CREATIVE WRITING

at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco

Welcome! CW develops the art and craft of creative writing through instruction, collaboration, and respect. This blog showcases STUDENT WRITING and how to APPLY to Creative Writing.

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  • Family Ties That Bind Through Art

    by Maya (’15)

    When asked whom they most admire, many people would talk about famous artists whom they revere. I could do the same and write about Sylvia Plath or Margaret Atwood, but the truth is, I cannot fully admire someone I do not know. Because of this, I choose my brother, Julian, as the artist and person I most admire. I admire Julian because he inspires me to do my best in the arts.

    Julian pushes me never to give up in the arts, no matter how incapable I feel. He is constantly changing and improving his work, trying out new things, and immersing himself in his art. When he practices his monologues after school and on the weekend, I am inspired to lengthen and develop my writing practice. His passion transfers to me through the art that links us together. All art is connected through the art that is created in response to the lasting impression it stirs in people. My brother and I are both artists, so we are constantly inspiring each other to create and improve.

    Sometimes, a line from his monologue sticks with me, and I use it as a prompt for a poem. He delivers it with such force that the clarity and truth of the words are unavoidable. This sparks in me an interest about the performance of poetry, which manifested in the poem I read for the first Creative Writing show. Writing this poem was such a powerful and engaging experience, that I knew it needed an equally strong delivery. Instead of reading it as a mere bystander, I became the speaker. I embodied her feelings and conveyed her message to the audience. I do not think this would have been possible without Julian. From the very start of the creation of this poem, his acting pushed me to deliver my poem to its fullest. I envisioned Julian performing a monologue without inhibitions, and I strived for the same. He gave me advice on how to strengthen my piece, and told me what to emphasize.

    Julian’s complete selflessness in his art makes me wish I could write uninterrupted by thoughts of doubt. Such thoughts are common when I write, and keep me from a state of absorption (or total immersion in the poem). Although I struggle with this, thinking of Julian helps me to release these thoughts. I know he is not perfect, and I know he doubts himself at times, but I think of the moments when he is so involved in a monologue or a role that nothing can shake him; this is my goal.

    I strive for Julian’s relationship with his art, and I know he can help me get there. I know this because watching him act, dance or sing actually pushes me a little closer. This is not only why I admire Julian, but also why I appreciate and love him as my brother.

  • And Now For Some Art…

    by Hosanna (’14)

    Hosanna 3Hosanna 2Hosanna 1

     

  • Vermeer

    by Abigail (’14)

    Last Thursday, I went to the Girl With a Pearl Earring exhibit at the DeYoung. Ever since I read Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett in maybe fourth grade, I’ve wanted to meet a Vermeer in person. Last year, someone gave me a stack of novels about Vermeer paintings (apparently he and the mystery surrounding him are popular subjects for writers). I read them all obsessively. So now you can imagine my excitement.

    The only disappointing thing about the exhibit was that there was only one Vermeer there, but if there had to be just one, I am glad this was it. It was the only painting in its room, lit softly. You could tell it had been set up like this for dramatic effect, but any sarcasm this realization might have induced was erased by the painting itself. Some reproduced art looks almost exactly like the original; Girl With A Pearl Earring doesn’t at all. I won’t even try to describe her. A guy behind me said, “Dude, she looks just like Scarlett Johansson,” but that doesn’t give quite an accurate impression, either. You have to go see her to fully appreciate her.

    Or you could try Girl With a Pearl Earring, a novel by Tracy Chevalier. As fanfiction goes, it’s pretty high-class.

  • Gallifrey One 2013: The Twenty-Four Hours of Gallifrey One

    by Giorgia (’14)

    In February I attended Gallifrey One, one of the largest Doctor Who conventions in the country, for my fifth consecutive year. This year, Gallifrey crept up on me, drowned out by the chaos of Junior year, instead of the months of preparation, from hotel room to costumes and ribbons (a tradable tradition at the con). While Gally is far from the biggest or most active con I attend all year, it has been and most likely always will be my favorite, and the week before was wrought with excitement and nervous energy, checking the days off on my finger each morning at school.

    Still, it didn’t feel like it was truly time for Gally until Olivia (A, of Creative Writing, my partner in crime at Gallifrey One) and I were walking to our gate in the airport, and saw a couple in front of us, one in a replica of the Tenth Doctor’s coat. We couldn’t stop smiling the rest of the time in the airport, even with our flight delayed for an hour. The time was upon us; LobbyCon awaited.

    There’s nothing like the smell of Los Angeles air when you step outside of the airport and into the neon and scream of taxis and bewildered, jet lagged travelers. For me, I associate this thick, slightly toxic smell with Gallifrey, with “my people,” and my home away from home. Gallifrey is merely three days out of the entire year, but for those of us who return again and again, it truly is home. I said to my friend, Alannah, in our sleep-deprived delirium and sadness of closing ceremonies on Sunday night, “I grew up at this con!” and I did! Not as much as some of the children, such as Patrick (now an adult!), but I did. A lot of growing takes place between 7th grade (my first Gally) and 11th. My friends, much of whom are older, and have changed much less drastically, remark on this each year with affection and jokes about their own “elderly” ages. This year, I was missing sixteen inches of hair and sporting a hot pink beanie, and it often took me stating my name for people to recognize me, much to both of our chagrin.

    As I spoke to people throughout the weekend, some Gallifrey veterans, other first-timers, some who had been watching the show since the sixties and some who had only joined the Doctor on his most recent travels, everyone was amazed at the environment of the con, that it felt like home, a family. As a staff member of the convention (Costume Repair) and long-time attendee, I have seen the department heads and chairpeople of the convention struggle with maintaining this sense of community despite its growth from ~800 (2009) to over 3,000 (2013). While last year was a struggle, this year they easily accomplished this, and everyone walked around the con with a smile on their face.

    Gallifrey isn’t just about meeting people involved in making Doctor Who, or dressing up in silly costumes. It’s about seeing friends you see once a year, about Champions, the daleks roaming the halls, Tony Lee, late night karaoke and the faux-casino themed-Gala; it’s about ribbons. Gally isn’t just about what we love, it’s about how we love it, and sharing that with one another.

  • by Mollie (’13)

    The first time I read a poem into a microphone on the SOTA main stage in my sophomore year, my voice squeaked and quivered, my face grew pink, and my hands moist. This was not what I was expecting—no, I expected my voice to radiate around the auditorium with the gumption of David Sedaris and the emotion of Maya Angelou—instead, my poem dribbled out of my mouth, muffled, and incoherent, and fell flat. After this experience, I said I didn’t like to present my work on stage, but this simply was not the case. Since the age of eight, I have danced with Fogo Na Roupa (translated from the Portuguese to Clothes on Fire) an Afro-Brazilian dance troupe. I have adored every performance I have ever had—adored the samba I perform on stage and the feeling of my feathered, sequined costume moving with my body. What I meant when I said I didn’t like to read my work on stage was that I wasn’t very good at it. If I wasn’t a good reader, I could not like it. Nobody would listen to me, or care about what I was reading. And plus, if I sucked at performing and didn’t love what I was reading, why should I even care.

    I once read that poet Paul Celan once said, “I see no basic difference between a handshake and a poem”. My god, what pressure! So through our writing, we introduce ourselves to the world?! We affirm our identity through our stories, and poems, and essays?! Yes. Writing, as I’ve come to learn, requires the writer to be vulnerable. Said vulnerability is challenging. Writing say, a poem about my experience as a light-skinned Latina and societal expectations of me because of my skin color, is vulnerable. One could compare it to walking naked through a crowd of fully-clothed people. Performing that poem to an audience of two-hundred people should be compared to doing naked lunges through a crowd of fully-clothed people (that is, very, very vulnerable).

    Writing, as I’ve learned in my three years in the Creative Writing Department, is a creation of the writer’s experience. Not only does one have to be fully invested in the story one is telling during the process of transcribing this experience to paper, but in the act of performing the piece. As a sophomore, I tried to write around my experiences—attempting to omit my life from my writing, and discuss the objective—to protect what was potentially difficult or scary from the outside world. It didn’t work out very well; I didn’t have much to say. Added, I hated performing these pieces because I usually embarrassed myself, because I didn’t like what I was reading, because I wasn’t writing any work I cared about. It took me my sophomore year to discover this.

    Last summer, when deciding what I would write about for my senior thesis, the culminating project for any Creative Writer at SOTA, I finally decided to write a thesis about my biracial identity. It’s challenging to talk about the people, events, and experiences that are, themselves challenging. It sometimes makes me feel transparent, or naked. Yet, this process if validating. Not only do I care about the work I produce, but I’ve realized how political the personal can be. Plus, I think I’ve become better at reading my work. For the Senior Poetry Café, I read pieces from thesis about my relationship to my father, grandfather, and my memories of my childhood in Ecuador. For our October show, I read a poem about feeling alienated from my Ecuadorian culture because I don’t speak Spanish. These topics are hard to write about and hard to perform, but I want to keep doing both. I noticed my voice didn’t quiver, and my knees didn’t shake during these performances. In fact, I was invigorated. During the final lines of the last poem I read at the Senior Poetry Café, I paused between the final words of my poem, looking up, and observing the audience looking at me. I paused before uttering the last words of my piece. I did not feel vulnerable, I felt powerful. As I finish up my time in the Creative Writing Department, I know this trend of being vulnerable in my writing will continue. It has to, otherwise how will I speak with the world, how will I tell people what I think or what I hold dear to me, and how will I grow as an artist?

  • Household Spirits

    by Justus Honda

    This house has spirits living in mouse-holes,
    The kinds you come across
    Spinning through a gray-green daydream;
    Spirits that live off the disembodied hum
    From a refrigerator in the dark,
    Spirits that swoop and catch dust motes
    In copper waves of lamplight.

    This house has disinterested spirits,
    All-too-ancient things snoring
    In cobweb rocking chairs,
    Creatures that fold themselves clothing
    From worm-eaten yellow book-leather.

    This house has miniscule spirits,
    Swimming in the window-dew;
    Multitudes of tiny spirits,
    Turning the gears of the grandfather clock.

    This house has spirits living in mouse-holes,
    Laughing in bent lamplight,
    Drunk on music.

    Read more poetry.

  • AIR Thoughts by Mykel Mogg

    by Mykel (’14)

    Sometimes, artists in residence spout out the most beautiful, compelling, or funny ideas that I just have to write them down in my notebook. Creative Writing II’s poetry unit consisted of units by two artists in residence: Justin Desmangles, who focused on blues and jazz, and Truong Tran, who taught poetry through visual media. Here are some of their ideas that changed the way I think about poetry.

    JUSTIN

    “The message ‘you’re not okay,’ seen in advertisements, affects and infects the way we relate to one another. Only through poetry can we examine our language and find what is truly us and what is the result of advertisement.”

    “The idea of the boundary of what’s decent and indecent has to constantly be broken to ensure your freedom.”

    “Dissonance and harmony are a lot about remembering and forgetting.”

    “History has a way of calcifying itself. It’s your job as poets, not just to reconstruct, but to rescue it.”

    “Your ability to think is defined by your ability to feel.”

    TRUONG

    “It’s okay to explore different subjects through the same objects or images over and over again.”

    “At some point in your writing, you have to shut out the idea of the audience.”

    [On poetry]: “Don’t be precious. Make a big fucking mess.”

  • Depression, Angle of

    Without even getting into the whole ugly mess of “Asian kids are good at math!” I’m going to say that I recently received a 70% on a Pre-Calculus test. Those that are familiar with PreCalc concepts will know that this:

    is an angle of depression. I am neither the hot air balloon nor the bag of money; I am the angle itself, the oft-calculated, exasperated angle of depression fanning out from my initial angle, spreading more and more, but never getting anywhere, because no matter how long the sight line is, the angle is still the same.

    Or, in shorter terms, I am angry. As hell.

    Hear me out: I’m not looking for consolation, merely a source to vent at. I know that a C won’t break me (even though tests are weighted to measure as 50% of our overall grade, gross), I know that there are ups and downs to everything. Trust me when I say I’m not being a snob about grades. I don’t need anyone to tell me, “But Midori! C’s aren’t failing!” I know that, I know that.

    Frankly, I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed because I was pretty damn confident about this test, confident that I knew the concepts well– and then all of a sudden, a goddamn C. It’s humiliating, I think, not so much that I was arrogant, but that I needed to reminder to see my own arrogance. At least Icarus was pure of heart, y’know, sensibility lost in a moment of excitement. I’m just somewhat of a snooty toerag, believing I have something and to screw it up so completely as to get a C.

    Okay, yes, I’m blowing it way out of proportion, but the longer I linger on being angry, the more angry I become, and if I’m not angry, I can only be sad, and if I’m sad I only get sadder, so to avoid that I just get angry and more angry and–

    So, what really is the purpose of this post? Venting, okay, but also a bonus package deal of moral while you’re here (for just $5.99!). I know this is often said again and again, that you shouldn’t care so much about grades, and honestly, I disagree. But that’s on a case-to-case basis– I personally want to get good grades because for one, I have excellent teachers I feel personally responsible toward, which drives me to work hard in response, and for another, I like to be recognized as good at what others challenge me to do. In the case of this math test, however, let’s take a look at the context:

    • it was one test, worth a lot, sure, but there will be more
    • the teacher does not offer extra credit
    • the teacher does not do test corrections

    Given this, even if I do weep and mope about, it wouldn’t make any difference whatsoever, and as much as admitting that makes me bitter, there’s nothing I can do but accept it. And move on. What’s the point of staying upset and upsetting others? Just for the sake of my pride? The best I can do is learn where I made a mistake and reprimand myself to never do it again.

    So, it’s not don’t care, but also realize that there’s such thing as caring too much, on irrelevant levels. I’d like to claim that I’m over the test, but evidently I’m still bitter enough to write an entire blogpost about it, so I still need to take my own advice. But hey, I’m trying– I can fault me for ultimately failing the test, but I can’t fault me for trying.

  • Why Facing Your Problems Isn’t Always the Answer (Advice for Really Specific Situations)

    by Kwesi (’15)

    Recently, I’ve been told that I have to “be mature” and “face my problems” instead of running away from them. And while I do believe in
    confrontation
    and honesty
    and communication
    in many cases, I think that this quest for constant resolution has more to do with an inability to deal with loose ends than its practicality.
    We are not honest, and it’s silly to pretend that we are. In order to solve problems, we have to face elements of ourselves that are at fault or create tension. We are not prepared for total honesty, and until it is achieved by our actions as a society, it has no place here.
    Communication is important, and I am not advocating the elimination of it. And it’s important to try and be as honest as possible in every aspect of your life, because it’s generally a more enjoyable existence. But you can’t bring truth to a situation built on lies, because it’s unlikely that anyone will want to own up to their share of responsibility.
    Talk, but know that silence can be just as valid in terms of resolution. When every party involved understands and recognizes the problem, voicing it may not be the answer, and is more likely to fuel to the flames. Do not use “resolution” as justification for yet another passive-aggressive attack or attempt to confuse the other party.
    Do stuff that feels right. I’d bet that you can tell when your next move’s totally freakin’ dirty, and I’d advise you against it, ‘cos it’s so not worth it.
    And never feel the obligation to fulfill some societal expectation of manners or conduct if it feels wrong. Some things are just antiquated or inapplicable, and as the person in the midst of all this hellfire, you are the only judge of what defines the right thing to do.
    You have control of yourself, and no one else (hopefully). But yourself’s a lot, so do some good stuff with it.
    Please.

  • SFUSD Youth Arts

    This year, many Creative Writing students (as well as a theater student) had the joy of winning awards at the 2013 Youth Arts Festival. It was great to go to the Literary Arts Award Ceremony and see everyone read or receive their awards, as well as a see a very important keynote address about the importance of remaining a writer. Congratulations to:

    Hosanna Rubio, 1st Place Dramatic Script

    Midori Chen, 1st Place Short Story

    Colin Yap, 3rd Place Short Story

    Hazel Mankin, Short Story: Honorable Mention

    Kwesi Turbolizard, Short Story: Honorable Mention

    Zola Hjelm, 1st Place Poetry

    Nick Cloud, 3rd Place Poetry

    Abigail Schott-Rosenfield, Poetry: Honorable Mention

    Abigail Schott-Rosenfield, Non-Fiction: Honorable Mention