Interview with Instructor, Sarah Broderick
|
Mary: In our interview with you in the first issue of Vistas & Byways (Fall 2015), you talked about the theme for the second writing class you taught at SF-OLLI: Playing the Trickster: An Approach to the Practice of Creative Writing. Could you tell us the themes of your other OLLI Classes and how you selected them?
Sarah: I really appreciate this question. I have been teaching with OLLI for several years, so it’s rewarding to reflect on the themes we have explored together. All my classes have been creative writing process classes or workshops. In workshop, students share more “polished” work; the main focus of the class is the creative writing generated by the students. In a process class, we have a bit more freedom. A process class is about finding ways into the creative process: learning how to gain inspiration and what to write about. The students still share their work, but we focus our feedback on ways into the piece, what the writer really seems to want to talk about, and where the piece may head in revision or rewrite. These classes benefited me most as a student. This is the main reason I like teaching this style of class. I have freedom; the students have freedom. It’s a win-win. Most of my classes at OLLI derived from what drove me creatively at the time. If I happened to be thinking about archives and investigating history (personal or otherwise), I fashioned my interest into a course. If I was thinking about trickster figures and writers who shake up a genre, their community, the world, I molded that into a process class where we studied creative tricksters and mimicked their creative practices. Constructing these classes and following my inspiration (and then getting the opportunity to see that inspiration play out in class in others’ writing!) has been a lot of fun. In the winter of 2015, I taught my first SF-OLLI class about exploring the world around us or gaining inspiration from the everyday, which came out of my teaching experience as a graduate student in San Francisco State University’s MFA program. Following that, I taught classes that considered tricksters, beauty, the archive, the creative writing workshop, collecting, and finding light in life or growing from experience (the course I just finished titled “Lighten Up”). |
1
Mary: What is your approach to teaching creative writing and how did you develop it?
Sarah: I teach creative writing, all my classes really, with compassion. I have compassion for any creative writer willing to give of themselves, and I love each of my students for the same reason. Even if a student writes about...well, I was about to come up with something “out there” and not directly about human beings, but even that little joke would be too judgmental. No matter what a student writes about, they are giving of themselves. Sometimes they don’t even know it. I really believe this to be true. Also, I believe strongly that every student has a story to tell, and it’s part of my job to help them find it in small and large ways (subject matter, craft, belief, self-esteem, readings and their writers, inspiring quotations from all sorts of people, on and on). Because the world and life in general can be tough, I try to model my classrooms on caring and community. We work together. I try to listen as much as I talk. Beyond this general style, I model each class as if it were its own story with a beginning, middle, and end. And I try to structure my courses in the same way. At times, this leaves me feeling like an actor stepping onto and departing a stage, and that’s a good thing I think. It makes teaching itself artistic, an enjoyable practice for a person like me. Teachers I have admired in the past speak to my teaching persona in conscious and unconscious ways. Sometimes I hear them. Sometimes I repurpose one of their lessons thanking them silently. I am grateful to these teachers. I love teaching. Teaching allows me to witness the goodness inherent in every human being. In my students. And myself. To write is to give. Teaching is giving, too. Mary: What have you learned from teaching writing to older adult students at SF-OLLI? Have we lived up to our reputation for being wiser in some way because of our life experiences? Sarah: OLLI students surprise me. They are like any students, but they are students with more life experience than the average. I suppose that may make them wiser. I am in awe of the adventures, risks, heartaches, and all-the-other-things-life-throws-our-way that my students at OLLI have experienced. All these experiences make for rich, rewarding writing and reading. Maybe because of these varied life experiences, there is a level of giving-ness and risk-taking in the classroom that I don’t always see. Once they know the stories they want to tell, OLLI students are bold and sure. This makes teaching OLLI students especially rewarding. Mary: You have been teaching SF-OLLI writing classes for some time and are very popular with your students. You have also published nonfiction pieces and short stories in several literary journals. Are you writing anything now, and can you at least hint at what it is? Sarah: I am writing, yes. I write every day in the morning except on Sundays. The Sunday rule is a relatively new rule I have set aside for myself, and I believe it’s a smart one. On that day, I reflect upon whatever I want: what I’ve read, watched or listened to, what I’ve written, what has troubled or moved me emotionally recently, and the people I miss. |
2
I take a hike on the Sonoma Coast. I explore my backyard. I think. Maybe I even have fun with friends. I may write a little if I am particularly inspired, sure. For years, I was waking quite early to write. Now, I am a bit more relaxed. I’m easier on myself, and this approach seems to be working. The project I am working on began several months ago in the middle of writing another book, which I will visit again after this project is complete. I finished the rough draft of this current project in four months, but the majority came into being in approximately two. There were days in a row where I was writing ten single-spaced pages each sitting. This was much faster than I have ever written before. Much, much faster. This book demanded to be written. And now it demands to be edited. Thank you for this interview, Mary. Thanks to all my students as well. Your support has meant so much to me. Really. Truly. You inspire me as much as you say that I inspire you. I am grateful. |
3
About Mary Heldman
click to read BIO
|
Please Comment
click to open a comment box |