The Room to Write

It's always a pleasure to step into the WCAT (Wakefield Community Access Television) Studios tucked behind the high school where visitors are surprised to see such a professional and impressive space dedicated to film and audio media.   During my most recent visit to the studios I interviewed local writer, illustrator and animator Sarah Lynne Reul .  Sarah is one of only a few illustrators I have interviewed in the space and so I was eager to learn more about how she creates the characters readers see in her many published books for children, including:  The Breaking News, Allie All Along, Nerp!, Farm the Farm, Pet the Pets and her Fall 2022 release of Bubbie & Rivka's Best Challah Ever (So Far!) . We talked about how all of us often start out liking to draw as children, but how as we get older we draw less and less until we're convinced we don't like to draw or that we can't draw well. Sarah's offers viewers inspiring advice about how much practice plays a...

TRtW's Gather & Write series is as social as writing gets. Gather and write. People want to write. We are writers of our own admission or perhaps we are hesitant to think of ourselves as such. Maybe we just want to try something new. And, it would be nice to write in the company of others. A designated time and space to set pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.  Writing is so often a solitary art. So many forms of art are solitary. Cerebral. Tapping into that mind of ours requires focus. Usually. But, focusing can be difficult in this day and age. Maybe when we look up from whatever it is we're trying to focus on it might help to see a rolling hill, distant trees--a bit of space. A different setting instead of the same pile of laundry or a new stack of dishes. Inspiration. That's what an artist of any sort needs. Where? How? Perhaps a beautiful old homestead in the pastoral setting of Hamilton, MA might do the trick. I have to say it was beautiful to see so much space a...