Monday, November 29, 2010

My first (out loud) review.

"Everyone, I'm happy to announce our very own Bridget Matros has been published in this here book!" (some applause)
"Would you sign our copy?"
"he heh - well, maybe, read my chapter first, then decide if you want me to sign it."
"I did."
... ((crickets))
"oh. ok." (takes pen, pretends to sign, hands back book).

That played out three times last week at work. Including the silence where someone might say something like "it was...interesting."

So let's focus on THIS REVIEW, by fellow featured author and active-and-for-real-future-of-the-arts guy, Brian Newman.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

I'm officially "published".

I was so miserable while trying to complete my chapter for the 20Under40 anthology earlier this year. I really was. Honored and stunned to have been chosen, and absolutely a mess over the work itself. I was face to face with the scrambled eggs my brain has become for hours on end, week after week. Many days I did nothing. Nothing but try. Not a word written. I'd go to bed in a knot, not just over the nearing deadline, the waiting editor, the possibility of having to say "I'm sorry, I can't do it,"... but with the (still) frightening realization that grad school, unless someone "cures" my brain, is out of the question. Like motherhood, it's something I took for granted I'd get to someday. Then someday's horizon came into view and voila, the Oh Shit moment.* I'm currently having another week of confusion - trouble listening, understanding, and reading is hopeless. I look at notes in my handwriting that are meaningless to me, but apparently written today. I can't count, because I forget again and again what number I was on. It's not easy to keep a sense of humor about it, while at the same time that's about all I can do.
Either way. Got it done (thanks to my kind editors, who patiently read my 50 pages, slashed half of it, and waited while i screwed around with it and essentially traded - giving them back a better version of what they'd cut). Mine is still the most long-winded. But I hope an easy read. Consider the source - I couldn't even comprehend the BIOS of the other authors. A blur of master's/PhDs/directorships, honors... anyway, off it went, with everyone else's chapters, to the publishing company. My own copies will be on my doorstep soon. The rest of the world can buy theirs Dec. 1.  Great events Dec. 10 for arts people/people who like to rock the party. I'm even going to bust some tunes at Club Oberon. Woot woot.
http://20under40.org/book/
ABSTRACT: In this chapter the author takes a critical look at what’s going on amidst the pom-poms and glitter glue of pre-school arts and crafts and points to implications for individuals and the arts at large. Drawing on experience as a children’s museum visual arts educator, the author cites problematic practices and beliefs held by arts-phobic parents and teachers and provides practical examples of what can be done to nurture creativity during the often overlooked and undervalued period of early learning. Ultimately, the author argues that educating and empowering parents, caretakers, and teachers to support creative development during early childhood is an essential strategy to impact more children with a wider set of benefits than arts programs alone provide. She contends that this early intervention would additionally prime learners for arts enrichment in later years—ensuring fertile grounds for a generation that grows up fluent in, comfortable with, and expectant of the arts in all forms in their communities.
*these two may well be related - at the ripe old age of 34, I'm being treated for hormonal imbalances akin to pre-menopausal stuff... which, I just learned, is essentially one's little old eggs calling it a day/life, dying off and ceasing to produce estrogen. On the upswing, my whacked hormones give me superhuman sense of smell for a week a month. A mixed blessing, but it's fun. Especially since I forget I have it, so every month, it's a surprise. LOOK! A PLASTIC CASTLE!...LOOK! A PLASTIC CASTLE!...LOOK!