From Brush to Pen

Who would of thought...

If you asked me to list all the things I have created in my life, I would never have thought a published book would be on that list. I paint, I draw, I photograph, but writing... not so much. To my surprise, I am about to publish my first book, an illustrated poem. Last August, we dropped my daughter off at college. The #metoo movement was just coming to light in the news and I had recently watched the CNN documentary “The Hunting Ground," (which scared the crap out of me). I knew that my daughter was a very smart kid and understood what rape culture was, (she and I were avid Law and Order SVU binge buddies), but I still worried she might fall into a situation where she could be taken advantage of. And that's how it started... I began jotting down thoughts about consent and rape culture, based on my own fears as a parent, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with them. That was until I was in Baltimore at The American Visionary Art Museum. I saw an exhibit called “The Great Mystery Show” that had an illustrated book by Edward Gorey called “The Gashlycrumb Tinies“. It was an illustrated ABC book of 26 children who had untimely gruesome deaths, of all things! As disturbing as it was, a light bulb went off in my head. Its format was perfect for organizing all of the examples of non-consent that were rolling around in my head. So I began rewriting them in alphabet form. And so “The ABC’s of Non-Consent” was born.  For something so short, only 40 pages, it went through so many revisions. My first drafts were written from a female voice, then someone recommended I write it as unisex as possible, (the Kevin Spacey scandal had just gone viral). So I went back and wherever I could find name that could be for a boy or girl I changed it. At the same time, I was googling to see if there was other material around similar to what I was creating. I was surprised I couldn’t find anything like it... a simple, straight forward and powerful conversation starter to teach young people about consent.  It’s been quite a learning experience, not just the writing, but the self publishing and social media marketing education I needed to give myself, (that will be another post). But as I stand here now holding the printed proof in my hand, it’s a very rewarding and exciting feeling. I hope that this book does what I intended it to do, to help parents and educators prompt conversations with young people on the topic of consent.