Last night, at Shaman Drum Booksellers in Ann Arbor, MI, we (Steve Gillis and Dan Wickett) had the pleasure of attending a reading. The individuals reading last night were the fifth and grade class of Ms. Leslie Lawther from the Open School at Mack in Ann Arbor. The moderator of the evening's events was Mr. Scott Beal.
Scott ran one of the four DWIRP's that Dzanc sponsored this past school year. His was a full effort and he attended the class once or twice per week, each and every week of the school year from September through this past week. He taught the children creative writing and reading. As Scott is a poet, poetry is what the class concentrated on, eventually putting together a 160 page anthology of poetry from 25 students, which Dzanc published, making sure each student, as well as Scott, Ms. Lawther, the school's principal, Ms. Naomi Zikmund-Fisher, received a free copy.
Last night, 22 of the 25 students were able to make the reading, and the each stepped up to the table, leaned into the microphone and confidentally read one of their poems. They read to as packed a house as I've seen at Shaman Drum in some time. There may have been as many people there recently to see Li-Young Lee, but I'm not sure.
A similar, though smaller class size, program was also run this past year by Diane Goettel at the High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology in Brooklyn, NY. Between 12 students, they were able to put together a fantastic 70 page anthology of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, and also did a reading, which unfortunately, neither Steve nor I were able to attend.
The hour plus that last night's reading lasted was more than a small reminder as to why Dzanc Books is in existence. We love to publish, make no mistake about that. And Dan loves the need for one of us to attend things like AWP and BEA and readings and meetings, and Steve loves that Dan loves doing those. But, all of that is done so that we can run our educational programs. The networking as a publisher helps us find authors to pay to run these DWIRPs for us. The publishing gives us the credibility to approach schools and suggest they put their students in our hands for an hour a week.
Seeing just how excited these students were about the book in their hands, the pride in reading their own work to a crowd, and just as huge - seeing many of them wandering through the stacks of literary fiction and poetry with interest - again, way more than a small reminder.
Many thanks to the Meijer Foundation, the Community Foundation of SE Michigan, and about a dozen private donors, that contributed to Dzanc Books last year and made it possible for us to run more than a single DWIRP this year. Those of you believing this to be a worthwhile venture might consider visiting our Support page.
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