Can I Sit with You?
How many of us were consistently popular, secure, and socially happy at school? Not so many, I'd guess. Probably most people have a story to tell about the challenges dealing with other kids in elementary and middle school: whether you were picked on, hassled, went along with the crowd, or somehow figured out how to make it all work for you.
Shan and Jen are looking for those stories to post on their new blog, Can I Sit With You? They'll also be publishing a selection of the stories in a book by the same name. Proceeds will go towards their local special-needs PTA, which sorely needs the money.
If you'd like to submit a story, check out their submission guidelines and watch their blog for stories, which they'll be posting starting October 1.
I just think this is such a cool project. I can't think of anything more clever to say than that. I can't wait to start reading the stories.
Shan and Jen are looking for those stories to post on their new blog, Can I Sit With You? They'll also be publishing a selection of the stories in a book by the same name. Proceeds will go towards their local special-needs PTA, which sorely needs the money.
If you'd like to submit a story, check out their submission guidelines and watch their blog for stories, which they'll be posting starting October 1.
I just think this is such a cool project. I can't think of anything more clever to say than that. I can't wait to start reading the stories.
posted by elswhere | 12:03 AM
6 Comments:
I know I have stories. I must: I always have stories. But like, I think my brain has put some big blanket of dullness over the emotions of that era, and I only actually feel them again when my son has any problems. And then I feel them embarrassingly intensely.
Hm hm hmmmm...
I'll start telling a story which I think is poignant in retrospect and end up on Prozac and with bi-weekly therapy, won't I?
The strangest - I moved around a lot, and some schools were Awful, and some were Okay, and one or two were Good. Yet the ones I always cried the hardest at leaving were the Awful ones. I remember a girl who'd bullied me for a year draped over me, us both sobbing that I was leaving.
It still doesn't make sense to me.
Arwen, that actually sounds like a terrific story. From a narrative point of view, I mean. It doesn't make sense, and yet it somehow does; it's like the Stockholm syndrome or something, you know?
But I'm sure it totally sucked to be living it at the time.
Thanks, Els!
I'm always surprised at the people who "don't really have a story," but then when they start talking or writing, it's riveting.
What a fantastic idea!
I have a story or two for them.
Thanks--this looks like a great project! One of my fondest memories from college was the day I was hanging around in my dorm dining hall, and found myself at a table with friends, all reminiscing about being excluded from various lunch tables in elementary school. I remember marveling at my apparent success in life--here I was, hanging out with my friends at Harvard!--despite the sheer mortification of hearing those girls whisper, as I approached their lunch table, "Shhhh... [ALG] isn't invited to the birthday party."
Pretty much everyone I know (and I will admit to knowing mostly dorkwads) was socially excluded in some way as a child. That isn't a story, that's just life. All the cool people didn't fit in at some point, and the not-cool people became the people you'd never want to be. I don't know if it's possible to translate that into a concept that an eight year old can understand, though.
Post a Comment
<< Home