UConn Library
Archives and Special Collections BlogLast evening, I had the pleasure of meeting Fred Ho and hearing him speak at the book signing for Yellow Power, Yellow Soul: the radical art of Fred Ho, co-edited by Roger N. Buckley and Tamara Roberts, University of Illinois Press. In attendance was filmmaker Steven De Castro who has made a video showcasing Fred Ho’s original clothing designs currently on exhibition at the Knox Gallery, Harlem, New York. One of the many ways Fred Ho expresses himself. Check it out.
Dr. Philip Nel’s newest work, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature, was published in September of 2012 by the University Press of Mississippi. This book is the culmination of years of work to bring to light the lives and times of the man who created Harold and the purple crayon and the woman who, with Maurice Sendak, created A Hole is to dig. Over the course of their marriage and collaborations, they created over 75 books and influenced some of the best in the business, including Chris van Allsburg who thanked Harold and his purple crayon in his Caldecott acceptance speech in 1981. Nel points out that while Krauss and Johnson were “never quite household names…Their circle of friends and acquaintances included some of the important cultural figures of the twentieth century.” (pg.7) This impeccably researched work which literally took Nel a decade to write, is arranged in 28 chapters, with extensive notes, bibliography, index and illustrations, some reprinted from published works and some from the three dozen archives he visited including the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection. In his epilogue, Nel writes, “Crockett Johnson shows us that a crayon can create a world, while Ruth Krauss demonstrates that dreams can be as large as a giant orange carrot. Whenever children and grown-ups seek books that invite them to think and to imagine, they need look no further than Johnson and Krauss. There, they will find a very special house, where holes are to dig, walls are a canvas, and people are artists, drawing paths that take them anywhere they want to go.” (pg. 275)
Congratulations, Dr. Nel, on an exceptional work of scholarship.
Philip Nel, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss (Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2012). ISBN 978-1-61703-624-8. EBook 978-1-61703-625-5.
In his third blog installment, Glastonbury teacher and writer David Polochanin, recipient of the James Marshall Fellowship, shares two of his original poems after reading poetry in the Dodd Collection, from the Joel Oppenheimer and Robert Creeley papers.
Blog post 3: On Poetry
“Cartography” and “Celebrating the Peace” by Joel Oppenheimer (Joel Oppenheimer Papers, Box 11, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Libraries). All rights reserved. No unauthorized reproduction allowed by any means for any reason.
3.20.13
Who would have
thought that
these papers,
with their typewriter
ink fading,
would see the
light of day
again, let alone
on this windy
Wednesday morning
in March?
When the poet
fashioned these words
40 years ago
they were
nothing special,
drafts scattered
in the author’s mind,
printed in a cluttered office,
gathering on the shelf
and the desk top,
in piles on the floor
against the wall,
and others in a stack
on the sill
beside a cactus.
The plant
(and the author)
have long since died
but today
I open a manila
folder and the poetry
comes alive, quite
a miracle, actually.
His words of reflection
and longing, poems
commemorating seasons,
and scenes
in New York City
that the poet likely
saw each day, planes
rising above the
Financial District,
papers blowing
on the sidewalk,
a bird that spent half
its morning jumping
from branch to branch
in a single tree
as a stream of taxis
formed one line
from here
to Central Park,
all of them turning at once,
then disappearing on
behind a monument
when I close this folder
and open the next.
“The Epic Expands” by Robert Creeley (Robert Creeley Papers, Box 2:Folder 48, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Libraries). All rights reserved. No unauthorized reproduction allowed by any means for any reason.
Sipping A Coke
Back when I was a kid
we used to sit on a porch
and sip Coke.
The parents sat in
rocking chairs,
holding their drink
in a bottle;
the young ones sat
on the concrete steps
flicking with their non-
drinking hand
the tiniest of pebbles
and the sun sat
motionless
in the sky.
We sipped it together.
We sipped it because
it was good. People
didn’t die because
of soft drinks, then.
No one developed
an addiction to caffeine
and diabetes
wasn’t a problem.
Having this drink allowed
us to chat about life,
about the dog’s laziness,
how the garden
was coming along,
and there was
a baseball game
on the radio
Saturday night.
Yes, those afternoons
had some kind
of timeless element.
I can still taste
the sweet soda
in my mouth
and I wonder
to this day
as I read this poem
what that
is all
about.
Southern New England Telephone Operators Practicing their Skills for High Wire Work
Telephone operators employed by the Southern New England Telephone Company fulfilled an important role for the company with their courteous and efficient service at the switchboards, but it is a little known fact that for a short period of time, from 1934 to 1937, many of the operators were also trained to work on the wire crews with the men. This was done as a precautionary measure by the company, so that in case of times of disaster, such as floods or hurricanes, ample staff was available to repair downed telephone lines. Shown here are operators Jeannette Pascal and Eleanor Hennypenny demonstrating their prowess on a catwalk the company strung between their headquarters in Hartford to an adjacent building. Operator Pearl Carpenter, who worked for SNET from 1931 until her retirement in 1968, reported to the archives on a recent visit that during the Flood of 1936, when operators were called to assist the men in line repair, she scaled a forty foot telephone pole in heels and stockings, successfully restoring telephone service to thousands in the Greater New Haven area.
[April 3: If you didn’t realize already, this post, from April 1, was an April Fool’s Day joke. As far as we know operators were not trained to scale the telephone lines, and we know of none who may have done so in heels and stockings. The real story is this: this photograph was taken in March 1936 when flood waters covered 1/5 of the city of Hartford. The streets were so flooded in front of the SNET headquarters that workers were unable to enter the building through the street level entrances, so this catwalk was erected to connect the headquarters building with an adjacent building and operators had to traverse the catwalk to get to the switchboards. We don’t actually know the names of the two ladies in the photograph — I thought the ruse would be more believable if I could pin names to women — and no operator by the name of Pearl Carpenter ever paid us a visit.]
Lantern slide from College of Agriculture Records
Glastonbury, Conn., English teacher David Polochanin was recently awarded the James Marshall Fellowship, as he pursues to write young adult literature as part of a yearlong sabbatical. During his research, he will write an occasional series of blog posts, based on his observations and insights relating to the contents of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection at the University of Connecticut. This is the second in the series.
Blog post 2: On The Psychology Of Writing
“You may think that this is the first Newbery acceptance speech I have ever made. But it isn’t. Long ago, before I ever wrote a book, when I was a children’s librarian and first aware of the Newbery Medal, I used to often put myself to sleep at night making speeches accepting this coveted award. These speeches were all exceptionally good and I wish I could remember them now. After I started writing, I stopped this pleasant habit, for my mind busied itself with wayward excursions creating chapters for… books.”
Excerpt from Eleanor Estes’ 1952 Newbery Medal speech for her book Ginger Pye
Within the publishing industry, there is a genre subset that exists mainly because of the uncertainty, mystery, and pressure that all writers face – the self-help writing guide. New books are sold every year, offering expert advice on such writerly, often impossible, things as how to summon the muses, where characters come from, the best ways to begin and end a story, if outlining is necessary for everyone, as if these were insider secrets only known to a few. Still, we learn that some authors write early in morning; others late at night. Some claim the best ideas come while taking long walks; others write what they dream and form stories around that.
To prove the marketability of such books, there is still a shelf at your local Barnes and Noble and the UConn Co-op reserved for such titles as John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, Ray Bradbury’s Zen In The Art Of Writing, Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft, Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones: Freeing The Writer Within, Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, among others.
As a writer, especially at the beginning, during those fledgling phases when you’ve got 40 pages of something and it isn’t going so well, it’s hard not to look at these books. They are indeed tempting to read. Teachers at the college level routinely assign them as class texts, and the content is often useful, if not entertaining. I’ve bought a bunch of them myself, and every now and then, I return to them for inspiration or direction.
So, what makes me bring up the self-help industry for writers? A progressive-minded document from 1952.
Browsing through the Eleanor Estes papers recently I came upon several drafts of her Newbery Medal speech, given in 1952 for her book Ginger Pye, which stopped me in my tracks. As I read the draft, complete with cross-outs and edits, I stopped at the excerpt at the top of this post and had to reread it. I copied it verbatim on my yellow legal pad. Estes, a former librarian in New York City, said this was not her first speech. She had given many of them, in her head, putting herself to sleep at night imagining that she had won the award. What she was saying could have easily been included in a how-to-write guide; it still could.
With so much written about the psychology of writing – directly or indirectly – the truth remains elusive. What works for some will not work for all. I know for a fact that I do not have the motivation to write at 4:30 a.m., as some writers do. My most productive work time is sometime between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. It used to be from 9 p.m. to midnight, before my kids entered the picture. I have had numerous ideas come to me while on bike rides and while driving my car, though I would hesitate to say there is a direct correlation between generating writing ideas and movement. Perhaps through doing these activities, my mind has an opportunity to clear out some space for creative thought. But who really knows.
Reading from superior examples in the genre you’re writing seems to help warm up the brain. Perhaps it’s nothing more than mere imitation. But is this scientifically based? I doubt it, or know if it can be. Still, Ted Kooser, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet who has been the U.S. Poet Laureate, in interviews says he has done this, as have many other writers. When I was a journalist at the Providence Journal, before a major assignment an editor once sent me a handful of front-page feature stories from the Wall Street Journal before I started to write one of my own. I did “channel” something from those stories, but I think I was too young to figure out how the articles she sent could help me.
Nevertheless, I guess the Estes comment surprised me because of the time period in which she wrote it, and also because it still makes so much sense today. How could it not help to imagine doing the very thing you want to do? Isn’t visualization/imagery the most primitive version of positive psychology? Estes was priming her brain to write great works, and her nightly fantasizing ritual ultimately gave her a tight focus and, quite likely, a motivation.
It worked for her. Could it work for others?
Sifting through boxes of manuscripts in the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection, I suppose, can have a similar effect: to gain a psychological edge in the writing process. It’s easy to forget sometimes that writing is truly an art form, and that artists need inspiration and particular conditions in order to do it well. Whether it’s writing near the window at Starbucks, which seems to be a favorite for many, or in a secluded study room at a library, I’m not sure if there are any big secrets that will work for everyone. The trick, I think, is discovering what will work for you.
Carey MacDonald is an undergraduate Anthropology major and writing intern. In her blog series Through the Lens of an Anthropologist, Carey analyzes artifacts found in the collections of Archives and Special Collections.
Although college customs tend to change over time, their social ramifications remain profound and everlasting. We are able to observe these traditions and their impact on students from such artifacts as documents, photographs, or, in this case, from scrapbooks.
The University Scrapbook Collection contains the scrapbook of one Arthur J. Randall who was a student at Connecticut Agricultural College from 1916 to 1918 when Charles L. Beach (of Beach Hall) was the college’s president. Randall’s scrapbook reflects his two years at C.A.C. in stunning detail and provides great insight into his personal college experience. Needless to say, this scrapbook also outlines C.A.C.’s very own history and traditions and highlights the agricultural roots of what is now the University of Connecticut.
Arthur J. Randall’s scrapbook is a wide, bound, bright blue book that was printed by The College Memory Book Company of Chicago, IL and copyrighted in 1914. It is called the “Memory and Fellowship Book” and is dedicated to the “Keepers of Keepsakes” in its inside title page. The Latin phrase “Qui Transtulit Sustinet,” or “He Who Transplanted Still Sustains,” is featured in gold on the front cover below a gold emblem. This same phrase is found on the Connecticut state seal, according to CT.gov. “Conn. Agri. Coll.” and Arthur’s full name and graduating year of 1918 are etched below the emblem. Also interestingly, the inside backing of the book shows the seals of several other American universities that must have also contracted out to The College Memory Book Company of Chicago. Ultimately, the scrapbook’s elaborate imagery and design are indicative of the significance of collegiate history and tradition.
Moreover, Randall’s scrapbook includes such things as class registration cards, treasurer’s cards, boarding and dining cards, Athletic Association season tickets, post office box renting fee slips, and other miscellaneous charge slips. He also kept many photographs of various buildings on campus, Horsebarn Hill, and his friends.
His scrapbook is, in essence, a repository of rather mundane items – but items that are nonetheless useful for our purposes. We can glean from Randall’s collection that he was likely a typical, responsible, self-aware student, by today’s standards at least, as well as by the standards of his time.
Also interesting is Randall’s account of the campus goings-on. First, he marks September 12, 1916 as “the beginning of my career” in the calendar section of his scrapbook. His “Comparative Athletic Record” shows that he played recreational basketball on several occasions. He notes the President’s Reception and Rope Pull – two traditional university events –in October of 1917, as well as the Halloween Masquerade, Benefit Dance for the Red Cross, and “first moving pictures” in November of the same year.
Randall also takes note of the fire that burned down the old chemistry building on the morning of November 27, 1917. This major change in the university setting was certainly upsetting, hence his note that it was a “total loss.” Essentially, in the academic year of 1917-18 Randall took note of many of the events he attended, which also included going to church services and Mansfield Grange meetings on a regular basis. It is particularly interesting that he recorded the events of his second year more than his first, and perhaps this is because he felt inclined to preserve what was left of his college career.
Lastly, Randall even held onto many of his final exams, the likes of which he also discusses in his calendar notes. By writing on January 21, 1918 about midyear exams that “to think of the next five days is enough to make you crazy,” Randall implies that the university view on exams was much like it is today: exams are stressful and throw everyone into a collective state of turmoil. His class schedules included classes such as Veterinary Science, Agriculture, Farm Management, Animal Husbandry (which he deemed ‘killer’), Dairy Husbandry, Horticulture, Forestry, History, and, interestingly, Military Drill and Military Science.
Randall’s records further identify the founding of the University of Connecticut as an agricultural school, and his apparent interest in recording exactly that indicates his pride in and appreciation for the school. It is from these roots that our university grew and diversified into the flagship research university that it is today.
Carey MacDonald, writing intern
For almost two years, I have been blessed with the incredible opportunity to work under Terri Goldich, the curator for the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection located in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. That’s right– not only do I get to work hands-on with sketches, dummies, and correspondence from children’s authors and illustrators but I also get paid for it! My most interesting assignment, by far, has been performing the box inventory and description for the Mo Willems Papers. Hailing from New Orleans and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Mo Willems is a wildly successful children’s author, illustrator, animator, and Caldecott Medal recipient. With animation credits that include Sesame Street, shows on both Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, plus the popular Pigeon book series, it is hard to believe that Mo Willems has entire boxes within his collection here dedicated to failed pitches. Why did some of Mo’s seemingly most fun and interesting ideas get rejected by editors and animation networks? But, alas, there must be reasons why some artists’ creative ideas never quite come to life and I set out to investigate those reasons.
The possible answer to my question lies within an overcrowded box deep within the shadows of the stacks (let me just note that, as a library assistant, the storage technique authors often use of stuffing every document they’ve ever owned into boxes that won’t hold all of them is both irritating and humorous). After I managed to yank the folder entitled “Failed Pitches” out of one of Mo’s boxes, I came across an interesting set of sketches and animation designs that were clearly from the beginning stages of an animated T.V. show. The show in question, “Timmy Trapped on Mars” was an idea that Mo pitched in 1998. The plot is essentially this: while on a walk through his suburban neighborhood, Timmy and his pet goldfish are abducted by a passing UFO. When taken to Mars, the aliens there identify Timmy’s fish Cleveland as a superior being. Cleveland soon is out to get Timmy for drowning him and feeding him nasty flakes daily while on planet Earth. Timmy’s only new friend, Bubba, is his guide while he is trapped on Mars.
Artwork and animation: Willems, Mo. “Timmy Trapped on Mars”. May 1998. Mo Willems Papers, Box #4, “Failed Pitches”. Archives and Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind allowed.
When I went through Mo’s notes that accompanied his artwork, I soon saw how he tried to identify possible aspects of the animated show that might not have “worked” with networks. It seems that in order to get the green light on this T.V. show, Mo would have had to find a way to have Timmy act as an active protagonist instead of a sad main character constantly “pining” for planet Earth. He would also need to find a way to make the main dynamic of Cleveland vs. Timmy interesting and turn their relationship into one that is more complicated and complex. In his notes, Mo mentioned that he wanted to explore the role reversal with the fish as the ruler and the boy as a pet. This is where I think things could have gotten complicated and potentially unattractive to television networks. Mo Willems is known for his dark, satirical work where he satirizes adult authority and rules, something that definitely works in projects like the Pigeon books. However, the idea of role reversal here and challenging rules might not have gone over well with T.V. producers. The outer space setting also brings attention to another topic wrought with tension, that being the environment. By going to outer space and switching things up, Timmy’s situation makes me think, at least as an adult, that perhaps we earthlings are the ones who have things backwards. All of this might have been viewed as too political for an animated show for children or, maybe, producers just thought the plot had no lasting power. Maybe there were too many animated shows in 1998 about outer space or goldfish; it could have been absolutely anything. What do you think?
Glastonbury, Conn., English teacher David Polochanin was recently awarded the James Marshall Fellowship, as he pursues to write young adult literature as part of a yearlong sabbatical. During his research, he will write an occasional series of blog posts, based on his observations and insights relating to the contents of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection at the University of Connecticut. Polochanin’s work has been widely published in major newspapers in New England, including The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, and Hartford Courant. His education writing has appeared in Education Week and Middle Ground, and his poetry has been included in an anthology by Native West Press, and will be published in the prose poetry journal Sentence.
Photo in Archives & Special Collections stacks @ David Polochanin 2013
Blog Post 1: On Production
Combing through the archives of this collection has been fascinating, and an extraordinary opportunity. Since my days as a reporting intern for the Boston Globe nearly 20 years ago, I’ve been interested in authors’ behind-the-scenes writing process – perhaps because the art of creation is typically so mysterious. After all, when authors are interviewed by admirers, one of the first questions they are asked is, “How did you write this?” or “Where did the idea come from?”
I am not so much interested in where ideas come from, but I am intrigued with the process of writing itself.
In a way, I am learning that it is not so complicated.
While I have examined only a fraction of what the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection holds, I am struck by the sheer production of some of these authors, the volume of work they have created, and that, it would seem, an author’s ability and determination to produce such large amounts of work are major factors leading to publication, success, accolades, fame. This drive ultimately distinguishes a recreational writer, I think, from writers who earn a living by writing, particularly as a creative writer, for adults and children alike.
Their success is not reliant upon talent, alone.
It takes tenacity to produce. I am reminded of an interview I read recently with Newbery Medal winning author Kate DiCamillo, posted on the website ReadingRockets.org. She said, “I’ve been in so many writing workshops, writing classes, and to the right of me and to the left of me, there’s always somebody much more talented than I am. And what I figured out is they’re not willing to go through the rejection, which is enormous, and then the compromise that comes with editing your work. I decided a long time ago that I didn’t have to be talented. I just had to be persistent, and that that was something that I could control — the persistence. I’ve always been kind of persistent.”
Again and again in author interviews, this is a common refrain. In order to publish your work, one must work hard. Sounds simple. But the determination involved when there are dozens of things vying for our time, is remarkable. It means casting these distractions – the Internet, TV, the laundry, the long shower – aside to sit somewhere and write for extended periods of time. In today’s society, a place where patience is underrated, this kind of discipline is increasingly difficult.
So when I look through boxes of drafts, notes, and manuscripts by such celebrated children’s authors as Eleanor Estes and Ruth Krauss, whose works are well represented in the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection, seeing the sheer amount of their work stacked in box after box on the shelves in the back room, you begin to get a sense of why these are noteworthy writers and why their work is housed in a university archive.
Writing is a way of life. And you can tell that many of the writers here have dedicated their lives to the craft, to creating stories, poetry, or nonfiction. They have been prolific producers. It’s not unlike any other line of work that requires intense focus and discipline in order to rise to the top of a profession. The best physicians are often board-certified, keep up with current research, and teach young doctors in training; the best NBA players spend hours beyond their usual practice and game time to practice three-pointers and free throws and watch video of their games.
‘Consuming’ is the right word to describe this sort of dedication.
In his book The Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell theorizes that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at a craft, including reaching the highest levels of achievement in business, technology, sports, and music. I’d argue the same goes for writing. Over 10 years, that’s 1,000 hours a year, or 83 hours a month, 19 hours a week, or about three hours a day. Of course, this is provided that you write every day.
Poring through this collection’s files and folders and the sheer volume of production included here makes it clear, at least in my mind: the more a writer produces, the more likely they are to get published, and the more likely one is to eventually publish work of enduring value. Kate DiCamillo has it right: First comes a stubborn persistence, then comes talent.
E. B. Lewis, Coretta Scott King Honor Book for Each Kindness and Bryan Collier, Coretta Scott King Illustrator for I, Too, am America;
Sonia Manzano, Pura Belpre Honor Book for The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano;
Mo Willems, NCLC donor, Geisel Honor for Let’s Go for a Drive ;
and Leslea Newman, Stonewall Honor Book for October Mourning.[slideshow_deploy id=’730′]The Katie Davis exhibit in the Dodd Research Center Gallery will be coming down on February 22, 2013, in the early morning. So if you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll want to come in soon. It’s a wonderful exhibit documenting Katie’s creative process. And, trust me, is she ever creative.
Check out Susan’s blog about the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project report on the impact digital technology and social media have on the arts in America. Over 1200 NEA grantees participated in an online survey. The report investigates the many uses of technology in the arts world and identifies challenges organizations face in difficult economic times.
