Kat’s Kobayashi Maru

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Kat’s Kobayashi Maru

October 29, 2007 by Katherine Coble

Please help me. Please… PLEASE!

Tomorrow I’m doing something I’m very excited about. I’m helping in group sessions at a young writers’ conference for gifted middle school students. (The fact that I’m helping them may make some of them rethink just how “gifted” they are. Putting up with me is not necessarily a GIFT in the truest sense of the word.)

The woman who is introducing me has asked me to write a 4-5 sentence introduction for myself that is both interesting AND appropriate for middle-schoolers. I seriously doubt that any of the things of interest I’ve done are not appropriate. And vice versa.

Ha! “vice” versa!

Oh, Lord, help me. It’s gonna be a long day.

Posted in Monkey Wash Donkey Rinse | 10 Comments

10 Responses

on October 29, 2007 at 2:58 pm | Reply Elena

Well, if I was a middle school writer-in-training, I’d want to know what qualifies you to be teaching me, what you do that is creative, what is your idea of fun, if you “get” what being gifted is all about, and why you like teaching students. Hey, there’re five topics for your sentences, right there!

So how did you get this fun “gig”?! Sounds like something I might like to do. =)
on October 29, 2007 at 3:01 pm | Reply Elena

Oh, and when the person said “appropriate,” were both appropriate content and appropriate age-level vocabulary meant?
on October 29, 2007 at 3:31 pm | Reply Katherine Coble

This is what I ended up sending:

25 years ago, Katherine Coble was a gifted student at Jefferson Middle School in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. [This just happens to have been the same school attended by Charlton Heston’s character in “Planet of the Apes”, but you don’t have to tell these poor kids that. They doubtless are unfamiliar with both Heston AND the POtA…] She herself won a writer’s prize at the age of 11, and since then has written terrible poems, political speeches, religious devotionals, children’s books, and a bunch of other things nobody reads. She is presently working on a novel about the history of Welsh medicine and has a popular blog called “Just Another Pretty Farce.”

I, of course, am stretching the definition of “popular” by a ridiculous degree.

I got the gig through one of the teachers whom I met at a party hosted by a blogger.
on October 29, 2007 at 4:06 pm | Reply dolphin

since then has written terrible poems, political speeches, religious devotionals, children’s books, and a bunch of other things nobody reads

I think this is supposed to be funny, but it may not come off that way.
on October 29, 2007 at 4:21 pm | Reply Katherine Coble

I was afraid of that.

Thanks.

I’ll fix it.
on October 29, 2007 at 4:31 pm | Reply bridgett

You wrote a book on poker. And you make a living through using words, which is a vocational possibility that most of them won’t have thought of yet. Put that in. They will want to know.
on October 29, 2007 at 10:15 pm | Reply Sarcastro

Also mention that you have passed stones larger than most of their little heads.
on October 30, 2007 at 12:53 pm | Reply OldTexan

You might mention that every person is several real and fantasy stories in progress and writing is learning how to turn people, both ourselves and others we meet, along with events, into words on paper for others to read and enjoy.

You might also consider telling them about the editing process where a large amount of stuff is pruned and polished, erased and reworked until it shines with brilliance. I think some people might be intimidated because they don’t realize who much of what a writer puts on paper is reworked or just thrown away to start over.

As one of my professors used to say, all it takes is a pencil and paper and a few years of writing and editing every day to become an author. Of course he did not say that we would ever be capable of making our livings by writing.
on October 31, 2007 at 6:43 pm | Reply Nina Coyle

Hey there, Katherine – just wanted to drop by and let you know I had a great time working with you yesterday. I’m liking the blog, too. (And just a thought — were they really all-too-concerned with keeping the author bios appropriate? I mean really, I don’t think their pens would have held up to the same standard) Ha.
on October 31, 2007 at 10:28 pm | Reply tom

I liked your introduction. I got the humor, too. I think Dolphin is right about it not reading well, especially if someone else were reading it.

How did the kids take it anyway?