The following guest post is by author听. Draper will be the keynote speaker for the and one of our featured speakers on the听听panel at the听.
Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. 听I鈥檓 paraphrasing here, but the knowledge of the past and the words written to preserve that knowledge are waiting in books. Fiction. Nonfiction. Drama. Poetry. Add to that art and music and color and sound and rhythm and all the manifestations thereof, and we as humans survive and continue.
I remember a powerful short story that we read during a senior literature class I taught. I cannot recall the title, but it was about a music box鈥攖he last one in the world. The story took place after the final apocalypse, and basic human survival was a daily life-and-death struggle. And what was the most prized possession of the world in which everything had been destroyed? That music box. It was the only item left on the face of the earth that carried music and art and beauty. Wars were fought鈥攏ot for food, but for that one piece of beauty. So I asked my students鈥攄o we need artistic expression to be fully human? Most of them decided that yes, we do.
What I do through my artistic expression is miniscule, compared to the magnitude of all we need to breathe and think. But I feel uplifted when I see a painting of a sunset that my heart recognizes. I feel satiated when I smell honeysuckle in the summer. I incorporate lots of sensory imagery in my writing鈥攏ot because a writing professor told me to, but because that is how I inhale the world, how I process all the beauty of life.
Through writing, we have the opportunity to save humanity鈥攐ne word at a time. I am so grateful to be part of the artistic process, to be one with the drummers and the singers and the photographers who capture a moment.
Reporters sometimes ask me, 鈥淲ho is your audience?鈥�
I reply, 鈥淧eople who read. People who think they don鈥檛 like to read. People who think and connect to others. People who are searching.鈥�
鈥淲hat do you hope readers take from your books?鈥�
鈥淢emories. Joys. Sorrows. Shared community. Characters. Story. Smiles. Tears. Vision. Hope.鈥�
鈥淪o how do your stories promote change?鈥�
鈥淥ften they do not. But when they do, this is what happens:
- Kids read a book all the way through to the end.
- They tuck [books] in their backpack and dig them out during math class when they are supposed to be doing subtraction.
- They take [a book] home and share it with their mother.
- They refuse to return the book, saying they lost it.
- They identify with the characters in the story, saying that life mirrors their own.
- They laugh. They cry. They get angry at characters.
- They read a book many times.
- They think about their life, their future, their possibilities.
- They see dances. They hear echoes. They touch a symphony.鈥�
This is a book in the hands of a child.
Sharon M. Draper is the author of over 30 award-winning books, including which remains on the NYT bestseller list. She served as the听National Teacher of the Year, has been honored at the White House six times, and was chosen to be a literary ambassador to the children of Africa as well as China. 听Her newest novel, , won the听. 听