Hi, I am Jaye, the stirrer of the Word Soup!
THE SHORT VERSION
Hi, I am Jaye (though some know me as Jennifer) and I am a homeschooling mom to 4 children - aged 11-19. Throughout our famly’s homeschooling journey, I have offered many homeschool classes for children. I’ve run Nature Art, Backyard Science, Improv, Writing, Literature, and Psychology classes at co-ops and in my own home spaces. I have a lifelong love of writing, a few small publication credits, and a full length novel nearly completed. I write poetry and fiction, for fun, but I love writing of any kind: essays, spells, recipes, non-fiction, memoir, letters to friends.
Word Soup is a revival of a class I taught many years ago when my older two children were 10 and 12 (they are now in college).
I create non-shaming spaces for kids who love to write- a classroom in which there are no mistakes, only information. I emphasize the love of the written word- the discovery and the act of creating, while also seeing where we can shore up skills. As my youngest child pursues her love of making things with words, I again feel called to offer class space for other kids around her age (11-14) as they learn to inhabit their own writing-selves. I cultivate both expansion via: loosening of voice, letting the mind roam, finding story floating in the ether, capturing something you can’t touch or see but that comes THROUGH you sometimes. I also cultivate tightening: tweaking, editing, knowing about story structure, sentence structure and what makes a story work (and not work). Both of these components require attention and practice so that potent, connective and powerful writing can emerge.
Professionally, I am a psychotherapist and play therapist, and have a private practice in Fanwood. The longer version of what guides and grounds me- as well as what principles I rest on when it comes to writing- is below. Feel free to read when you have a few minutes.
THE LONG VERSION
My name is Jennifer, but I go by Jaye in my personal life. It's a long story ( a big cup of word soup?) and I'm always open to answering questions about my name change.
But you are here to learn about who I am as a writing guide- so grab a cup of something warm and nourishing and keep reading.
When I was 6, I wrote my first poem about foxes and vixens and, I think, my sister. My grandmother taught me to make letters into words, and I deeply associate that learning with love.
We are born with the desire to name things- and full self expression depends on our ability to gather the words, like the ingredients in a recipe, and mix them together so that someone else can get us- where we are coming from, where we’re going, or, in the case of made-up stories, what and how we see our world (the actual world or the one we have created through story- though lately I am not sure these two are so very different!)
As a homeschooling mama for the past 19 years, I have watched my children (and other people’s children I have had the pleasure of writing alongside) come alive when they find their voice, when they capture story (seemingly) out of thin air, when they learn to construct story in such a way that the reader feels it, is moved by it, is drawn in and wants more. I think that children are natural-born storytellers, and only some of us get to carry that into adulthood. Learning HOW to find story (inside or outside of you), HOW to arrange those words in a way that connects us to another, and HOW to word-bend in such a way that a novel is born, or a poem feels complete- is at the heart of any writing life.
Though I have always written, I’ve taught writing far longer than I have actually been a Committed Writer. I used to teach a program called Girls Who Write, which was run by the Women’s Resource Center in Summit, NJ (this was back in the early 2000’s). What I loved about teaching was the opportunity to help young people develop a solid container for their writing- a communal space in which we got together and learned. I was teaching others how to be committed to their creativity, but I struggled to do this on my own.
I want Word Soup to help create Committed Writers: writers who are good stewards of their gifts. I think it’s true that we teach that which we need to learn, so while I taught because I loved words and connections and creating, teaching has been a way to keep me tethered to my own creative life.
If you are a parent and an artist you may know this number sentence:
Motherhood + Creative Life + Working outside the home = Something Has To Give.
For many years the thing that “gave” was my writing life.
Just before motherhood, I was publishing poems in anthologies and learning about poem-making in an ongoing poetry circle that met weekly for years. It was pure delight. Once babies came, 4 in 8 years, finding the time to jot down a passing thought was just about impossible. Oh, a poem came through me from time to time, but it was rare and it was hard.
In 2015, on a dare (from another homeschooling parent who also struggled to find writing time), I embarked on National Novel Writing Month- an annual writing ritual in which writers are asked to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Crazy, right? Somehow, one night after another, after the kids were mostly asleep (are they all ever really and totally asleep??) I would write my 1667 words. No more, no less. I skipped one or two days, and had to make up the words, but I did it. And I “won”- which means, on planet NaNoWriMo, that I actually completed the challenge. I had the bare bones of my first novel, which, I am excited to say, I just finished the first draft of this spring.
It took me 8 more years - of writing while kids were in piano lessons, or in nature class, or in the dentist office waiting room- to complete my now 100, 000 word novel. It still needs lots of love (in the form of editing) from me, but it’s closer than ever to meeting a reader. I work with the Storygrid method now and it’s like an MFA in fiction. It’s a rich method that I wish I knew about before I began writing my novel. Part of my aim is transmit Storygrid thinking to students so they can have that knowing now, as young writers.
For the past few years, I wrote lots of short stories through a program called NYC Midnight (please check them out because it's the most fun a writer can have!) I (alongside my kids) self-published three installments of a homeschoolers ‘zine called Shelter in Place (during the first year of stay at home orders) and I have taught creative writing through Village Homeschooling Co-op, as well as at Mosaic Freeschool, where last year I taught Literature Circle for upper elementary students.
As my youngest child pursues her love of making things with words, I feel that I have wisdom to offer other kids around her age (11-14) as they learn to inhabit their own writing-selves. I know the value of expansion: of loosening your voice, letting your mind roam, finding story floating in the ether, capturing something you can’t touch or see but that comes THROUGH you sometimes…and I know the value of tightening: tweaking., editing, knowing about story structure and what makes a story work (and not work). Both of these processes require attention and practice so that potent, connective and powerful writing can emerge from us.