Day 302: Dallas Woodburn

July 29, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“I also get so much inspiration – I’m sure you can tell that – from the kids that I work with.  I really feel that, you know, children just give us so much — so much energy and enthusiasm.  And whenever I’m feeling kind of stuck in my own writing, if I go volunteer to help some other people — especially kids — with writing … my well of inspiration just fills up.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Dallas, for agreeing to be part of this Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Dallas Woodburn: Yes, I’m so delighted to be here.  My name is Dallas Woodburn, and I’m the author of two collections of short stories, and I’m also the founder of an organization that encourages kids to discover confidence and joy and connection and self-expression through reading and writing.

Toni: Oh, fantastic.  And thank you again for being part of the Project.  Dallas, when you think of inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does it happen?

Dallas: I really try to inspire young people.  I think that it’s so important, especially at a young age, to really get positive feedback and encouragement and inspiration that you really can accomplish anything you put your mind to, and you really can reach for your dreams.  I feel so lucky that I had those inspirational influences in my life from a young age, and so I really focus my volunteer work on kids and teenagers and really trying to show them how writing in particular can help you accomplish your dreams and help you find that inspiration.

Toni: Do you teach them how to write?  What happens?

Dallas: I teach fun, creative writing workshops, so I’ll go into schools.  A lot of teachers have expressed frustration that they don’t have as much time recently to do creative work in class – whether that’s artwork or creative writing or poetry – and I really think that it’s important for young people especially to get an outlet to express themselves creatively, and writing can be such a healthy way to work through your problems and connect with other people.  So I teach poetry and short story writing and playwriting, and I also hold a summer writing camp every year in my hometown of Ventura, California.

Toni: Now by doing these types of workshops and working this way with young people, how do you see it helping them explore their potential?

Dallas: What a great question.  I’m going to respond with an anecdote about just one child that I worked with that I think it really shows just the power that writing can have.  He lives in New Orleans, and his home was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.  He was in elementary school and was just really having disciplinary problems at school with getting in fights and disrupting his classroom and just not happy at all.  His teacher found my website and contacted me, and the student and I began emailing, and I said “Why don’t you just start keeping a journal, and you don’t have to show it to anyone.  This can just be something that you do for yourself.  You can write anything you want in it.”

Eventually, he showed me some of his short stories that he was writing, and it’s now been about a year, and his disciplinary problems have all but vanished.  He is so much happier and so much more engaged in school, and he is actually … at the end of this past year, he was an editor on the school newspaper.  So I just feel like that’s such a great example of how writing is such an empowering tool, especially for young people.

Toni: Absolutely.  I think this is going to be a very easy question for you to answer, but what inspires you?

Dallas: Oh, so many things inspire me.  I get inspiration from my writing, from reading. I read everything I can get my hands on.  Just from living.  I love people watching.  I love hearing other people’s stories and watching how people interact with each  other.

I also get so much inspiration – I’m sure you can tell that – from the kids that I work with.  I really feel that, you know, children just give us so much — so much energy and enthusiasm.  And whenever I’m feeling kind of stuck in my own writing, if I go volunteer to help some other people — especially kids — with writing, my own inspiration … my well of inspiration just fills up.

Toni: When you find yourself – I don’t know that you ever do – but if you find yourself needing to be inspired or you’re kind of having a day where maybe the inspiration bucket is a little low, what do you tend to reach for?  What are your go-to tools?

Dallas: My go-to tools … I think for me, a  lot of inspiration comes from connection with other people.  I’m always inspired by websites like yours and hearing about other people that are following their dreams and their passions and doing amazing things.  That always inspires me.

I think simply getting out into the world.  And for me, a lot of that comes from volunteering.  So whether it’s working with kids, tutoring, going and spending an afternoon at a soup kitchen … or I also frequently visit a nursing home and talk to the people there about their lives – that always tends to reignite my inspiration.

Toni: So it really is just going out there and communicating with people; that seems to be a real big driver for you.

Dallas: Definitely, definitely.

Toni: When you have those types of conversations with people – whether it’s young people, elderly people, do they become an inspiration for your writing then?

Dallas: Yes, I think a lot of my writing stems from real life from either problems that I’m working through that kind of come out in my fiction, or stories that I’ve heard other people talk about.

A big influence and inspiration in my life is my grandfather.  I was actually named for him.  My name is Dallas, and his middle name is Dallas, so we always shared a real close bond, and he’s a great oral storyteller.  I found a lot of his stories about growing up on a small farm in Ohio and serving in the Navy in World War II and meeting my grandmother – he has so many great stories, and a lot of them have shown up in my writing in different ways.

Toni: So what are you doing now to explore your own potential?

Dallas: I am actually … in two weeks, I’m moving to Indiana to attend graduate school at Purdue University in fiction writing.  I’m really excited about it.  I’ll also be teaching writing courses to undergraduates.  With the site of my Write On! Foundation, I’m super excited – I’m founding a publishing company that publishes work by young people, really trying to give them a way to share their voices with each other and with society as a whole, because I feel like young people have so much to share.

And so the first anthology of stories and essays and poetry written by kids in middle school and high school is going to be released this fall.  It’s called Dancing With The Pen, and it features more than 65 young writers from all across the U.S. and even some from abroad.  So that’s been a really exciting project.

Toni: Congratulations to you!  We will absolutely post links – hopefully you have websites that people can visit to check out your journey here, and what an exciting opportunity this is for kids, for yourself.  It’s amazing.  Congratulations.

Dallas: Thank you, thank you.

Toni: Well, Dallas, it has been a pleasure, an absolute pleasure to talk to you, and we wish you the best of luck.  We will not only post your links at the bottom of the transcript, but also a way for people to view your Foundation on the home page of the Project.  So thank you again for being part of the Get Inspired! Project, and we’re thrilled to have you.

Dallas: Thank you.  Keep up the wonderful work you do.  You are such an inspiration.

Toni: Well thank you so much.  Take care.

Dallas: You too.

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For more information about Dallas Woodburn:  www.writeonbooks.org, dallaswoodburn.blogspot.com

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