About "Angela's Wisdom"
"Angela's Wisdom" is a short story by Lynda Williams and daughter Angela Lott. It deals with the value of literacy and the experience of learning to read.
It was written when Angela was 8 years old and given to RFF a few years ago. Now it has been given to RFF, Inc. It will be used on the educational CD/DVD that will be given to the first 70 participants of the
educator's workshop at Renovation.
I asked Angela to tell us about her memories of the story. Her responses confused me, so I asked Lynda Williams about how the story was written. She credits the story to both herself and her daughter because, "Angie doesn't remember 'co-writing' the story because her part in it was ad hoc. I constrained myself to working, word for word, with what she and Tegan actually said. I had to build the story around it."
Note: Questions were emailed to Angela in sets. Rest assured, I really did not rudely ask her loads of questions before listening for a response.
Valerie's Interview with Angela
Valerie: How did the short story come about? Who's idea was it? How old were you at the time of writing the story?
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| Angela Lott in 2011 |
Angela: I am not totally sure how this story came about. My best guess would be that it had something to do with my mother feeling like an alien while being totally immersed in the technical revolution. She was starting to doubt the need for written literature and since she is a very creative person she put the two together and created a story.
It was my mother’s idea as I was too young to be involved in writing it at the time. When this was written I was as young as I am in the story. As a matter of fact I believe that what is said and done in the story is actually what happened except for the fact that my mother wasn’t being controlled by an alien. She was just trying to act like one to get a reaction from her children. I have a vague memory of her asking us questions while recording it all on a tape recorder.
Valerie: How did you work together to get the story done? What process did you use to collaborate? Was it more or less challenging to work with your Mom on the story than it is to work with your lab partners at school? Was it weird working with your mom? Who had the most ideas about the story, you or your mom? What did you do to get around periods of writer's block? How many days or hours did it take to write the story?
Angela: As I have said in my previous answer I did not write the story. I was the inspirations while I was younger and recorded the story just a week or so ago. This means that my mother and I did not work together to make the story, but when we have worked on things together in the past I have always found it fun and easy to work with her. It is much easier to work with her than a school partner that you don’t know. I have only started writing within the last year and then only fan-fiction, which is writing with someone else’s character and/or within someone else’s universe. I am not sure how long it took my mother to write that story but since she is an experienced writer and the story is not long I can’t imagine that it took her very long.
Note from Valerie: Angela recently recorded the story as a pod-cast to be distributed at
Renovations.
Valerie: What do your friends say about the story? What do they say about you as the co-author? What do you say to your friends about writing stories?
Angela: Most of my friends haven’t heard the story since it was written such a long time ago, and the ones who have probably haven’t thought much about it. I am not the co-author. I am the reader and the inspiration. Most of my friends have written stories but like me they write fan fiction. We talk about our plot lines sometimes and help each other by reading each other’s work and giving them feedback.
Valerie: Have you written other stories?
Angela: As I have said previously I have so far in my life only written stories in other people's universes except for one story that I wrote for my grade 12 history class. All of these stories are on both
Fanfiction.net and DeviantArt.com. I have one in the Bones universe, one in the Harry Potter universe and one in the Torchwood universe. The original story I wrote for History is only on DeviantArt.
Note from Valerie: I used one link for both references. The Fanfiction.net links to all 3 stories and to Angela's DeviantArt home page using her online avatar JelloDVDs.
Valerie: What do you want to say to Young Adults about science fiction and fantasy?
Angela: The most important thing to me about Science Fiction and Fantasy is that it is the most creative and enlightening kind of fiction there is. You can learn from it and enjoy it. Science Fiction and Fantasy push the boundaries there by helping us to understand ourselves and our way of life better by taking us away from both ourselves and our way of life. By showing us through our own imagination that there is more to life than we know and that there is more in the universe than we can see.
Interview by Valerie Coskrey
At 18, Angela Lott has posted 4 short stories online along with numerous photos and photo collages. Start with the link to her
FanFiction site to read 3 stories; and follow the link to her DeviantArt site for another story and numerous photo collages. Angela is on Facebook, where she posts several wonderful photo albums of both nature and people.
Lynda Williams is the original author of the
Okal Rel Universe series, to which several other authors have contributed. She teachers writing and other subjects in Canada. Lynda is an active member of RFF and part of RFF, Inc.
Listen to the story "Angela's Wisdom" as read by Angela Lot in this
podcast.
