Over the 8 years most students spend at Overlake fostering deep relationships with peers and teachers, we get to know one another pretty well. However, I am sure most of the students at Overlake are not aware of the other side of our faculty; their writing sides. Math teachers, science teachers, language teachers. Most Overlake students may simply think of their teachers like this. However, the teachers and Overlake staff we know are much more than our teachers. They are also writers. From the tech department all the way to the English department, our faculty write everything from memoirs to fantasy novels. In this article, you will learn about their writing experiences, and you may even get to read some work that has never been shared before!
What do you like to write?
When it comes to writing, Alex Duvall from the tech office says, “I like writing poetry as well as speculative fiction short stories”.
Similarly, middle school English teacher Nicole Balin says, “I primarily write poetry and lyrical essays”. As she has a 5-month-old baby, she has recently been writing a blend of the two. “A lot of my writing explores an understanding between self and memory”.
On the other hand, librarian Rebecca Moore says she’s been recently writing fantasy and she’s working on a fantasy novel. “I’ve also self-published some too” she notes.
Continuing the trend of writing poems, high school English teacher Stephen Ringo says he likes to write “mostly poems” although “I’ve written some memoir pieces as well”. He has an MFA in poetry and enjoys writing freeform and informal with no restrictions that bind him.
When and why did you start writing?
“I started writing when I was about nineteen years old. It began mostly as something to do during the downtime at the job I had at the time, which was either very busy or extremely slow.” Alex Duvall notes. “I started taking it more seriously around the time I met my best friend a few years later. He’s an excellent editor and has pushed me to think more critically about what I write and how I write it.” From that point on Alex has written for many reasons. These reasons include, for relaxation, to process her thoughts, and to express her ideas creatively.
While Alex Duvall began writing in her late teens, Nicole Balin has been writing since being in second grade! “I’ve honestly been writing for as long as I can remember”. From writing short stories about two cats named Peanut Butter and Jelly in second grade to emo poems in middle school, Nicole has continued writing throughout her life and now writes in a personal journal she’s kept for decades. She says, “I was really shy when I was younger and found it easiest to express how I was feeling or what I was thinking about on the page”. She adds, “in high school I began pursuing writing more seriously” and it was her 9th grade English teacher who inspired her to really begin leaning into poetry as something that “could exist beyond the pages of my journal” through the many creative projects she was assigned in that class. Nicole Balin also shares how it was that English teacher who encouraged her to apply for a writing conference in Vermont. “I spent a weekend sharing my writing with others in workshops, attending readings, and feeling part of a literary community for the first time”. She says that looking back, that conference and her teacher inspired the trajectory of her life. “I chose to go to Oberlin College because I could major in Creative Writing, I received my MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and of course, I became an English teacher!”.
Rebeca Moore also started writing early on as a kid. “I always wanted to write I think the stories that I liked, and I wanted to explore that”.
Meanwhile, Stephen Ringo also began writing as a kid. “I wrote a poem about the trees in front of my elementary school” he says recalling one of his first poems. Stephen also notes that his parents were both English majors and his mom published a few poems too. “My mom encouraged me to write poems early on”.
What do you like most about writing?
“The thing that I like most about writing is getting to engage in a creative process” Alex Duvall says. She also notes that most of the work she does is very technical and “there’s not a lot of room for expression, just implementing solutions”. She feels that writing “gives me the opportunity to think and create and improve on my own terms” which she truly enjoys.
While Alex says that writing allows her to be more creative in her day-to-day life, Nicole Balin appreciates how the act of writing is very grounding; it allows her to connect with herself especially when she feels far away. “Writing forces me to slow down, think, and be really present with whatever it is I’m writing about”.
Contrarily, according to Rebecca Moore, she loves the ability to create her own worlds and spend time with the characters she’s created.
Similarly, Stephen Ringo really likes how he can get into that zone where something just kind of catches fire at the right time. “If you keep writing and regular journaling you make sure that when that moment does come, you are ready…”.
Writing pieces:
Now that you’ve read about the writing experiences of some of our teachers at Overlake, feel free to enjoy their work below!
Nicole Balin:
all my life I followed directions.
it was easy. it was impossible
to stop. after the raffle, someone
said “keep the ticket you’ve been
given,” so I tacked it to
a corkboard already filled with holes.
Rebecca Moore:
Here is an excerpt of the first two pages of her book ‘Summer Green’. You can find the rest of it in library or on Amazon!
Prologue: Palimpsest
Palimpsest: A piece of parchment or paper that has been written on and erased multiple times, with earlier, partially-erased writing still visible.
Some legends say that immortals don’t dream, but that isn’t true. Cut dreamed with his feet. With his every step he dreamed mountains and valleys, dreamed the soft brush of meadow grass and the cool slip of desert sand at dawn. Dreamed tangling forests and undulating plains. Dreamed the crackle of fall leaves and the delicious squish of creek mud on a hot summer day. He dreamed and he stepped, crossing dream-paths with birds and creatures and the Old Ones who thought they had always been.
What he had never dreamed though, was a strangely-dressed girl tumbling out of a massive oak. “Ouch!” she said as she examined her elbow. Then all of a sudden she froze. She stared around her, mouth moving like the whiskered stream-fishes that sometimes kissed up against Cui’s ankles. The girl’s dark braids were tousled and her old clothing rumpled.
Surprise tingled tart and rare at the edges of Cui’s perception. Trees flickered their leaves and birds flustered their wings. This girl was not of the dream; she carried the scent of that other world, and a chord of curiosity, stretched its slender back within Cui’s thoughts. Curiosity, and…
But he had no moment to consider, for he saw her brown eyes moving to him. As he could take any shape, Cui shaped himself human, wearing clothes like her own. Should he startle her, his curiosity might never smooth into knowledge.
Seeing him, the girl rubbed her eyes. “Is this a dream?”. “Yes,” Cui said, for he could dream in any language. He didn’t tell her the Dream was his. “Dragon’s breath,” she breathed, and her gaze scintillated with sudden hope. “Is this Narnia? Are you really a faun disguised as a boy?”
“That must be a different dream,” said Cui. “This is the Summergreen Forest”. “That sounds like a Narnia name,” she said. “Are you sure it isn’t? Though I suppose if it were,” she added, “you wouldn’t be wearing jeans and a Summer Theatre t-shirt. I must have used up all my imagination on the forest, if I couldn’t dream you up in a Lincoln-green tunic with a feathered hat.
“Like this?” Cui changed his outfit. He liked green. Summer woodlands were his favorite places, and he often clothed himself in their leaves. About him, Cui could feel the dream weaving its quiet awareness around this newcomer, who inhaled green like air. It liked her, the dream did, and within it, curiosity flexed delicate paws.
Eyeing Cui’s new outfit, the girl nodded. “Much better.” Rising, she gazed around the forest. A breeze ruffled the leaves and made the green light dance. “This is a perfect place for a treehouse,” she said. “Even if it isn’t Narnia. I want to build a treehouse here and live in it forever.”
Cui’s eyes strayed to the spreading oak from which she’d fallen, its bark like ridges of dried mud under his fingers. A new-budded thought peeled itself free, hopeful and petal-white. “You can climb trees?” he asked.
“Of course,” the girl said. “I climb trees all the time. In fact, I’m probably in one now; I stayed up too late writing a fanfic,” she added. Then she frowned. “But if you’re not a faun, who are you?”
“I am Cui. And who are you?”. “Tracy,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Cui. But I don’t think I’ve ever read a book about you.” She looked up as a scatted of tiny red birds whisked through the branches. “How did you get here?”
Stephen Ringo:
AND OF THE WORLD OF BOOKS THERE IS NO END
Ecclesiastes 1
The book of Job.
The book of duh.
The book of what we think and do not say.
The book of tetherball rules.
The book of unsung fish.
The poor losers’ book of loss.
The book the dog chewed to bits.
The book of slip knots.
The book of ancient buttons and threads.
The liar’s foolproof handbook.
The book of illegible footnotes and annotations.
The aardvark’s book of roadkill poems.
The fumigator’s scratch-and-sniff book.
The aviator’s book of propeller dreams.
The apple book of bruises.
The breakable book of hand-blown glass.
The butcher’s book of knife sharpening.
A handbook for beginners of anything.
The executioner’s book of regret.
The illustrated book of hoodies with bullet holes.
The manual of nonsense.
A short compendium of clear ideas.
A manual for freeloaders.
An idiot’s guide to suspending disbelief.
The coffee table book of blame.
A beginner’s guide to invisible ink.
The last book in the era of print and paper.
Stephen Ringo
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