Springing into 2022: Cover Story, NPR/PBS, and School Visits

Since coming home from New Orleans, where our Almost Fairytales Films latest short, METHOD: A Voice Actor Prepares, premiered at the Lysistrata Future is Female Film Festival, life has been a bit of a whirlwind. (If you want to read more about our fabulous experience at Lysistrata you can read my previous blog here.)

Word spread of our premiere and the NWI Times ran a cover story about our creative process and our crew’s postproduction experience during the time of Covid-19 (full story here). Then Chris Nolte from Regionally Speaking contacted me for an interview on NPR about living as a working creative in Chicagoland, Lysistrata and the other festivals/ awards our comedic short is up for this year (full interview here). 

After my Regionally Speaking interview, Eye on the Arts got a hold of me to be one of their featured artist’s interviews for NPR/PBS. John Caine and I chatted about the challenges of filmmaking during the pandemic and the tenacity it takes to complete a project (full interview here). It was a lot of fun discussing our little project with like-minded artists supporters. Love all the local support for working creatives!

The spring has also been one for school visits. I participated in a collaboration between the Family Folklore Foundation, NorthernLights Eco Adventures, The Hammond Academy of Science and Technology and ThePaul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education.

In celebration of Earth Day, these community partners assembled to hike the portion of the Indiana Dunes National Park located in Gary, Indiana. Participants wrote out their observations of Miller Woods, then interpreted them as creative nonfiction. They also performed a radio play about the history of the dunes 100+ year battle to get recognized as a National Park. My little wild thing even played a skunk in this historical reenactment. The Chicago Post Tribune ran a nice article on the celebration (full article here). 

 

I had a wonderful time helping the participants draft their pieces and presenting about my experience writing natural science articles for Cricket Media’s Muse Magazine.

This past week has been filled with activity as well. I started by submitting my partial requests to the literary agents that liked my #PitDark tweets. (#PitDark is a one-day-long Twitter contest for writers seeking representation. It is open to all writing age groups the stories just need to have a spooky theme.) Now I wait, but it is exciting. I hope THE SECRET OF THE GHOST SHIP’S COMPASS finds a home. Some of you may remember from my past blog, about the awesome yet challenging (due to the lockdown) year I had as an Indiana Arts Commission Individual Artist Advancement Grant Fellow. 

This middle grade paranormal mystery is set in the dunes and features a fun cast of nature-loving characters. It would be amazing to find the right agent to help it get to the shelves. So, if you are the good vibe-sending type, please throw a few my way. It has been an excellent learning experience and doing #PitDark also helped me connect with more members of the writing community too.

I also got asked to do a school visit at the Area Career Center. Located in Hammond, Indiana, they serve high school students seeking vocational education from across Chicagoland. It is an amazing facility. I would have loved to attend this program as a high schooler. 

 

I cannot believe the amount of equipment they have access to, that they graduate with 12 college credits and that they also get certified in Adobe Premiere Suite. Just wonderful all around and their teacher, Stephanie Reiser is doing a great job. These young leaders have made it to the national championships several times. We discussed my zigzagging career path, what it is like to be a working creative/small business owner and deciding what type of life they wanted to shape for themselves. 

 

I shared my experiences working in the Hollywood Studio System and for a boutique sound studio in Burbank, as well as when/why I went out on my own. Speaking to some of the future broadcasters and filmmakers of tomorrow was a great honor. My “production assistant” and I also enjoyed the full studio tour and view down of the students’ award-winning projects. I am hoping to help become one of their internship sponsors and have these talented young people work on the postproduction of Almost Fairytales’ latest documentary, Take Bike the Streets (film info here).

I cannot wait to see what this summer brings. I will keep hammering away at my writing and filming a few passion projects, as well as doing wedding planning with my Fiancé for our October nuptials. My guys and I are also looking to savor these soon to be summer days, as winter will be here again in a blink. Hope all of you dear readers enjoy this warm weather and the seasonal festivities.