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Rebroadcast: Virginia Euwer Wolff
Virginia Euwer Wolff taught high school English for thirty years before she quit to write. Her young adult novels have won widespread acclaim, including a National Book Award for the second in her trilogy Make Lemonade.
That series was the focus of our wonderful hour with her last summer. Perhaps it's not surprising a teacher of teens would focus on an adolescent audience, but Wolff says she stumbled into the genre, inspired by conversations she overheard in the cafeteria.
She remembers the emotion:
I was in the cafeteria in the high school where I was teaching English. A student was looking forward to something. At the same table a week later, a person said such and such didn't happen. It went to my spine.
That led to her first young adult novel, Probably Still Nick Swansen. It's a moving account of a boy in special ed classes who asks a girl to the prom. Make Lemonade takes on poverty, identity, and transitioning worlds. Wolff wrote the series in verse, immersing you in her protaganist's inner dialog. Wolff also explores the legacy of the deportation of ethnic Japanese from Hood River during World War II in Bat 6, which the state Library Association chose this year as part of the Oregon Reads sesquicentennial commemoration.
If you've read any of Wolff's books, what was your favorite?
Tagged as: northwest passages · poetry · virginia euwer wolff
Photo credit: Juliet Wolff
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whether I’ve liked the book or not, to simply have a discussion!
Low Glycemic Foods
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I listened with fascination to the interview with Virginia Euwer Woolf. Her comment about Performance Today sparked my curiosity about stations that still broadcast it several days a week. I found this link
http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/stations/list.php
and found I could listen online to KBRW in Barrow, Alaska. So thanks to the wonders of Internet streaming audio, Performancve Today may indeed be available in Oregon.
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I just wanted to thank you guys for this program. I find myself remembering there's more to listen to in the morning than my looping music list
Low Glycemic Index Foods
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Terima kasih to Emily and David and crew for this thoughtful program, and a thousand thanks to Ms.Wolff for teaching well our teens, her kid readers. Pero, I have a concern -- maybe a wish rather than critique.
If only more youth-reader authors were people of color. If only agents, editors, publishers, consumers, trusted nonmainstreamers more with their children.
There's nothing too wrong about an Anglita writing (as Ms. Wolff does) in a voice that maybe taken as an ethnic minority American's. You gotta appreciate the color-blindedness. I was in an MFA program with white folks writing waaay outside their ethnicities. Ogh.
There's an odd world of incongruity between, say, a Mexican man writing in the voice of a Hmong girl, or say: between an Arab woman writing in a teen Latina's voice. No matter how great the writer, or how much the writer admires Rev. Dr. King's oft-quoted aspirational statement about dreaming of his little girls "not being judged by the color of their skin...".
And it is precisely this world of difference that America's mainstream is not so good at acknowledging, understanding, accepting, working.
Anglo American authors, teachers, librarians, bookshop shelvers, are not the best narrators of this national burden, of our racialized society. This is not a matter of bad faith, but simply of in-your-bones experience. In our bones -- bruised bones, joyous bones -- where truth is known.
Better than good intentions is us sweating and grinding our way through the hard stuff. Respect and responsibility becomes of it.
-Ronault LS Catalani
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I was driving home this morning from an appointment, and happened to hear part of the interview with Ms Wolff. I was very interested in the story of her childhood and even more so in reading some of her works. Even though I am many years past being a "youth", I think it would be interesting to get to know her better through her writing.
I also wanted to add my comment to hers about missing "Performance Today"! I too was so sorry to see that wonderful show end, and miss it so much. I have tuned in to Fred Childs show on Saturday morning, and always enjoy it, however it is not the same as the other. Perhaps someday, OPB will look to reinstating that show.
Thank you for your very interesting show. P gould
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Thanks so much for this rebroadcast. I learned of Virginia's books when my wife, Susan, began reading Probably Still Nick Swansen aloud to her 5th grade students when it was first published. They loved it, and she made Virginia's books a centerpiece of her focus on literature. Virginia became a personal friend. She was generous with her time, and a cherished guest in my wife's classroom.
My personal favorite is The Mozart Season.
Michael Davalt
Portland
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Back in high school I read a few of Wolff's books. I remember thoroughly enjoying them. My favourite still has to be Make Lemonade.
Aruba Caribbean Waxing Toronto
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Comments are now closed.
I just wanted to thank you guys for this program. I find myself remembering there's more to listen to in the morning than my looping music list, which begins to generate a stale taste after too long. It seems to always be at that time that I switch over to NPR and begin hearing something that tugs either on my heart strings or my intellect, both being feelings that few forums can do simultaneously. With this particular interview with Ms. Wolff I found myself at first wondering who she was. I personally have never read any of her books but just hearing the passion and the meaning she puts into what she has written and seeing the humble ideals, the carefulness, it leads me to knowing that there is more than a want, but a Need to go check out any of her books and pick them up. Not only to read them for myself but to pass them to others, whether I’ve liked the book or not, to simply have a discussion! So thank you Ms. Wolff and thank you OPB for providing much than a radio program.
Peter Schweitzer