Statement (Work at PEN/Faulkner)

The most important skill to work with youth is empathy. Writing is merely an artifact to catch feelings, emotions, and spirituality into drafted words. My aim when I hold reading or writing workshops is to show the audience—whatever its age—how storytelling, words, and discourse are woven into our daily life. "Do you like reading?" "Do you like writing?" I usually ask, and they tend to reply very honestly, "I do not." My strategy has always laid on persuading them to see how they actually read and write all the time. "Are you on social media? Do you text your friends? Yes? Therefore you read and write," I point out, and encourage them to explore their written-chat-style as their own narrative voice. I also invite them to write something in the moment and then share it with the group. You'll be surprised how deep their thoughts and reflections are. Sometimes they rap, laugh, and even cry. I try to listen, more than speak. I read passages aloud with ardor, from books that touched my soul, to spread the fire among them, to show them that books are enjoyable. I assure them: we humans survive based on storytelling, we tell anecdotes from morning to night, that's what nurses our connection. Writing is to craft those experiences into stories, I explain, to share ourselves with humankind. I try to have fun with them. And gladly it works out.