Story by Anna Benstead, Culture Editor
The Contemporary Writers Series is a series that invites modern or influential authors to visit campus. The goal is for them to present on what it means to be a writer and they often discuss their most recent publication. This year marks the 27th season of the CWS and the first of the new director of the CWS, Shellie Jeffries. This year’s theme is titled “Working Class Voices” as it hopes to celebrate and promote lower and middle class writers.
On Thursday September 28th Matt de la Peña was the first of the three writers presenting this academic year. A notable young adult novelist, he is most famous for authoring famous titles such as Mexican Whiteboy, Ball Don’t Lie, We Were Here, and many more. De la Peña also writes children’s stories. During the evening presentation he chronicled the illustrating of one of his more recognized titles, Love. Seen below. De la Peña discussed the tedious process in which this illustration was made, and its evolution. Originally there was only one child, but then when he looked too abandoned a second was added. The evolution was so detailed that he even commented on the very last detail: The burnt appearance of the toast.
Photo courtesy of Good Children’s Books.
Every time a writer visits campus two events are hosted. The first is a craft talk which is free and open to any student. It will always be at 11am in upper Donnelly. Anyone who is interested should attend! It is a wonderful time riddled with deep learning, as well as a very reflective and contemplative time. Usually the speakers are very dynamic and humorous, because as we all know, writers are the best storytellers. At this most recent lunchtime event, Aquinas was humbled by Mrs. Hang’s classes from Wyoming Public Schools.
To open the craft talk, Matt de la Peña began with an exercise. Students were instructed to come up with two words that were capable of describing their lives up to that point. They were encouraged to make their two words metaphorical as to encapsulate more of their lives. One girl from WPS shared her two words: Puzzle Pieces. She explained that she often felt that things and systems in this world were not built for her. Not only was this a heartbreaking statement, but it was a powerful one, because it was real. She described feeling lost, confused, and incomplete just by being herself. This student in particular also inspired me because she was a fighter, and pushed for social change to make the puzzle pieces of the world fit into her identity. Matt de la Peña related to her story and he proceeded to share his story about being able to attend college as a first generation student on a basketball scholarship.
The evening presentation at 6pm in Kretschmer Recital Hall is free and open to the public. Last Thursday’s was not the largest turnout Aquinas has ever boasted. However, lots of students could be seen filling seats and several First Year Seminar students were in attendance. In this presentation, de la Peña shared stories about growing up, and specifically about growing up a young latino boy in Southern California.
His parents had him when they were quite young; he shared that his mother received her high school degree carrying baby Matt in her arms. He grew up in a cramped house filled with love. He earned his bachelor’s degree from University of the Pacific, and went on to earn his Masters of Fine Arts from San Diego State, where he is now currently a professor of creative writing.
One of his lifetime accomplishments in addition to winning the Newbery Medal and the NCTE Intellectual Freedom Award, is having one of his children’s books be added to the banned book list because of one image featuring a same sex marriage.
Photo courtesy of NPR
| Interestingly enough, he shared that the novel that receives the most hate mail is titled Superman: Dawnbreaker. Fitting into the DC Icon series de la Peña made the title character- Superman- a latino youth. He says it was a logical step for him creatively because “Superman is the ultimate immigrant”. In his opinion there are far too many children’s books that center around white children and animals/inanimate objects, and not nearly enough that reflect the actual demographics in this country. All of his literature has a focus on representing more voices of color. | ||||
Featured Image: From left to right: Haris Sendijarevic (Writing Center Intern), Maggie Palnau (Writing Center Intern), Matt de la Peña, and the editor, Anna Benstead (Writing Center Consultant) after the evening presentation
Featured Image Courtesy of Harris Sendijarevic
The Saint 