As an author, one of my passions is encouraging young people to read, but even more fun is helping them develop a love of writing. Many larger schools offer classes in creative writing, but smaller schools do not. In some schools, Language Arts or English classes are sometimes complimented by visits from local or regional writers. But what about isolated rural schools? I believe that in these schools a writer can make the greatest impact.
Imagine my joy to be asked to present a writing workshop at the most isolated school in America. Carmen and I were invited to Diomede School on Little Diomede Island. (That’s the place that Sarah Palin was referring to when she said, ‘I can see Russia from my backyard.’)
The trip alone will work its way into a book someday: Anchorage, Alaska to Nome, then a helicopter flight for another hour and a half over the frozen ocean. You land on a tiny helipad. Just over a mile to the west is The International Dateline and one mile further is Russia’s Big Diomede Island. With winds at fifty miles an hour and temperatures below zero, the pilot can’t even shut down the engine while unloading passengers and freight. It’s only a hundred yards to the school, but that hike is over massive snow drifts and along icy walkways, and it’s damned cold. The help of two young high school men hauling our gear including books, and leading the way made the trek to the school enjoyable.
Inside the classroom sat nine reserved, nervous Iñupiat youth. For the first hour, just getting them to say something was a challenge. But a couple of warm up exercises led by Carmen and an extraordinary local teacher finally broke the ice. We discussed the process of writing, and most importantly, rewriting, since the students’ first feedback revolved around a lack of confidence in their writing, and they felt strongly uncomfortable sharing their work. I loved the smiles when I shared how poor my first drafts are, and how, even after two or three rewrites, it was the feedback of beta readers that turned a draft book into a novel.
Our rural remote Alaska kids grow up in an environment that most Americans cannot imagine. Their home island is just a big rock sitting in the middle of the Bering Straits. On clear days, they wake up to the sun rising tomorrow in Russia, two miles away. Much of their life centers on a subsistence lifestyle, gathering and preserving a dozen different plants that grow in the four months that the island is snow free. They fish, through the ice in winter and in open boats in summer. Outside their front door, whales and walruses migrate. Seals provide red meat for meals. They hunt birds in the summer, after gathering wild bird eggs in the spring. One of the primary winter foods is king crab, caught through holes in the ice; a meal that they actually grow tired of.
Back in the classroom we finally got around to writing. Like almost everywhere, local life is taken for granted, boring. But for you reading this in Seattle, Cincinnati, or New York, the sport of racing up a 45 degree ice strewn slope on the mountain behind the village for fun, or wandering the frozen sea in front of the school is an adventure. Raising the alarm when a polar bear wanders into the village is exciting. The students began to write about those things, and the more they wrote, the more fun we were having. By the time we left, the kids were reading their work to each other and to us. The teacher had them keeping journals to inspire their writing inspiration.
One young lady in particular stood out. At the end of the first day, she handed me a three page note on why writing was so hard. Words can hurt. It’s a difficult life here. Everyone knows every other person’s business. I edited her work that evening. Reduced to two pages it was really revealing; great stuff. She was proud and should have been, and Carmen and I felt rewarded.
At the end of the trip, we were invited back. We’re looking forward to it.