Susie Anderson
Staff Writer
The Chautauqua Writer’s Center’s Week Five workshops will demystify the novel and allow young writers to explore their talents writing for the page and performing on the stage.
Tempany Deckert Donovan will lead “Writing Recovery for the Beginning Novelist” for adult Writers’ Center participants. For the Young Writers’ Institute, authors and educators Ann Marie Stephens and Nikki Shannon Smith will instruct “Book-in-a-Day” for ages 9–12 and Brian Donovan will lead a theater workshop titled “Original Works” for ages 13–17.
All four instructors will talk in a panel discussion moderated by Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts Kwame Alexander at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in the Hall of Philosophy. The Young Writers’ Institute will culminate in a celebration and reading on Friday through the Summer on the Steps programming. All workshops are available through Special Studies.
Actress, author and educator Deckert Donovan will help participants find the magic in writing in her novel writing workshop. Deckert Donovan studied acting at HB Studio and now teaches novel writing at UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program.
Deckert Donovan’s acting experience helped her land her first big break in writing books. An executive for Scholastic Books came into the studio while Deckert Donovan was reading for an audiobook. Having seen her name in the paper for a writing award, the executive asked her if she had any stories that might fit into a new series they wanted to develop.
“Yeah, I have one. Absolutely,” Deckert Donovan said. “And he goes, ‘Well, send it to me.’ Of course, I didn’t have one — I was just acting. I went home and wrote one and sent it to him, and I got a book deal with Scholastic. My acting really came into play, sort of fake it until you make it, in the biggest sense possible. But that system of how I wrote that first book is very similar to how I teach novel writing.”
Limiting criticism to only positive feedback in her workshop, Deckert Donovan wants participants to foster a positive environment that allows them to take creative risks.
“I think negative criticism is good, and there is a place for it, but in about your fourth or fifth draft,” Deckert Donovan said.
In a three-day workshop — even if the first draft explodes like a science experiment — Deckert Donovan prefers that participants build one another up rather than crumble under criticism.
“You’re experimenting. You’re creating a hypothesis. You’re just mixing chemicals and discovering which one blows up and which one doesn’t. And if someone keeps telling you that you’re pouring the chemicals in the beaker the wrong way, you start to get paranoid and then you don’t take as many risks or try as many things out,” Deckert Donovan said.
Using a positive feedback loop and laying out a specific strategy for tackling the novel, Deckert Donovan hopes to demystify the writing process.
“I’m going to give them a game plan to go away with to write their first novel. So it takes all the mystery out of it,” Deckert Donovan said.
Deckert Donovan will be joined in the Sunday panel by authors Ann Marie Stephens and Nikki Shannon Smith. Stephens and Smith will lead “Book-in-a-Day” a four-day writing and publishing workshop that provides students with hands-on experience with poetry and book publishing. Participants will spend two days writing, two days editing and read from their work on Friday. By the end of the summer, participants will receive a published book of their work.
In her 31 years of teaching, Stephens taught her students about the power of the written word, but often felt that poetry lessons were hit or miss — until Alexander gave her information about “Book-in-A-Day.”
“When I first read it — (Alexander) asked me to look at the program, see what I thought — I didn’t even want to read it because I had just negative experiences with poetry in the classroom,” Stephens said. “As I read it, I realized it was a little bit more out of the box than usual.”
Encouraging students to not only write poetry but work together to read, edit and review their work created an engaging and collaborative experience.
“I started teaching them how to write just certain kinds of poems, everything from list poems to haiku,” Stephens said. “We talked about similes, we talked about metaphors, and we just did little bits at a time, and I was shocked at how much they loved writing them.”
Students connected with poetry in a brand new way, one that resonated with them long after the program finished.
“The way that they were expressing themselves was unlike any other kind of writing we had been doing,” she said. “So it was almost like poetry for ‘Book-in-a-Day’ showed a little spot that was missing, or that last puzzle piece of all of the writing that I had been doing with my students.”
Stephens will bring that missing puzzle piece of writing to Chautauqua alongside Smith.
A teacher of 30 years and author of 24 children’s books, Smith said she looks forward to establishing a comfortable and exciting environment for young writers.
“This is a place where you are safe to be who you are, where your ideas matter, where your voice is important, and we’re going to take your voice and do something creative,” Smith said.
By creating an experience in which kids are listened to and work with one another to achieve a shared goal, Smith hopes that after a fun-filled week, each kid leaves the experience more confident than when they entered.
“If they’re having fun in a classroom, they’re learning,” Smith said.
Smith’s young adult novel Stranded is the CLSC Young Readers selection for Week Five and Stephens’ Arithmechicks Explore More: A Math Story is the early readers selection, both of which will be discussed at the CLSC Young Readers program on Wednesday.
For ages 13 to 17, the Young Writers Institute “Original Works” workshop allows them to step into the spotlight as they learn playwriting, improv and acting under the direction of Brian Donovan.
Donovan will return to Chautauqua after having screened his film “Kelly’s Hollywood” in the Chautauqua Cinema in 2016. With an extensive career as an actor and voice actor, including voicing Rock Lee in the hit anime series “Naruto,” Donova instructs a 10-week acting workshop for young actors in Los Angeles.
“The biggest challenge is probably going to be creating this in four days, but again, the product is the same, which is just an opportunity and a very safe, very supported, space to express yourself,” Donovan said.
Donovan wants participants to explore their interests and get to the core of why they are writing a piece. Whether writing lines or taking to the stage, Donovan looks forward to seeing how students find what excites them and why.
“Creativity breathes courage, and courage breeds creativity,” Donovan said. “It’s this wonderful cohabitation that’s remarkable to see.”
