Constable: Fremd Writers Week lit fire that still blazes 25 years later
Twenty-five years ago, Fremd High School English teachers Gary Anderson and Tony Romano were leading the search to engage students in writing.
"We used to have a lot of meetings about nothing," Anderson says. Romano, Anderson, Kevin Brewner and other teachers in the English Department weren't content with that status quo.
"We were rebels in a lot of ways. We were saying that what we were doing in class wasn't all that writing can be," Anderson says. "What if we put the focus on writing as an authentic human endeavor rather than an academic assignment?"
To do that, they decided to bring actual writers to class. For one week in 1995, students were invited to spend their lunch hours listening to esteemed science fiction author Fredrik Pohl, who lived nearby; poets Annie Davidovicz and John Dickson; author Carol Morrison; and one Daily Herald columnist. A student asked Pohl if he ever wrote a bad book, Brewner remembers.
"Yes," Pohl responded. "I knew where it was going, and it got there."
A half-dozen students and a few faculty members, including Romano and Brewner, read works, too. That first Writers Week also included a poetry slam featuring students and led by Marc Smith, a creator of the poetry slam concept.
It went over so well that year two followed with more attention, more volunteers and more donations. Pulitzer Prize-winner and Illinois Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks was the big draw. She stayed after her presentation, signing books and chatting with students. When she ran out of books, she wrote down addresses and later mailed signed copies to students.
Other writers that second year included screenwriter and 1984 Fremd graduate Craig Nevius, playwright Ewing Eugene Baldwin, novelist Charles Dickinson and poet and National Public Radio commentator Daniel Ferri, who also was on stage this week for Writers Week XXV.
At teacher conferences, Fremd teachers would give presentations about Writers Week. Other schools across the suburbs, the state and beyond soon adopted their own Writers Week programs. Fremd created a YouTube channel to share videos.
More than a thousand Fremd students, teachers from every department, and more than 200 professional writers (and a few musicians) have appeared at Fremd's Writers Week since then, including Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins, author Alex Kotlowitz, writer Harry Mark Petrakis, poet Patricia Smith, young adult novelist Ellen Hopkins, "Divergent" author Veronica Roth, poet Miller Williams and others. Award-winning poet Faisal Mohyuddin read his work while he was a student at Fremd. Award-winning writer and actress Constance Parng has come back to present at the school where she use to be in the audience for Writers Week. Anderson, Brewner and Romano, author of several books since he retired from teaching, are scheduled to read on Friday. Romano and Brewner are the only writers to read at every Writers Week, and Anderson missed one because of a burst appendix.
"Writers Week is less about writing and more about persistence, courage, generosity - about the privilege of sharing our stories with others," Romano says. Teachers have shared stories of cancer, parents, children, love, failures and other personal moments.
"This reaches students in a way traditional education doesn't," Anderson says. "It's enormously gratifying if we can light the fires."
English teacher Gina Enk and Russ Anderson (no relation to Gary Anderson) coordinate Writers Week now. The success and staying power of Writers Week "is mostly due to our students," Enk says. "The kids who read are honest and generous. So are the audience members. A lot of the typical high school back and forth is excised. It works."
This year, 18 of the faculty readers were Fremd graduates who had been in the audiences for prior Writers Weeks. Many of the professional writers praise the program. "I wish my high school would have had a program like this," some say.
"For 25 years," Enk says, "that's not a sentence a Fremd kid would have said."