The World Around Us Winter 2013 | Page 9

Mr. Wangerin then said that some stories come out of an event. He recounted such an event in the life of one of his daughters. It had caused him to tell a story for her. She had witnessed a mother say “Do me a favor and die,” to her child. His daughter had tried to say something kind to the boy and he had repeated exactly what his mother had said to him, to her, “Do me a favor and die.”

So that night Mr. Wangerin told her and his other children the story of creation. However, he did so with interjections of how God had a certain child in mind while He was making the world. He stressed how God had wanted this child to be able to live in and enjoy the world that He was creating. Mr. Wanering gave her hints to who that child was, such as having God stomp at the water, to tell it to stay in its place so ground could appear. He asked his daughter how long she could swim. His daughter hated swimming. He didn’t let himself retell the entire story to us, I wish he had.

I asked Mr. Wangerin about adapting books to become scripts and screenplays. He told me writing a novel and writing a script or screenplay are two different things. He advised me not to let myself be a slave to the original work as I rewrite the story, to become another medium.

Mr. Wangerin then turned the tables on his audience by asking the students questions. He pointed out certain students when he did so, identifying them by the clothing they wore or who they were sitting with. When the Question and Answer session was over, he received an ovation, as the Operetta he wrote would, later that night.

The Leaf

Hannah Bailey

As the wind blows,

it waves a final goodbye.

Falling to the ground

for the first and final time.

Leaving its home in the sky,

never to return,

it settles onto the earth—

Such is the death of the leaf.

Hannah Bailey (24th June 1992-) is born in Albany, Indiana. She is a Journalism and Writing major with a Religion minor in Anderson University. Something she finds really funny is how Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABC song have the the same melody. She is one who strives to be better than the day before and acknowledges that nothing is worth much of anything without heart.

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