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Northwest Passages: Virginia Euwer Wolff
Virginia Euwer Wolff reads her work out loud as she writes. She jokes that's why it's taken her so long to finish her Make Lemonade trilogy. The first book in the series came out in 1993; the second won the 2001 National Book Award and the third was just released this year.
The trio of novels capture the voices of LaVaughn, a high school girl living in bad public housing whose mother's drive keeps her focused on college; Jolly, a 17-year-old single mom with an elusive background; and other young people seeking room in a complicated world.
The story emerged from a creative writing exercise that terrified Wolff: Be Something or Somebody you are not. She chose babysitter, and wrote this:
Those kids, that Jeremy and that Jilly
were sloppy and drippy
and they got their hands into things you'd refuse to touch.
They acted their age so much they could
make you crazy.
Those very first lines she tried stayed in the published version of the first book.
My favorite passage comes in the middle of the middle book, True Believer:
Well, listen to this: There is a pink jellyfish
so beautiful
no human could make anything
so filmy and graceful and alive, floating along in a hidden lake
thousands of miles away from this ugly place.
There's hardly any food, so it grows
a whole garden of plants inside itself
to feed on. This jellyfish stays in the sunlight all day
and photosynthesis makes its plants green.
Then at night it goes down deep in the water
where lots of nitrogen is,
for fertilizer.
This creature is just a jellyfish.
And it's figured out a way to go on living
when the odds are against it.It's adaptation, I learned it in Biology,
and I keep thinking how it's a good lesson
to keep remembering.
Wolff writes what's known as the verse novel (here's a list of young adult examples). She offers no descriptions of her Make Lemonade characters that confirm their race, hoping instead that different readers will imagine them differently — whatever race readers need the characters to be.
Wolff and I found instant common ground in a love for the literary giant Nikolai Gogol. She also traces her influences and inspirations to Shakespeare, the Luigi Pirandello play Six Characters in Search of an Author, and a childhood rhyme. And classical music.
Wolff's books are aimed at "young adults" but they're a good read even for those of us who consider ourselves a bit older. In addition to the Make Lemonade triology, she's written three other books for young people and one adult novel she'd rather forget. We'll talk with her about LaVaughn and Jolly, about writing for teenagers as a grandmother, about Gogol, music, September 11 and how language puts people in or keeps them out of a group. If you've read one or more installments of the Make Lemonade trilogy, or the Oregon Reads youth selection Bat 6, or any of Virginia Euwer Wolff's other work, what did you think?
Tagged as: northwest passages · virginia euwer wolff · youth
Photo credit: Juliet Wolff
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"Mother to Son," the Langston Hughes poem Virginia just mentioned:
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/matoson.html
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Here's the letter (pdf) that Janita Harris wrote to Virgina in 2006... and that Virgina never knew about!
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Here's a great interview that Virginia did with four middle school violinists from California:
http://www.stanleymusic.org/student-contributions/an-interview-with-virginia-euwer-wolff
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Finally I've found a kindred spirit who also embraces the idea that there are times in which we can remove the labels of ethnicity and let individuals overlay their own identities to characters of the written word.
As long as we define everything and everybody in terms of race we will perpetuate the devisive concept of "we and they" rather than who we as a human race really are, which is "us".
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Thank you for mentioning Performance Today. It was one of my favorite shows that OPB provided. I hope that it will return.
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It seems to me that Fred Child's Performance Today is available at Portland's All Classical station (89.9 fm) and also on line at something like American Media (I googled Fred Child/Performance Today to find this, but I have also listened on the radio, from The Dalles) Not to promote NPR's competition,of course!
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After hearing today's show with Virginia Euwer Wolff, I found myself wondering if the author would enjoy using Pandora (music web site) for her morning writing time. Pick a favorite piece and enjoy (of course still no substitute for a real OPB host)
Enjoyed the show and interview.
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Thank you for mentioning Performance Today. I also miss it a great deal. It would be wonderful if OPB could bring it back, perhaps for an hour after the equally enjoyable Think Out Loud?
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Performance Today is still on the radio locally, just not as often and not on OPB. It's on the stations of All Classical FM (89.9 in Portland, and allclassical.org) Saturday mornings from 8:00 to 10:00. I hope Virginia likes to write on Saturdays!
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Pardon the digression from Virginia Euwer Wolff.
I miss the music and music programmers on OPB's air. "In House" is a poor substitute for David Christensen's Eclecticity, Steven Cantor's Beats and Pieces, and their predecessors.
It is natural that crowding out music programming with news and information attracts news and information listeners. Even their positive response does not prove so little local music programming is the right amount.
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Speaking of music:
David or Emily, please post the CC of Helene Grimaud that Ms Wolff mentioned and you played a selection from - I would really like to purchase it. Thanks for a truly stellar program, again
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Thank you for this nice post
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I just want to think you for the Northwest Passages series and for not ignoring those that write for younger folks.