watched her she started to really walk. Did you know that Mister Rogers Neighborhood is available on PBS Kids? This episode about the death of a goldfish led to a scene about sadness I’m working on for the easybakeheart project.  ❤

08 JULY

Goodyear Arts is an incredible multi-artist space that is a dream of both I want to go to there AND if you build it they will come (and I want to build that) proportions. I caught up with Matt Cosper and Kadey Ballard of XOXO to talk a bit about process and training before observing a generative workshop (Matt, Kadey, Jon Prichard and Will Rudolph). It was deeply good and normalizing to be among folks who approach collaborative art-making in a similar way.  If you are even remotely Charlotte-adjacent, go check out a workshop performance of the deeply cool All Our Little Innocence (the children’s crusade) on August 25 at Goodyear Arts. You can find more information on their website or by liking them on Facebook or following their Instagram.  (Can you tell I like them a lot?)

While you’re at Goodyear Arts for the workshop performance, please check out Holly Keogh’s First Day. She’s a massive oil on panel and quite possibly the spirit guide for the easybakeheart project. I’m in love with her and with Holly’s body of work.

09 – 12 JULY

Fayetteville, NC with Naaman and our family: lots of reading time with my newly 7-year-old niece and starting book 2 of our co-authored series. (For interested parties, book 2 is about a monkey and a butterfly who run a race; both characters have small parts in book 1).  I’m still drooling over the scrumptious meal we siblings ate at Chef & the Farmer.

Durham, NC: Last night, Naaman and I bid adieu to the marvelous Nancy Hanks (moving to WI today), and then ate dinner and talked children’s books with Lauren Rachel Greenspan and Will Flowers.

AND NOW IT BEGINS IN EARNEST

I’m now bunked down in Elisabeth Lewis Corley and Joseph Megel’s amazing house in Pittsboro, NC. My companion for the day is Touchstone, a charming cat who, in Elisabeth’s words, “has her yes and no about people.” I believe Touchstone is currently  leaning towards “meh.”

I submitted a site-specific theatre festival proposal this morning (non-easybake) and have been working on some materials in advance of a working dinner tonight for easybakeheart. Emily Hill and I begin generative workshops in earnest tomorrow afternoon! Barring major hurdles, we’ll have something to show in a workshop performance here in Durham, NC on July 27.

Today’s inspiration: We are Built to be Kind

lightbulbheart Easybake, mental health advocacy, performance, roadtrip, storylady, workshop, writing

some things take decades to bake

1979. El Paso, Texas. I stress eat Easy-Bake Oven cake mix in the quiet dark of my childhood bedroom closet. Far more of those salty-sweet chemical concoctions make it to my mouth dry and straight out of the packet than would ever see the inside of a tiny baking pan and heat of a single light bulb.

2017. Hamilton, Ontario. I stress eat Lindor chocolates in my car. The quiet, aloneness, and compressed space of my Honda Civic feels familiar and ancient.

I took a writing workshop last February that involved an outline of my body on a sheet of butcher paper and free-association drawings that evoke formative life events and dead people I have loved. A disproportionate amount of real estate is dedicated to 10 lbs of sunshine yellow and chocolate brown plastic. There is literally an Easy-Bake Oven where my heart and lungs should be.

Tiny Me understood some things about how she was made. She loved the things Now Me loves. Quiet. Being outside. Rain. Books. Swingsets. Stories. Observing people. Making things. I want to honor the choices she made that brought us both life and joy and give her grace for the choices that still give me grief.

So…I gave notice at my job and will spend June and July in my Civic, working my way through the midwest, gulf states, and central and eastern south with the following goals:

  1. See old friends and read to their new tiny people (I am also considering setting myself up in parks with a sandwich board promoting story times, so if you have ideas for Mobile Storylady names, let me know!).
  2. Have big conversations with people about creating interdisciplinary art communities and hospitable audience spaces.
  3. Workshop stuff with a few theatre makers on the ideas of self-compassion and the innate wisdom of our tiny selves.

I’ll be documenting highlights here as #3 makes its way (hopefully) into something that more people than just me can eat. (People, places, blog roll from roadtrip here)