Stan Whitehead's Binders

Rose's Pre-K Project Binder

Stan Whitehead was a writing teacher and author from the Bay Area whom I met in 2000.  There was an ad for a Writing Class at the El Cerrito Senior Center.  I didn't connect the dots that the writers should be seniors.  (I was 39.)  Stan might have been my first writing teacher since Cowles elementary.  Growing up, I focused on math, hard science and reading.  In college, there was just one writing class and it didn't leave an impression.

Stan left lots of impressions.  There is poetry.  There is prose.  I tried both.  There is showing.  There is telling.  I tried to show more.  There is what you write for yourself.  There is what you are willing to share.    Stan set up reading performances. There is perfectly accurate boring writing.   There are more interesting stories where details might be made up.  Also, there is Langston Hughes.  

Stan's favorite word about my writing was "didactic".  (This would bother me more, except my favorite writer, Isaac Asimov, is as didactic as they come.)  Nonetheless, the seniors were not seeking life instruction.  Stan had a son my age.  Dealing with my generation was difficult.

Stan also offered certain prescriptive, scholarly advice.  Go to Costco and buy plastic paper protectors and binders.  Put what you write in these binders.  Stan said he filled at least two binders per year and had shelves of them.

Rose finished pre-K.  What to do with her art work and stories and projects?  We filled up two binders using page protectors left over from the Richmond, CA Costco.

Rose thrives with routine.  School days, even with online classes, flow nicer than weekends.  What are we doing now?  Each of us is writing.  Rose is also drawing.  She can continue to fill up binders as I blog and that would provide structure to our Summer days.

I own an inscribed copy of  "Class Dismissed & Other Poems," by Stanley C. Whitehead that he sold me in 2002 at a public performance.   (He wrote other books, as well.)  Stan died of cancer in 2006, the year after I left the Bay Area.

Some day, I will have a book. Thanks for the help, Stan.  You were my best and only memorable writing teacher.