Plus, come to my Taipei event at Bookman Books on August 17th; a dialogue on teaching and learning in prison; and book club about Claire Messud's THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY
Hi! I read your little bullet point note about starting a new gig with Books from Taiwan. https://booksfromtaiwan.tw/index.php. Would love to learn more! I'm about to release my debut picture book, WILD GREENS BEAUTIFUL GIRL, which is technically *from* a U.S. publisher (Sleeping Bear Press), but it's *about* a young aboriginal Taiwanese girl, inspired by my own Amis heritage. Perhaps you'd be interested in learning more!
Ooh, this book seems wonderful!! I will pre-order and ask my local library to carry it, too =) Books from Taiwan promotes books from Taiwan to the world (alas, Taiwanese publishers only, but we should try to get your book translated!). They've recently expanded the categories children's books and comics/graphic novels, so it's a wonderful opportunity for Taiwanese authors and illustrators to have their work promoted, marketed, and translated.
Michelle, as always, this was so beautiful to read. I’ve been thinking about your book a lot this past week as passed through the Mississippi delta on our way back to CA. Sending love ❤️
thank you dear tae-yeoun for reading. i still think about our conversation about writing and books. you drove through the Delta? did you stop to eat anywhere? I'm hoping to go back soon. sending much love, michelle
Thank you for this honest update-having read your book years ago, and being a fan of Men We Reaped, I wondered what Patrick was up to now. I am not surprised (but am disappointed) that his life has continued with many ups and downs post-incarceration. I see you seeing him, and doing what you can for him, and that matters, even as it maybe feels like not enough.
thanks for reading and taking the time to say this, katie! you're too kind. i'm so glad to be reading your writing and to have been in touch all these years. and i'm grateful to you for all the work you did with access to books in prison. it never feels like it's enough; i wonder what it would feel like for it to be enough? but i guess i know the answer ... true friendship, true equality, and the sense of really having permission and resources to flourish.
The middle schooler said that! As he entered a hot, crowded, jammed with students and backpacks (lockers seen as a threat by school admins and no longer used) TRAILER in central Los Angeles so dangerous that the school provides maps to parents—the “safe” streets for kids walking to school. Take a look at the videos of the students’ work: www.outlawsandjustice.org
oh my gosh, i'm watching and listening to it right now! it's so inspiring to see these teenagers on stage interpreting american history. also: i want to learn how to do and teach process drama! how do i learn?? i also saw the video where the director guy stands in a circle and leads them in movement exercises. i want to join that circle. (i'm so sedentary, too...) Thanks so much for sharing this. How long have you worked with them? They are so inspiring.
I'm watching this now and my mind is blown. I really hope to bring these techniques and philosophies to the classroom, whether in prison or in college or prisons-in-college. Thank you Lisa for everything that you do!
Would you like me to send you the (Out)Laws & Justice textbook and Teachers' Guide? See page samples on the website. The Teachers' Guide is a PDF file.
Your response makes me happy! If only you were right next door I would hand you a stack of the most wonderful books. The context, for example, Billy the Kid, provides "the distance of one." A person is not put on the spot, as in, "How do YOU feel about that?" It's, "How does Billy get out of this fix?" Then there's the "mantle of the expert" developed by the inimitable Dorothy Heathcote. The mantle confers expertise (italics). "Detectives! Everyone knows you're the best! They want you can solve this mystery." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds3SAqt1O9U (and more about her on YouTube). Oh .... let's talk!
Michelle, I shake my head ... shaking the many instant associations that your piece elicited, and shaking my many responses. Flood gates opened. It would take pages (and more pages) to tell you This One, and That One. Like, for instance, you going the Sunday distance to make a student's work POSTER SIZE and his checking to see it when he enters the classroom. I've done that. I've experience a hooded head whipping around when to his astonishment he sees his words, and his words burst forth: "That's me! I said that!" As I read, through multiple lenses in my mind's eye, I am flooded with my current reading, Hopes and Impediments, by Chinua Achebe, and Viet Thanh Nguyen's Norton lectures followed by his memoir, A Man of Two Faces. They both address the nexus of your concerns, which as I read them, in part reflect the myth of individualism and that myth's curse in the ways it blots out the responsibilities of the state. Timothy Snyder's writings (and Ukraine course available on YouTube) are teaching me how to think about these things too. Sending you warm abrazos.
"That's me! I said that!" I love how you put it. It's so perfect. It breaks down what is happening. First you see yourself through the eyes of others ("That's me!") So you experience yourself as being seen. Then you claim what is being seen as your own ("I said that!") It is such a special and integral part of feeling like a worthwhile part of a social fabric, of a community. Thanks for saying it that way. And it's so humbling to take a part in that self-realization, even if there are so many other encounters before and after that could destroy their day. Thanks also for the recs on Nguyen and Achebe. Both are so great, but I still haven't read Hopes and Impediments—I will do that and keep you posted. I send you back many warm hugs.
thanks so much dear susan. i'm really grateful to you for always reading with such generosity, and for your constancy in dedicating yourself to child literacy and to the goodness of libraries and books! I love that we're still friends after all these years! (2.5 decades!! oh my god.)
Hi! I read your little bullet point note about starting a new gig with Books from Taiwan. https://booksfromtaiwan.tw/index.php. Would love to learn more! I'm about to release my debut picture book, WILD GREENS BEAUTIFUL GIRL, which is technically *from* a U.S. publisher (Sleeping Bear Press), but it's *about* a young aboriginal Taiwanese girl, inspired by my own Amis heritage. Perhaps you'd be interested in learning more!
Ooh, this book seems wonderful!! I will pre-order and ask my local library to carry it, too =) Books from Taiwan promotes books from Taiwan to the world (alas, Taiwanese publishers only, but we should try to get your book translated!). They've recently expanded the categories children's books and comics/graphic novels, so it's a wonderful opportunity for Taiwanese authors and illustrators to have their work promoted, marketed, and translated.
Aw, thank you, Michelle! Means a lot! And I'll def keep my eyes peeled on Books from Taiwan. Sounds like a great org.
Hi. I would like to send money to Patrick and his family. How can I do that?
Best,
Vince Hancock
vhhancock@gmail.com
dear vince, you're too kind. thank you so much—I'll email you! with love and gratitude, michelle
Please do. I appreciated what you wrote about him.
Michelle, as always, this was so beautiful to read. I’ve been thinking about your book a lot this past week as passed through the Mississippi delta on our way back to CA. Sending love ❤️
thank you dear tae-yeoun for reading. i still think about our conversation about writing and books. you drove through the Delta? did you stop to eat anywhere? I'm hoping to go back soon. sending much love, michelle
Thank you for this honest update-having read your book years ago, and being a fan of Men We Reaped, I wondered what Patrick was up to now. I am not surprised (but am disappointed) that his life has continued with many ups and downs post-incarceration. I see you seeing him, and doing what you can for him, and that matters, even as it maybe feels like not enough.
thanks for reading and taking the time to say this, katie! you're too kind. i'm so glad to be reading your writing and to have been in touch all these years. and i'm grateful to you for all the work you did with access to books in prison. it never feels like it's enough; i wonder what it would feel like for it to be enough? but i guess i know the answer ... true friendship, true equality, and the sense of really having permission and resources to flourish.
The middle schooler said that! As he entered a hot, crowded, jammed with students and backpacks (lockers seen as a threat by school admins and no longer used) TRAILER in central Los Angeles so dangerous that the school provides maps to parents—the “safe” streets for kids walking to school. Take a look at the videos of the students’ work: www.outlawsandjustice.org
oh my gosh, i'm watching and listening to it right now! it's so inspiring to see these teenagers on stage interpreting american history. also: i want to learn how to do and teach process drama! how do i learn?? i also saw the video where the director guy stands in a circle and leads them in movement exercises. i want to join that circle. (i'm so sedentary, too...) Thanks so much for sharing this. How long have you worked with them? They are so inspiring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owKiUO99qrw
"Three Looms Waiting"
I'm watching this now and my mind is blown. I really hope to bring these techniques and philosophies to the classroom, whether in prison or in college or prisons-in-college. Thank you Lisa for everything that you do!
Would you like me to send you the (Out)Laws & Justice textbook and Teachers' Guide? See page samples on the website. The Teachers' Guide is a PDF file.
yes!!!! i'll email you and look for the page samples
Your response makes me happy! If only you were right next door I would hand you a stack of the most wonderful books. The context, for example, Billy the Kid, provides "the distance of one." A person is not put on the spot, as in, "How do YOU feel about that?" It's, "How does Billy get out of this fix?" Then there's the "mantle of the expert" developed by the inimitable Dorothy Heathcote. The mantle confers expertise (italics). "Detectives! Everyone knows you're the best! They want you can solve this mystery." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds3SAqt1O9U (and more about her on YouTube). Oh .... let's talk!
Michelle, I shake my head ... shaking the many instant associations that your piece elicited, and shaking my many responses. Flood gates opened. It would take pages (and more pages) to tell you This One, and That One. Like, for instance, you going the Sunday distance to make a student's work POSTER SIZE and his checking to see it when he enters the classroom. I've done that. I've experience a hooded head whipping around when to his astonishment he sees his words, and his words burst forth: "That's me! I said that!" As I read, through multiple lenses in my mind's eye, I am flooded with my current reading, Hopes and Impediments, by Chinua Achebe, and Viet Thanh Nguyen's Norton lectures followed by his memoir, A Man of Two Faces. They both address the nexus of your concerns, which as I read them, in part reflect the myth of individualism and that myth's curse in the ways it blots out the responsibilities of the state. Timothy Snyder's writings (and Ukraine course available on YouTube) are teaching me how to think about these things too. Sending you warm abrazos.
"That's me! I said that!" I love how you put it. It's so perfect. It breaks down what is happening. First you see yourself through the eyes of others ("That's me!") So you experience yourself as being seen. Then you claim what is being seen as your own ("I said that!") It is such a special and integral part of feeling like a worthwhile part of a social fabric, of a community. Thanks for saying it that way. And it's so humbling to take a part in that self-realization, even if there are so many other encounters before and after that could destroy their day. Thanks also for the recs on Nguyen and Achebe. Both are so great, but I still haven't read Hopes and Impediments—I will do that and keep you posted. I send you back many warm hugs.
Michelle- As always, I love all the honesty, introspection, and nuance in your writing.
thanks so much dear susan. i'm really grateful to you for always reading with such generosity, and for your constancy in dedicating yourself to child literacy and to the goodness of libraries and books! I love that we're still friends after all these years! (2.5 decades!! oh my god.)