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Toppled Expectations by Marianne Malone

Posted by on August 20, 2013 in Author Posts | 1 Comment

Shortly after my first book was published, I was invited to the small town of Pekin, Illinois, south of Peoria, to be the featured speaker at a YWCA Adult Learners end of the year banquet. I had no idea what to expect, the fee was modest, it was a long drive and the audience would be fairly small.  I was intrigued, but I wasn’t expecting my assumptions to be turned upside down.

When I began writing I thought it was simply to satisfy my need to create. Writers know how frustrating the process can be; it’s a solitary endeavor and you have to sit for long periods wondering if what you’ve written is any good. The pressures and challenges of marketing your work are relentless gnat-like nuisances hovering around, but if you’re lucky the creative urge swats them away. Besides, this is for me, I told myself, it doesn’t matter if no one ever sees it. Ha!

I had wanted to sink my teeth into a subject that had interested me as a young girl and recapture feelings I’d had since childhood that were waiting for my attention. It was a potent brew of memory and nostalgia, which, at that moment in my life – for some unknown reason – compelled me to write. I was teaching art in an all girls middle school at the time and thought perhaps a few of my students might enjoy my story. I had an image in my head of kids – just like the ones I taught – reading my book. It turned out I was right and now that the book has become a series, I enjoy going on school visits and seeing students excited in the way I had envisioned – almost expected – they would.

I arrived at the YWCA to find a simple facility and a group of about forty people. Usually, I am speaking to fourth and fifth graders, in a school library or gym.  This crowd was like nothing I’d experienced. Many were immigrants struggling to learn how to read and speak in English; a couple of lively middle aged women with Down Syndrome; and there were several people who had made it to well into adulthood without ever learning how to read more than the simplest sentences.  They had failed at school – or maybe school had failed them. A volunteer tutor accompanied each learner. How to speak to and reach all of them was my challenge.

I asked them if they had a favorite place and described how I had one as a child. It was in a museum, but part of it was also in my head, imagined and magical.  When I revisited it as an adult, I found that it still held magic and in my book I am sharing that feeling. I seemed to have hit the mark; it was something they could all understand, the idea of a special place. They shared their own favorites – an uncle’s farm, a grandmother’s house, Wrigley Field, and asked lots of good questions. And then, for my benefit, one of the readers and his tutor had prepared a passage of my book to read to the entire group.

The duo came to the front of the room. The man (who I learned was 55 years old) was visibly nervous. His lovely tutor introduced him, saying this was the first time in his life that he’d ever read aloud for other people. They read several pages of dialogue. It was not easy for him and he struggled with some words. He persisted though, and when they finished everyone applauded. He beamed with pride and happiness. I choked back tears. This was the first chapter book that he’d ever completed and he told me he loved the story so much it kept him reading.  He said he would read all of my books. He thanked me for writing it. He thanked me!

I was deeply inspired by what I witnessed with this impressive group. The experience toppled my expectations in an unexpected and humbling way. It clarified for me why writing is worth the struggle and why I continue to write: I want my words to to connect, to entertain, to move people in some way.

I’m not writing for myself alone. But the bigger realization was that you never know who will come across one of your books or predict how it will impact their lives. It’s that return loop of empathy that can happen with teaching and with arts and literature; I gave something to a reader and was enriched many times over in return. You can’t do that on your own.

maloneMarianne Malone was born and raised in the Chicago area, spending many hours in the Art Institute. The Thorne Miniature Rooms were a particular favorite and she tried hard to recreate a bit of the magic in her own modest dollhouse.

She attended the University of Illinois, majoring in Art History with a minor in Metals, working in the jewelry design business after graduating.  She took a hiatus from professional work to raise her three children. In 1994, with another neighborhood mother, she co-founded the Campus Middle School for Girls, in Urbana, Illinois, and taught Art in the school for 11 years. She now writes full-time (although she tries to squeeze in time for painting and drawing – there really aren’t enough hours in the day, are there?!). The Sixty-Eight Rooms is her first novel, and its sequel, Stealing Magic, was published in January of 2012. The third installment, The Pirate’s Coin, appeared in May 2013, and a fourth will be out Summer 2014.

She shares her empty nest with her husband, in Urbana, Illinois.

You can visit her at www.mariannemalone.com.