SOON eNewsletter

Seriously Optimistic Online News

click to view the latest SOON... Volume 29

click button to subscribe to SOON

About SOON:

SOON (Seriously Optimistic Online News) is our way of keeping in touch; letting you know about our latest releases as well as some of the new acquisitions to our shelf list.

SOON, compiled by our writer-in-residence John Holton, is also a repository of creativity, news and ideas.

If you would like to contribute to SOON please email: john@innovativeresources.org

Sample micro-story...

Normality

People exchange poignant glances around him. They bite back their tears with trembling lips, and they speak softly to him. Their tones are as if they are speaking to a child, catering to him, patronizing him. They are creating a carpet of eggshells.

He sits in his sofa; his hands atrophied and curled up against his chest, his large, ungainly feet motionless. His unassuming brown eyes take it all in with incredible tolerance. His muscles may be dying, but his brain is as sharp as it was before the sickness took hold of him.

He makes a crack at my braids, calling me ‘Heidi’, yodelling badly. I threaten to shave curse words into his hair if he doesn't knock it off. I take advantage of his immobility to give him a good poke in the ribs. He grins clumsily, eyes glistening. I've never seen anyone happy to be bullied before.

© Stephanie Roka 2002

(from Volume 9 - Sept 2005)

Sample article...

Walk a mile in my shoes

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of writing students to discuss some of the nitty-gritties of fiction writing. We were talking about point of view in story writing and one of the students asked me why I write so many of my stories in the first person, or to put it more simply, why I use the 'I' voice in my stories so often.

The answer for me is simple. I love getting inside the skin of my characters. By writing as them I can truly inhabit the character; see what they are seeing; hear what they are hearing; feel what they are feeling. If I can be the character, then there's a good chance the reader will empathise too.

I'm reminded of what Atticus Finch said to his daughter Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird:

'First of all,' he said, 'If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-'

'Sir?'

'-until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.'

When you think about it, this notion of climbing into another's skin and walking around in it is at the very heart of social justice; to be able to take that step and ask, how do I feel? It is also one of the tenets of strengths-based practice.

As part of Shared Action (a community development project undertaken by St Luke's in Bendigo, Australia between 1998 and 2002) members were asked to identify what makes a good worker. Some of their responses included:

> they try to understand other's cicumstances

> they are aware of what else is happening

> they share their experiences

> they notice things

All of these attributes require us to walk in another's shoes.

This isn't a new concept, but a timeless and universal idea that emerges in every age. Wayne McCashen emphasised this in his opening address to The Gathering in New Zealand in 2003:

The strengths approach is not only important, it is essential. It is a philosophy that captures the essence of justice, the essence of people and their possibilities. These ideas don't change... let's remember Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, Jesus, Nelson Mandela, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the Buddha, Martin Luther King...

We should talk about it. We should keep it in our hearts and try to live it so that it can grow.

(from Volume 20 - April 2007)