Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of PATSY (reading and signing at the store on Friday June 28th at 7pm) is in Key West to serve as Distinguished Visiting Writer for the Key West Literary Seminar’s Young Writers Studio, an innovative writing program for local high school students.
KWLS executive director Arlo Haskell, who is also a historian and the author of THE JEWS OF KEY WEST: SMUGGLERS, CIGAR MAKERS, AND REVOLUTIONARIES graciously took some time out of his busy schedule to chat with us a little about the Young Writers Studio.
Q: Please tell us a little about the Young Writers Studio?
A: This is the second year of the program, but it was in development for a few years before that. All the extra time and thinking that went into it really paid off. We recruited a number of current and former high school students to serve as an advisory committee and ran through brainstorming sessions with them that were really eye-opening. We also spent time talking with local teachers to get their input. Then Kate Peters, Nick Vagnoni, and I created and refined the prompts and reading materials and tested out various excursion, so we felt like it was fully-formed by the time it launched last summer.
It’s totally different from our adult programs — five full days with a travel/excursion component each day, the highlight being a trip to Dry Tortugas National Park. The idea is to have a really immersive experience in Key West, use this place as inspiration for new writing, and end up seeing “home” in a whole different way.
Q: Has KWLS had any other youth focused programs in the past?
A: We’ve brought speakers to the high school in January for years, but this is the first fully-developed youth program that we’ve launched. Hopefully not the last! Eventually, I’d like to create a full-time educational department at KWLS to work hand-in-hand with teachers throughout the county and strengthen the literary education of local students.
Q: How many young adults participate each year?
A: Anywhere from 12 to 16, with some returning students and Key West High School graduates serving in a junior staff role.
Q: How do you select the visiting authors?
A: The Seminar in January is a great way to evaluate the writers we want for this program. I look for writers who have been on our stage and who make a big, immediate impression, who have charisma and a natural ability to connect with people from various backgrounds. A well-developed sense of empathy is hugely important. And of course they have to be kind, generous, and caring.
Getting Victor LaValle (author of THE CHANGELING) to teach for us last year was huge. He’s an incredible writer and an even more incredible human being. Seeing how inspired our students were by the work they did with him was enormously gratifying.
Q: What are your favorite books to recommend to young adults, either classic or current?
A:Young people should read whatever grabs their attention, and they should also seek out books that challenge their idea of the world. It’s good to be pushed outside of your comfort zone — that’s how we grow. These seem like cliché choices now, but the books that had the biggest impact on me in high school were Jack Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD, Herman Hesse’s SIDDHARTA, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE.
Q: In general, what are you reading and recommending these days? What do you consider a beach read and why?
A: At the beach these days, I’m usually eagle-eyes watching my two young daughters (they can’t swim yet!) and don’t get much reading done. But outside the beach, I’m reading a lot by and about the late great Harry Mathews. I’m editing his Collected Poems for publication early next year, so of course I’ve read through all of his poems in an insanely-close-reading-proofreading kind of way. I’ve also been reading his “Autobiography” and other prose pieces like “For Prizewinners” and “Mathews’s Algorithm” to get a better sense of what made him tick as an artist, plus a great book called MANY SUBTLE CHANNELS by Daniel Levin Becker, which is a history of the Oulipo, the French group of mathematicians and writers that Harry was part of.
But back to the beach and beach-reading! How about this great 1966 poem of Harry’s, “The Swimmer”:
Removing my watch, pleased with the morning weather,
I dove—I would cross the Atlantic by myself Neither she,
Nor I, nor Brooklyn minded.
~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager