Summer Ink

Meet junior counselor Anne-Sophie!

Q: What’s your wackiest memory at Summer Ink?
A: My wackiest memory is definitely learning broadway dance. When I was at summer Ink an instructor came in and taught us the dance to Grease Lightning from the musical Grease. It was so fun learning all of the dance moves and my friends and I all had a blast!

Q: What’s your favorite writing memory?
A: I love peer editing my friends' papers! It is so much fun reading what they have to say and seeing the world through their eyes.

Q: What's the last book you read? What are your thoughts on it?
A: The last book I read was Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and I loved it. It is such a great story and I felt as if I was Pheoby listening to Janie tell her tale.

Q: Tell us something about you that people wouldn't know by looking at you.
A: I am an artist! I love all kinds of art and creating all kinds of art.

Q: What do you like to do when you're not teaching/working as a junior counselor?
A: I love to learn! I am always trying to pick up new skills and enrich my experience on this planet.

Meet senior counselor David Blake!

Q: What's your wackiest memory at Summer Ink?
A: I wouldn’t say there is one wackiest memory I have. I think wacky experiences happen every day at Summer Ink. I think of campers pulling out their notebooks and sitting on a sidewalk journaling about a delicious treat they’ve just enjoyed in the North End. I think of campers walking around a braille printing press and the decisions they make about what to write after that. I think of kids trying new things and then reflecting on what it was like to try those new things. So maybe those things aren’t wacky but it’s not what everyone else is doing, and that’s cool.

Q: What's your favorite writing memory?
A: I still think writing about food is my favorite thing to do. One of our trips around town took us to the north end, and I had this delicious pastry and having to put the joy of that experience into words allowed me to enjoy that pastry all over again while writing about it.

Q: What's the last book you read? What are your thoughts on it?
A: Right now I’m reading Dune and it is a major investment of time. Any book with a glossary at its back is a hefty undertaking, but even as I’m reading it and thinking how enjoyably arduous it is to complete, I’m struck by the enormity of the task it was to write it. That’s when the awe of creating something like that overwhelms me.

Q: Tell us something about you that people wouldn't know by looking at you.
A: Well, hopefully that list is long! What can you really know by looking at someone? I’d say, though, it’s impossible to know how forgiving I am of bad movies. I mean just terrible ones. My wife will often ask how I can sit through some of the movies I watch. I just love movies and will find some worth in almost anything I watch.

Q: What do you like to do when you're not teaching?
A: Grade papers, of course! When I don’t have anything to grade, though, I like to cook. It’s an activity that engages all your senses -crisp cut through raw veggies, or the sizzle of them thrown in a hot oiled skillet, the smell of garlic heating up and the golden browning of a seared scallop. I just love cooking then eating good food!

At Summer Ink we help students become more focused, detailed, and descriptive writers. This piece from a past Summer Ink student describes an intense ultimate frisbee game! There are so many great details: “warm sweat trickled down my nose,” I can definitely imagine this feeling on a hot summer afternoon!

Meet Sheila! Sheila first worked for Summer Ink in 1996, and now she's Summer Ink's executive director. We did a short Q&A with Sheila so we could get to know her even more:

Q: What's your wackiest memory at Summer Ink?
A: Well, we used to take the kids camping in the woods overnight! So I remember being in the middle of the woods with four loaves of bread making 40 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Q: What's your favorite writing memory?
A: We did watercolor paintings by the Charles River, and then we wrote about it. It was so peaceful.

Q: What is the last book you read? What were your thoughts on it?
A: It was called The Leavers! It made me feel very lucky to be a US citizen because it’s about an undocumented Mom who was separated from her child. It made me thankful that I don’t have those types of challenges.

Q: Tell us something about you that people wouldn't know by looking at you.
A: I lived in Hawaii for five years and had a daughter out there who has a Hawaiian name.

Q: What do you like to do when you're not teaching?
A: I love to be in nature, I love to travel, and I love to spend time with friends.