Our conversation this week is with Dawn Gilchrist, devoted teacher, marvelous writer, attender to words, and advocate for social change in her home of Western North Carolina.
"What possibilities lie dormant that can be teased out if I can figure out what engages their mind?” This sums up Dawn's life and career. In every single human story she sees shared humanity. She wonders about people and attends to their words when they decide to share who they are. There's no limit to the impact of a teacher who pays attention to their students. Dawn knew this and knows this still -- the power of curiosity. The depths of a single human story.
In this episode you'll listen to Dawn talk about words as bridges, what happens when we get to know someone we think we hate, seeing and listening to students, and the awesome power of books to change lives. You'll also hear us discuss our "personal canons" with some fun commentary on Willa Cather, 'Deadwood', and 'The Good Lord Bird'.
Dawn wins the Normal Mailer Writing Award for High School Teachers
Dawn's writing for Smoky Mountain News
Mentioned in this episode:
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
The Professor's House by Willa Cather
The Danger of a Single Story by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
The Marrow of Tradition by Charles Chesnutt
To 'Joy My Freedom by Tera Hunter
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Conversations with Toni Morrison
Cherokee National History Museum
Confederate Monument in Sylva, North Carolina
Wautaga Mound - Mainspring Conservation Trust
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Dispatches from Pluto by Richard Grant
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
The Second Coming by Walker Percy
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
Barn Burning by William Faulkner
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tome Wolfe
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride