Susie Anderson
Staff Writer
From the power of the page-turn in picture books to the value of navigating one’s past to create a memoir, Marc Tyler Nobleman’s “Dig if You Will a Picture … Book” and Jason K. Bussman’s class on memoir will guide writers during Week Two’s Writers’ Center Workshops. Both Nobleman and Bussman will discuss and read their work at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in the Hall of Philosophy.
“Reading a picture book is like solving a mystery with every page,” Nobleman said.
Nobleman, a cartoonist, writer and seasoned public speaker, has written for all ages and presented in almost 20 countries across five continents. He is the award-winning author of Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, which inspired the Hulu documentary “Batman & Bill.”
While Nobleman’s process begins with a story, words on the page amount to only half of the final product of a picture book.
“It’s a marriage of art and words,” said Nobleman, “and good ones are symbiotic, meaning you can’t remove the art and have the same impact, and vice versa.”
Nobleman said that the partnership between writer and illustrator makes the creation of the final product fun and rewarding. In approaching the workshop, he is eager to see what sparks participants’ interests and looks forward to diving into the cinematic qualities of the artform.
As with a well-directed movie, Nobleman said that “timing is critical. You’ve got the tool of the page turn for big reveals.”
Harnessing that tool is one of the topics Nobleman will explore in the workshop, highlighting his strategy of construction of humor and surprise, fitting well into Week Two’s comedy theme.
“We remember what we laugh at,” said Nobleman, “and if you can incorporate humor that might seem novel to kids, the chances are it’ll help you as a teacher.”
Drawing on examples of his work and others, Nobleman said that he hopes participants leave the workshop with an understanding of the challenge of creating a work that harnesses and maintains the interest of readers.
“You look at something like Where the Wild Things Are — it’s just a pleasure to read. It’s not conventional, and there’s fun terms of a phrase or cozy little expressions that you haven’t heard before. And that’s what we should be striving for as picture book writers,” Nobleman said.
On Sunday, Nobleman will share lessons from his experiences with picture books and nonfiction writing, as well as read from samples of his work. He’ll be joined by Bussman, who is stepping in as Week Two faculty as a replacement for Deborah A. Miranda, who on Friday had to cancel her trip to Chautauqua due to illness. Prior to that cancelation, she had been looking forward to her first visit to Chautauqua, and excited to explore personal landscapes through memoir in her workshop.
In her stead, Bussman will teach a memoir workshop for Week Two.
Bussman is a multi-genre author who specializes in memoir. He recently earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative and professional writing at Western Connecticut State University, where his thesis was a collection of stories that explored his experiences through the lens of a younger version of himself. Bussman currently teaches at SUNY Fredonia and St. Bonaventure University.
Bussman primarily writes poetry and memoir that highlight his experience as a son, brother, husband and father. His latest release, FUMBLE: Just a Dad Trying Not to Drop the Ball, is a collection of 21 standalone essays and one poem that capture moments of humor, sensitivity and honesty in fatherhood. Bussman explores the importance of love and effort in the role of a father, even in moments of imperfection.
Miranda, like Bussman, has a background in poetry which informs her own memoir writing in her hybrid project, Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, which won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award. An enrolled member of the Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen Nation in California with Santa Ynez Chumash ancestry, she is also the Thomas H. Broadus, Jr. Professor of English emerita at Washington and Lee University where she teaches Native American literature and creative writing. Despite her not being in attendance this week, her advice for memoir writers remains.
“When writing a memoir, it can be really time-consuming in a way that poetry is not, and it can lead you to some really deep reflection that can be clarifying — it can be terrifying,” Miranda said. “You find things and you realize things that are truths that perhaps you didn’t find in your other kind of writing.”
The nature of memoir writing entails an openness to introspection and navigating sensitive memories. In all parts of the workshop process, including generative writing, critiques and revisions, Miranda said that respect is paramount.
In the winding and revelatory journey of memoir-writing, Miranda said that writers should lean into the process since they might be surprised with what they find.
“You can very easily get lost,” Miranda said. “You can end up on some unmapped side streets, places you didn’t intend to go. More than you didn’t know, (they are places) you needed to go.”
