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[0:10] Susan Blackwell: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in my spark file.

[0:18] Laura Camien: Spark to be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[0:23] Susan Blackwell: I pump it in my spark file.

[0:26] Laura Camien: Spark!

[0:28] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my spark.

[0:32] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark file.

[0:37] Susan Blackwell: Welcome to the Spark File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:43] Laura Camien: Hi, I'm Laura Camien.

[0:45] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell, and we are creativity coaches who help people clarify and accomplish their creative goals.

[0:52] Laura Camien: You should know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[0:59] Susan Blackwell: Hold up. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file?

[0:59] Laura Camien: A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:10] Susan Blackwell: Every episode, we're gonna reach into our very own spark files and exchange some sparks.

[1:15] Laura Camien: And from time to time, you never know.

[1:18] Susan Blackwell: We might talk to some folks who spark us too.

[1:21] Laura Camien: You never know.

[1:22] Susan Blackwell: And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take some of these sparks of inspiration and make something of your own.

[1:28] Laura Camien: So without further ado, let's open up the Spark File.

[1:33] Susan Blackwell: Hi, Laura Camien.

[1:35] Laura Camien: Hi, Susan.

[1:37] Susan Blackwell: Hi.

[1:38] Laura Camien: So, where to begin with?

[1:40] Susan Blackwell: So many fun things have happened since the last time we recorded an episode of the podcast.

[1:47] Laura Camien: So much.

[1:48] Susan Blackwell: So much it's never a dull moment.

[1:50] Laura Camien: Never a dull moment.

[1:51] Susan Blackwell: There's been some groundbreaking cases in the courts where, you know, these heads of social media have been slapped on the wrist for breaking the minds of the population.

[2:04] Laura Camien: But hey, it's a little bit of progress.

[2:06] Susan Blackwell: It's a little progress.

[2:08] Laura Camien: It's true. It's yet another thing that we all know is addictive and bad for us.

[2:15] Susan Blackwell: And yet is given to the public to give us free reign.

[2:19] Laura Camien: Because we are free, we can now self-regulate to not tap into all of the things that are designed to get us addicted.

[2:28] Susan Blackwell: Bon chance, everyone.

[2:31] Laura Camien: That's right.

[2:32] Susan Blackwell: Um, happier news.

[2:34] Laura Camien: Uh, I mentioned this to Laura, but if you're a listener to the podcast, you won't know this.

[2:38] Susan Blackwell: I recently was lucky enough to go see Every Brilliant Thing starring Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway.

[2:47] Laura Camien: So good.

[2:48] Susan Blackwell: So this is a show, it's a one-person show that Daniel is starring in on Broadway, and it has a heavy, heavy audience participation component.

[2:59] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[3:00] Susan Blackwell: And some of those audience participants simply say one word during the course of the show, and some say whole phrases, and some play parts, improvised parts.

[3:15] Laura Camien: Do we know anyone who played an improvised part?

[3:19] Susan Blackwell: Well, I was tapped to play a role.

[3:21] Laura Camien: And when I was tapped to play the role, the very sweet Dan Radcliffe came out before the show and was like, hey, how do you feel about audience participation?

[3:29] Susan Blackwell: And I was like, anything to help you. I'm so happy, friend.

[3:32] Laura Camien: So I was put in this seat along with other audience members up on stage.

[3:37] Susan Blackwell: But Dan said, he said out loud, it's just one little thing.

[3:43] Laura Camien: And I was like, great, I've got you.

[3:45] Susan Blackwell: I've got you, brother.

[3:47] Laura Camien: And then it turned out that it was a little more involved than that.

[3:51] Susan Blackwell: But I think that you would have the Spark File would have been proud.

[3:55] Laura Camien: I think I did a good job in the role of Miss Patterson, the school librarian slash guidance counselor.

[4:03] Susan Blackwell: And um, I got some huge laughs.

[4:07] Laura Camien: I got a huge laugh when they asked, uh, Dan's character asks what is my sock puppet's name, the little dog sock puppet.

[4:17] Susan Blackwell: And I said POTUS, and the audience went crazy.

[4:20] Laura Camien: Of course, referencing my own little dog POTUS.

[4:23] Susan Blackwell: POTUS had a moment.

[4:24] Laura Camien: POTUS had a moment.

[4:26] Susan Blackwell: But uh, there's a fun follow-up to the story, Laura, which I haven't told you, which is what I got a message from my friends Dan and Marsha, who I worked with extensively at the Metropolitan Opera.

[4:40] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[4:41] Susan Blackwell: One of their friends is a Tony voter who happened to be in the audience that night, who immediately upon the completion of the show, texted them to say, Susan Blackwell is back on Broadway.

[4:57] Laura Camien: So I guess she's Tony eligible.

[4:59] Susan Blackwell: I'm Tony eligible.

[5:01] Laura Camien: Tony eligible.

[5:03] Susan Blackwell: This is it.

[5:04] Laura Camien: This is your moment.

[5:05] Susan Blackwell: I played a featured role on Broadway.

[5:07] Laura Camien: I had two strong scenes.

[5:08] Susan Blackwell: So um, you know, fingers crossed for the Tonies.

[5:12] Laura Camien: Okay.

[5:13] Susan Blackwell: You might have to go back so a few more Tony voters can witness your brilliance.

[5:18] Laura Camien: That's right.

[5:19] Susan Blackwell: But this Tony voter, this actual Tony voter thought that I was cast in the show, which indicated to me I didn't do too bad.

[5:26] Laura Camien: Susan Blackwell, I know you did not do too bad.

[5:30] Susan Blackwell: In fact, I knew I know you did extremely well.

[5:34] Laura Camien: I'm very proud.

[5:35] Susan Blackwell: I wish I had been there to see it.

[5:37] Laura Camien: It was really something.

[5:39] Susan Blackwell: And now I want to go back with my friends who are also friends with Dan Radcliffe because I know I have it on good authority that they are going to be tapped.

[5:51] Laura Camien: And I want to sit next to them and watch them and see how they do.

[5:55] Susan Blackwell: And they'll be eligible for Tonys too.

[6:03] Laura Camien: All right.

[6:03] Susan Blackwell: The tiny Tony Awards go to the tiniest Tony goes to.

[6:08] Laura Camien: Oh my god, it's an honor just to be nominated.

[6:13] Susan Blackwell: I love it.

[6:15] Laura Camien: Susan, can I interest you in a spark?

[6:19] Susan Blackwell: You sure can.

[6:20] Laura Camien: I am ready.

[6:20] Susan Blackwell: I'm primed and ready for a spark.

[6:22] Laura Camien: All right, here we go.

[6:24] Susan Blackwell: So I've mentioned it on the podcast, but I recently finished reading a book called A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

[6:35] Laura Camien: Susan, have you read that book?

[6:37] Susan Blackwell: You have to be a very good idea.

[6:40] Laura Camien: That I was pretty sure that I had.

[6:42] Susan Blackwell: And yet every time I'm like, but I need to reread it.

[6:45] Laura Camien: But every time you bring something specific up, I think, have I read that book?

[6:51] Susan Blackwell: Because I don't recall it.

[6:53] Laura Camien: So it was required reading long, long, long ago.

[6:56] Susan Blackwell: But you're not sure if you actually did the reading.

[6:59] Laura Camien: Did I do it? Did I read the crypt notes?

[7:02] Susan Blackwell: It is such a good book.

[7:04] Laura Camien: It is such a wonderful book.

[7:06] Susan Blackwell: Somehow I just had never intersected with it.

[7:09] Laura Camien: I don't think it was ever required reading for me.

[7:13] Susan Blackwell: And it's good.

[7:16] Laura Camien: It's good.

[7:17] Susan Blackwell: It's gritty.

[7:18] Laura Camien: I mean, it's got some really, it's really real.

[7:22] Susan Blackwell: I didn't realize how real it would be, or in certain cases, how dark it would be, but it is so good.

[7:29] Laura Camien: In case you haven't read the book, according to Wikipedia, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

[7:34] Susan Blackwell: This is when I feel like I'm doing a book report.

[7:37] Laura Camien: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Betty Smith, originally published in 1943.

[7:46] Susan Blackwell: I want to uh forewarn that with this podcast episode, I this is going to contain spoilers.

[7:54] Laura Camien: So if you don't want this book published in 1943 spoiled, maybe push pause, check it out of the library, circle back, and then listen to this episode.

[8:04] Susan Blackwell: Also, friends, I don't mean to shame anybody, but you've had since 1943 to pick up this book if you were interested.

[8:12] Laura Camien: So I'm just saying.

[8:14] Susan Blackwell: So a little more backstory.

[8:15] Betty Smith's manuscript started as a nonfiction piece titled They Lived in Brooklyn, which the author began submitting to publishers in 1940.

[8:26] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[8:26] Susan Blackwell: It was repeatedly rejected.

[8:31] Laura Camien: This great book, repeatedly rejected.

[8:33] Susan Blackwell: And then Betty Smith sent it as an entry for a contest held by Harper and Brothers in 1942.

[8:40] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[8:41] Susan Blackwell: At the editor's suggestions, Smith expanded and revised the piece, reclassified it as a novel, and changed the title.

[8:49] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[8:49] Susan Blackwell: And it proved so popular upon its release that it went into a second printing even before the official publication date.

[8:58] Laura Camien: Hey, that's impressive.

[8:58] Susan Blackwell: Flash forward in 2012, it was listed by the Library of Congress as one of the books that shaped America.

[9:08] Laura Camien: I'm curious right now, does it show up on any um like banned books since we're banning so many of these important books?

[9:16] Susan Blackwell: You know what, Laura? That is a great question, and I can imagine it would for uh some because of some notable passages, and I didn't look that up.

[9:30] Laura Camien: I don't know.

[9:31] Susan Blackwell: I'm just curious.

[9:32] Susan Blackwell: So the story centers on a young girl named Francie Nolan, her father Johnny, who is a singing waiter, her mother Katie, who is a cleaning lady, and her little brother Neely.

[9:33] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah.

[9:46] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[9:46] Susan Blackwell: But Francie is the central character.

[9:49] Laura Camien: Right.

[9:49] Susan Blackwell: Before I listened to the book, which is read wonderfully by Kate Burton, I always thought the tree referenced in the title was like a big beautiful oak tree or something classy like that.

[10:02] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[10:02] Susan Blackwell: But let me read you just a passage from the beginning of the book.

[10:08] Laura Camien: Sure.

[10:08] Susan Blackwell: The one tree in Francie's yard was neither a pine nor a hemlock.

[10:12] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[10:12] Susan Blackwell: It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bow and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas.

[10:23] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[10:23] Susan Blackwell: Some people called it the tree of heaven.

[10:26] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[10:26] Susan Blackwell: No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky.

[10:31] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[10:31] Susan Blackwell: It grew in boarded up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps, and it was the only tree that grew out of cement.

[10:39] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[10:39] Susan Blackwell: It grew lushly, but only in the tenement districts.

[10:43] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[10:43] Susan Blackwell: If you took a walk on a Sunday afternoon and came to a nice neighborhood, very refined, you saw a small one of these trees through the iron gate leading to someone's yard, and you knew that soon that section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district.

[11:00] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[11:00] Susan Blackwell: The tree knew it came there first.

[11:03] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[11:03] Susan Blackwell: Afterwards, poor foreigners seeped in, and the quiet brown stone houses were hacked up into flats.

[11:10] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[11:10] Susan Blackwell: Feather beds were pushed out of the windowsills to air, and the tree of heaven flourished.

[11:16] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[11:18] Susan Blackwell: That was the kind of tree it was.

[11:18] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[11:18] Susan Blackwell: It liked poor people.

[11:23] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[11:23] Susan Blackwell: Its umbrellas curled over, around and under her third floor fire escape.

[11:29] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[11:29] Susan Blackwell: An 11-year-old girl sitting on this fire escape could imagine that she was living in a tree.

[11:35] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[11:35] Susan Blackwell: That's what Francie imagined every Saturday afternoon in summer.

[12:00] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[12:00] Susan Blackwell: But it's this, it's this tree.

[12:00] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[12:00] Susan Blackwell: It's regarded as an invasive species, and they're like impossible to kill, and they grow out of literally cracks and sidewalks.

[12:09] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[12:09] Susan Blackwell: That alone is the reason why I believe I have read this book, because that is the image evoked for me.

[12:29] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[12:39] Susan Blackwell: Maybe you have read it.

[12:40] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[12:40] Susan Blackwell: And I if you even if you have, I would recommend a reread.

[12:43] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[12:45] Susan Blackwell: It's so good.

[12:45] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[12:46] Laura Camien: It's necessary.

[12:46] Laura Camien: When I read that description about the tree of heaven and where it grows, I was like, this is early.

[12:54] Susan Blackwell: This is like early pages.

[12:55] Laura Camien: I was like, this is the book for me.

[12:55] Susan Blackwell: I am a really big fan of great artists like Betty Smith, artists who do not come from privilege, but end up using their lived experience to make great work.

[13:07] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:07] Susan Blackwell: And there is so much to love in this book.

[13:11] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:11] Susan Blackwell: There's so much to recommend it.

[13:11] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:13] Susan Blackwell: Because that feeling that it's it's um at least semi or mostly autobiographical.

[13:19] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:19] Susan Blackwell: It's autobiographical, but it's not about say there's a type of literature plays, films that are about rich white people, made by rich white people for rich white people.

[13:32] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:32] Susan Blackwell: And I have to say, I really do have um this vast place in my heart for work that is clearly made by artists who do not come from privilege.

[13:43] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:44] Susan Blackwell: I love to see it.

[13:46] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:44] Susan Blackwell: And I love to see their success.

[13:48] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:46] Susan Blackwell: I love it.

[13:48] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:48] Susan Blackwell: So this is that.

[13:51] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:51] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[13:51] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[13:51] Susan Blackwell: So there's so much, there's so much greatness in this book, but the thing that I want to focus on today is how teachers are portrayed in this book.

[14:01] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[14:01] Susan Blackwell: Some of the teachers represented provide great wisdom and guidance, and some provide bad, bad advice.

[14:11] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[14:11] Susan Blackwell: And I thought it'd be fun to where are we going with this?

[14:18] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[14:18] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[14:18] Susan Blackwell: Well, I let's start with the wisdom.

[14:25] Susan Blackwell: I'm curious if you have had teachers in your life who have provided you with wisdom and guidance that has really changed your life, or uh really, really bad advice.

[14:38] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[14:38] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[14:38] Susan Blackwell: And uh I invite you, Laura and listeners, as you listen to this.

[14:38] Susan Blackwell: I'm interested in both and everything in between.

[14:49] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[14:59] Susan Blackwell: The day before Thanksgiving, there were exercises in Francie's room. Each of four chosen girls recited a Thanksgiving poem and held in her hand a symbol of the day. One held an ear of dried up corn, another a turkey's foot, meant to stand for the whole turkey. A third girl held a basket of apples, and the fourth held a five cent pumpkin pie, which was the size of a small saucer. After the exercises, the turkey foot and corn were thrown into the wastebasket. Teacher set aside the apples to take home. She asked if anyone wanted the little pumpkin pie. Thirty mouths watered. Thirty hands itched to go up into the air, but no one moved. Some were poor, many were hungry, and all were too proud to accept charitable food.

When no one responded, teacher ordered the pie thrown away. Francie couldn't stand it. That beautiful pie thrown away, and she had never tasted pumpkin pie. To her, it was the food of covered wagon people of Indian fighters. She was dying to taste it. In a flash, she invented a lie and up went her hand. "I'm glad somebody wants it," said Teachers. "I don't want it for myself," lied Francie proudly. "I know a very poor family I'd like to give it to." "Good," said Teachers. "That's the real Thanksgiving spirit." Francie ate the pie while walking home that afternoon. Whether it was her conscience or the unfamiliar flavor, she didn't enjoy the pie. It tasted like soap. Oh no! The Monday following, teacher saw her in the hall before class and asked her how the poor family had enjoyed the pie.

"They liked it a lot," Francie told her. Then, when she saw the teacher looking so interested, she embellished the story. "This family has two little girls with golden curls and big blue eyes." "And they're twins," prompted teacher. "How interesting." Francie was inspired. "One of them has the name Pamela, and the other Camilla." These were names that Francie had once chosen for her nonexistent dolls. "And they are very, very poor," suggested Teachers. "Oh, very poor. They didn't have anything to eat for three days and just would have died, the doctor said, if I didn't bring them that pie." "That was such a tiny pie," commented Teachers gently, "to save two lives." Francie knew then that she had gone too far.

She hated whatever that thing was inside her that made her invent such whoppers. Teacher bent down and put her arms around Francie. Francie saw that there were tears in her eyes. Francie went to pieces, and remorse rose in her like bitter floodwaters. "That's all a big lie," she confessed. "I ate the pie myself." "I know you did." "Don't send a letter home," begged Francie, thinking of the address she didn't own. "I'll stay after school every day, for I'll not punish you for having an imagination." Gently, Teachers explained the difference between a lie and a story. A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward. A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened.

Only you didn't tell it like it was. You told it like you thought it should have been. As Teachers talked, a great trouble left Francie. Lately, she had been given to exaggerating things. She did not report happenings truthfully but gave them color, excitement, and dramatic twists. Her mother Katie was annoyed at this tendency and kept warning Francie to tell the plain truth and to stop romancing. But Francie just couldn't tell the plain, undecorated truth. She had to put something to it. Although Katie had the same flair for coloring an incident, and her father, Johnny himself, lived in a half-dream world, yet they tried to squelch these things in their child. Maybe they had a good reason. Maybe they knew their own gift of imagination colored too rosily the poverty and brutality of their lives and made them able to endure it.

Perhaps Katie thought that if they did not have this faculty, they would be clearer-minded, see things as they really were, and seeing them loathe them and somehow find a way to make them better. Francie always remembered what that kind teacher told her. "You know, Francie, a lot of people would think that these stories that you're making up all the time were terrible lies because they are not the truth as people see the truth. In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened, but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't get mixed up." It was the best advice Francie ever got. Truth and fancy were so mixed up in her mind as they are in the mind of every lonely child that she didn't know which was which.

But teacher made these two things clear to her. From that time on, she wrote little stories about things she saw and felt and did. In time, she got so that she was able to speak the truth, but with a slight and instinctive coloring of the facts. Francie was 10 years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote of was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.

[21:28] Susan Blackwell: It reminds me so much, Laura, of my own great teachers who saw my little ways of being and pointed me in a good direction, who saw the things that I had a tendency toward or things that I was starting to have a passion about, and they encouraged it. And I'm just curious, Laura, do you have a teacher like that? I don't know if I've ever talked to you about this.

[21:53] Laura Camien: Oh, I mean, of course I do have teachers like that. Thank God. Um I think, you know, I think we actually have maybe talked about this one, but one was just, you know, a performance teacher and a theater teacher in college who like I just could not get past like not getting notes on things. And I just thought like this should be arduous, and I should be agonizing over this. And she finally was like, "Can you come see me tomorrow?" I went to her office and she was just like, "I need you to contemplate the possibility that this comes easy to you." And allow certain things to come easy to you, which is not to say you don't have things to learn, which is not to say that there isn't growth possibilities, but I had somehow linked um being good at something or the competency definition to um you must work hard.

Like it has to be really, really hard work. And once you've conquered it through hard work, you might be good at something. And both I had another like a writing teacher as well, both writing, yeah, performing. I just discounted them because they didn't, you know, because it there was an ease to them.

[23:17] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[23:18] Laura Camien: And um, yeah, two great teachers who contradicted that idea.

[23:25] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Great advice, great teachers giving great advice.

[23:28] Laura Camien: Great teachers, and also I am so fascinated by this excerpt that you shared because we just talked about whether this is um autobiography or not.

[23:39] Susan Blackwell: Autobiofictionography, yeah.

[23:41] Laura Camien: And I think question answered because you have to imagine she's literally telling us how she told these stories. She told the stories as she thought they should have happened, yes, and not necessarily what actually happened. And I'm sort of delighting in how she got that little message in the actual story itself. I I'm obsessed with it. And I know I've talked about it in courses at the Spark File, but my one of my great teachers, Linda Barry, taught me the phrase autobiofictionography, which is exactly what Betty Smith is describing here, which is it is autobiographical, but you give yourself the permission and the license to even if you call it fiction, you give yourself the permission to shape it, to color it, just as Betty was describing.

[24:32] Susan Blackwell: Yes, and I want to add to that, we had a teacher who came in and and taught in the Spark file. She was a client, and we've since had her back, but uh Meta Wagner, who teaches about like this very thing that we're talking about, writing, using our life experience as raw material. I think that I had a little thing rattling around in my head that somehow, of course, discounted the validity of that because it was based on lived experience. And Meta Wagner was like, put a name to it, the sensitive soul who uses the craft of writing or creating of any kind to understand their own mind, to understand their own life, to give things meaning. And that was really useful to me because although I was already doing this despite that thought rattling in my head, it helped me to realize like, oh, why? It's a perfectly valid creative choice to make and one that has a purpose, you know, um beyond itself.

[25:45] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah. I love that.

[25:48] Susan Blackwell: In this book, Betty Smith also captures a lesser teacher giving some really, really bad advice. So I would like to share that with you. Again, this is from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Confirmation was over, and Francie didn't have to go to instruction anymore. She had an extra hour daily, which she was devoting to the novel she was writing to prove to Miss Garner, the new English teacher, that she did know about beauty. Since her father's death, Francie had stopped writing about birds and trees and my impressions. Because she missed him so, she had taken to writing little stories about him. She tried to show that, in spite of his shortcomings, he had been a good father and a kindly man.

She had written three such stories, which were marked C instead of the usual A. The fourth came back with a line telling her to remain after school. All the children had gone home. Miss Garner and Francie were alone in the room with the big dictionary in it. Francie's last four compositions lay on Miss Garner's desk. "What's happened to your writing, Frances?" asked Miss Garner. "I don't know." "You were one of my best pupils. You wrote so prettily. I enjoyed your compositions, but these last ones," she flicked at them contemptuously. "I looked up the spelling and took pains with my penmanship, and I'm referring to your subject matter. You said we could choose our own subjects, but poverty, starvation, and drunkenness are ugly subjects to choose. We all admit these things exist, but one does not write about them."

[27:36] Francie: Unconsciously, Francie picked up the teacher's phraseology. "One delves into the imagination and finds beauty there. The writer, like the artist, must strive for beauty always." "What is beauty?" asked the child. "I can think of no better definition than Keats's. Beauty is truth. Truth, beauty." Francie took her courage into her two hands and said, "Those stories are the truth." "Nonsense," exploded Miss Garner. "Then softening her tone, she continued. "By truth we mean things like the stars always being there, and the sun always rising, and the true nobility of man and mother love and love for one's country." She ended anticlimactically. "I see," said Francie. As Miss Garner continued talking, Francie answered her bitterly in her mind.

"Drunkenness is neither truth nor beauty. It's a vice. Drunkards belong in jail, not in stories. And poverty, there is no excuse for that. There's work enough for all who want it. People are poor because they are too lazy to work. There's nothing beautiful about laziness. Imagine Mama lazy. Hunger is not beautiful. It is also unnecessary. We have well-organized charities. No one need go hungry." Francie ground her teeth. Her mother hated the word charity above any word in the language, and she had brought up her children to hate it too. "Now I'm not a snob," stated Miss Garner. "I do not come from a wealthy family. My father was a minister with a very small salary." "But it was a salary, Miss Garner. And the only help my mother had was a succession of untrained maids, mostly girls from the country." "I see."

[29:40] Francie: You were poor, Miss Garner. Poor with a maid. Many times we were without a maid, and my mother had to do all the housework herself. And my mother, Miss Garner, has to do all her own housework, and yes, ten times more cleaning than that. I wanted to go to the state university, but we couldn't afford it. My father had to send me to a small denominational college. But admit you had no trouble going to college. And believe me, you're poor when you go to such a college. I know what hunger is too. Time and again my father's salary was held up, and there was no money for food. Once we had to live on tea and toast for three days. So you know what it is to be hungry too. But I'd be a dull person if I wrote about nothing but being poor and hungry, wouldn't I?

[30:33] Miss Garner: Wouldn't I? Yes, ma'am. Now, your play for graduation.

[30:44] Miss Garner: She took a thin manuscript from her desk drawer. Some parts are very good indeed. Other parts, you've gone off. For instance, she turned a page. Here. Fate says, and youth, what is thy ambition? And the boy answers, I would be a healer. I would take the broken bodies of men and mend them. Now that's a beautiful idea, Francis. But you spoil it here. Fate says, That's what thou wouldst be, but see, this is what thou shalt be. Light shines on an old man's soldering bottom of ash can. Old man. Ah, once I thought to be a mender of men. Now I'm a mender of...

[31:31] Miss Garner: You didn't by any chance mean that to be funny, did you, Francis?

[31:36] Francie: Oh no, ma'am. After our little talk, you can see why we can't use your play for graduation.

[31:44] Francie: I see. Francie's heart all but broke. Now Beatrice Williams has a cute idea. A fairy waves a wand, and girls and boys in costume come out, and there's one for each holiday in the year, and each one says a little poem about the holiday he represents. It's an excellent idea, but unfortunately, Beatrice cannot write rhymes. Wouldn't you like to take that idea and write the verses? Beatrice wouldn't mind. We can put a note on the program that says the idea comes from her. That's fair enough, isn't it?

[32:19] Francie: Yes, ma'am, but I don't want to use her ideas. I want to use my own.

[32:25] Miss Garner: Well, that's commendable, of course. Well, I won't insist. She stood up. I've taken all this time with you because I honestly believe that you have promise. But now that we've talked things out, I'm sure you'll stop writing these sordid little stories.

[32:44] Francie: Sorted.

[32:46] Francie: turned the word over. It was not in her vocabulary. What does that mean?

[32:52] Miss Garner: What did I tell you when you don't know a word?

[32:57] Miss Garner: Sing song, Miss Garner drolly.

[33:00] Francie: Oh, I forgot. Francie went over to the big dictionary and looked up the word. Sorted. Filthy. Filthy. She thought of her father wearing a fresh dicky and collar every day of his life and shining his worn shoes as often as twice a day. Dirty. Papa had his own mug at the barber shop. Base. Francie passed that up, not knowing exactly what it meant. Rose. Never. Papa was a dancer. He was slender and quick. His body wasn't gross. Also mean and low. She remembered a hundred and one little tendernesses and acts of thoughtfulness on the part of her father. She remembered how everyone had loved him so. Her face got hot. She couldn't see the next words because the page turned red under her eyes.

[34:02] Francie: Don't you ever dare use that word about us.

[34:07] Miss Garner: Us?

[34:07] Miss Garner: said blankly. We were talking about your compositions. Why, Frances! Her voice was shocked. I'm surprised. A well-behaved girl like you. What would your mother say if she knew you had been impertinent to your teacher?

[34:31] Francie: Please excuse me, please excuse me, she repeated abjectly. I didn't mean it.

[34:36] Miss Garner: I understand, said Miss Garner gently. She put her arm around Francie and led her to the door. Our little talk has made an impression on you. I see that. Sorted is an ugly word, and I'm glad you resented my using it. It shows that you understand. Probably you don't like me anymore, but please believe that I spoke for your own good. Someday you'll remember what I said, and you'll thank me for it.

[35:05] Francie: wished adults would stop telling her that. Already the load of thanks in the future was weighing her down. She figured she'd have to spend the best years of her womanhood hunting up people to tell them that they were right and to thank them.

[35:20] Miss Garner: handed her the sorted compositions and the play, saying, When you get home, burn these in the stove. Apply the match to them yourself. And as the flames arise, keep saying, I am burning ugliness. I am burning ugliness.

[35:40] Susan Blackwell: Oh. My God. Can you imagine?

[35:44] Laura Camien: No. First of all, this makes me emotional.

[35:46] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. I know people who have had terrible creative teachers. I know of a child who was in a public school art class, and the art teacher, quote unquote, terrified them so much about drawing and coloring outside the lines.

[36:06] Susan Blackwell: These are little kids. She scared them so badly that this child erased and like erased a hole through their paper, tears in their eyes because they were so afraid of the teacher's wrath if they drew or colored outside the lines. It upsets me so much when I hear about creative teachers, art teachers, voice teachers, band teachers who are just these nightmare people. It's tragic. And we are, you know, we know so many people who are recovering from abandoning the creative aspect within themselves because of something someone did.

[36:47] Laura Camien: And oftentimes it is a teacher or someone in, you know, a position of power or authority.

[36:54] Susan Blackwell: And yeah, sometimes people just get so shut down, shut down for decades by a bad teacher.

[37:00] Laura Camien: Well, why wouldn't you?

[37:01] Susan Blackwell: We're taught, yeah, yeah, we're taught to believe our teachers.

[37:05] Laura Camien: Yeah. So why wouldn't you be like, well, I guess I don't have it.

[37:09] Susan Blackwell: But here's the flip of it. Can you imagine being the person that Miss Garner is based on and having your young pupil go on to sell millions and millions of copies of a book where you're depicted as a terrible teacher dispensing horrific writing advice?

[37:28] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[37:29] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I get. As Anne Lamott said, if people wanted you to write warmly about them, you should have behaved better.

[37:38] Laura Camien: You underestimate that girl at your own peril.

[37:43] Susan Blackwell: So there's so much, what do we make of this?

[37:46] Laura Camien: There's so much. I have a long list of what do we make of this. If it's a tree grows in Brooklyn, what what has been made of this?

[37:54] Susan Blackwell: The book was adapted into a 1945 film directed by Ilia Kazan, winning multiple Academy Awards. In 1944, William Mead Prince adapted the novel into a comic strip. In 1951, George Abbott produced and directed the story as a Broadway musical that ran for 267 performances. In 1974, there was a made-for-television adaptation. It has been referenced in Bugs Bunny and Pepe Le Pew cartoons. It was one of the most popular armed services edition books shipped to American military personnel for free during World War II. There is a reference to the book in Ann Rice's The Vampire Chronicles. Jay-Z makes reference to the title of the book in his music. There is a Super Grover segment on Sesame Street, which takes place where two trees grow on Brooklyn. And season 24 of The Simpsons had an episode called A Tree Grows in Springfield. This book is in our cultural groundwater.

[38:56] Laura Camien: So much has been made of it.

[38:59] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. But even if you've never read it, I'd love for you to remember the lessons that these two teachers and this book have to share with us. Lesson one, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened, but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth, but write that story.

[39:24] Susan Blackwell: Lesson two, don't listen to air freshener vampires like Miss Garner who try to sanitize and freshen your work so it smells pretty pretty. If you're not familiar with the air freshener vampire, it's a concept I learned from my excellent writing teacher, Linda Berry, that I summarized in the song Die Vampire Die, to quote myself.

[40:07] Susan Blackwell: But you'll be left with two tight paragraphs on kittens that your Mee Maw would be so proud of. You look at that air freshener vampire in her fucking face and you say die, Die Vampire, die.

[40:20] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[40:21] Susan Blackwell: Lesson number three. If you are a creative teacher, be a good creative teacher who fosters creative sanctuary for your students. Don't encourage them to lop off parts of their self-expression. Don't force them into coloring within the lines, lines that you are comfortable with. Be a good creative teacher.

[40:45] Susan Blackwell: And lesson number four. If you're a student, no matter your age, if you're a student, learn the difference between a teacher that's good for you and your creativity and a teacher who is not.

[40:58] Susan Blackwell: And super bonus, if you can be like Betty Smith and prove your bad teachers wrong by creating one of the best loved creative works ever. And that is my spark with a deep bow to Betty Smith and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

[41:18] Laura Camien: Thank you, Benny.

[41:19] Susan Blackwell: And thank you, Susan.

[41:21] Laura Camien: Thank you for reminding us all of the genius of this book.

[41:26] Susan Blackwell: And to get out there, if we haven't read it, let's pick it up.

[41:29] Laura Camien: I'm excited for you to read it, Laura.

[41:31] Susan Blackwell: No pressure. But if you want to, we can have a little book club.

[41:34] Laura Camien: I am actually, I am certain that I have. And I'm going to reread it for sure. But it in these passages today, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[41:43] Laura Camien: Yes. We had to we had to read it in in my Kansas upbringing. It was required reading.

[41:50] Susan Blackwell: Not in Ohio, apparently.

[41:53] Laura Camien: Not where I went to school.

[41:54] Susan Blackwell: But um But at one point it must have been because you said it made this list of books that made America.

[42:01] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[42:02] Susan Blackwell: It had such an enormous cultural impact.

[42:06] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[42:07] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I can see why.

[42:09] Laura Camien: I can see why.

[42:10] Susan Blackwell: And those lessons are spot on.

[42:12] Laura Camien: We're all old enough now. We can discern and we can decide like who to listen to and whose voice to repeat in our heads because humans are fallible, teachers are fallible.

[42:24] Susan Blackwell: And we don't have to listen to the one that hurt us the most.

[42:28] Laura Camien: We can listen to the ones that encouraged us and saw the genius in us.

[42:33] Susan Blackwell: Amen.

[42:34] Laura Camien: Amen.

[42:37] Susan Blackwell: Thank you for this beautiful spark.

[42:40] Laura Camien: Thanks for being here for it.

[42:42] Susan Blackwell: I think that's it.

[42:43] This episode of The Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape and the Mohican people.

[42:48] And as always, we hope this put another bunch of sparks on your file.

[42:51] Susan Blackwell: Listen to me. If there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to accomplish your creative goals, because I can assure you, we are good creative teachers.

[43:03] Susan Blackwell: You can email us at getcreative@thesparkfile.com or reach us through our website, thesparkfile.com.

[43:10] Laura Camien: We will even happily take your feedback.

[43:13] Susan Blackwell: But you know the price of admission. First, you need to share a creative risk that you have taken recently.

[43:19] Laura Camien: You can follow us on social at The Spark File and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five-star review this podcast.

[43:26] Susan Blackwell: It really does help other listeners to find us.

[43:28] Laura Camien: Also, if you like this podcast, you like this podcast.

[43:31] Susan Blackwell: We hope you'll share it with people that you love.

[43:33] Laura Camien: And if you didn't like it, sing it with me.

[43:36] Susan Blackwell: Die vampire die.

[43:38] Laura Camien: Oh, if something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we're writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door.

[43:48] Susan Blackwell: It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame.

[43:53] Laura Camien: You know, you gotta take it and make it when I bump into something that inspires me.

[44:02] Susan Blackwell: I dump it in my spark fire.

[44:06] Laura Camien: Spark could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[44:12] Susan Blackwell: I pump it in the spark fire.

[44:17] Laura Camien: I jump into my spark fire.

[44:21] Susan Blackwell: Let's open up the spark fire.