In Folly, protagonist Rae Newborn works her way out of debilitating depression by building a house. Artisan of wood in her former life, she pieces together her redemption on a solitary island in the Pacific northwest.

Rae is not only the scarred creation of her writer. She is the writer’s scars, revealed as socially useful things.

Asleep in the trees, I feel my fingers itch from palm to tip, but dream swelled eyes resist the open air. I hold the netherworlds and blindly smile and scratch, until I stop: the itch remains.

Sleep undone, I spring the lids and there she is, madonna moon, a silver shimmering sheen. Hanging baskets join the boughs to rock this pearl, this tiny apparition.

AKRON (July 24, 2010) Susan Weber joined teachers, librarians and other interested observers attending the 5th annual Akron Storytelling Festival hosted by the Akron Public Library July 23 and 24.

Summertime in Cleveland has me sprawled on the back porch like a flayed goose, awaiting the nightly visitation.

I was born in Cincinnati. My father sang Barbershop and made sure the local pool got built. Mom taught me to paint and read and how to make puppet plays and beautiful cakes. Mrs. Wynn showed me how to make mistakes. I taught myself to dream.

Gramma carried Europe on her tongue and pitted cherries for Swiss pies. Grampa built his stone house under white pines and taught his sons construction.

Why do recognized leaders of the GOP use gun and violence metaphors in reference to political opponents in their tweets and bites?

‘Let’s start getting Nancy [Pelosi] ready for the firing line this November.’
Michael Steele, Republican National Committee

‘What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.’
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield

Words can be toys.  Children’s books bank on the likes of those who thrive on words like mugwump and quoz.

‘The idea that language is beautiful and strange and that you can play with it is very appealing for children, and also very important.
Catherine Bohne

History is art, because story is art. Able writers interest us in world events by framing them in story.  And by the way, you and I are world events.

The Harding Affair: Love and Espionage During the Great War tells the story of Warren G. Harding’s 15 year affair with Caroline F. Phillips.  Of their fiery correspondence, many of his letters remain. The book is a fascinating juxtaposition of personal revelations and global political fault lines. In the heightened patriotism of World War I, Phillips’ German sympathies threatened her personal safety and Harding's political solvency. When she was suspected by the nascent FBI of spying for the enemy, Senator and future President Harding sent her this cautionary plea:

‘You have the intellect, the soul and personality, please command the poises befitting your superiority.’
Warren G. Harding

Sometimes lives of the past can dwarf our ordinary lives, but it’s worth remembering that we know these people through story. Boringness has been edited out. Even primary sources, letters in Harding’s own hand, were sculpted by the author. Ordinary and extraordinary lives, framed and pondered, reverberate through story craft.

This week, Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio asked me to represent myself and 60 artist colleagues for a television interview. Grappling with how best to explain my storytelling work in schools, I wanted to ‘command the poises’ - an artist mantra so aptly penned by Harding. A kind friend sent me these words just before the interview:

‘You are smart, sharp and a role model. You'll be terrific.’

Thus bolstered, I stepped before the cameras. I had a hunch my audience would glaze its eyes at concepts like ‘arts/curriculum integration,’ so I looked my interviewer in the eye and reenacted an Ohio & Erie Canal digger of Harding’s era. I became humble Italian-American Tony, one of my fourth graders’ favorite immigrant entrepreneurs, plying his enthusiasms with twinkling grace. What better way for students to frame, absorb and remember the past?

When story happens, large or small, nerves give way to art, preparation matures into performance, boringness vanishes and the rest, they say, is history.