Speaker 1: Talk about being behind the curveball. All my podcasts are
finally on one site, Ero dot net, Arre dot net,
seventeen different podcasts to choose from.
Speaker 2: Hello, nice to hear your voice, How are you fantastic?
Speaker 1: And always excited to share a conversation with you because
you totally get it when it comes to reaching into
a reader's life and giving them the chance to find
that open door of escape, just just to get inside
their imagination and allow them to just play. Is that
wrong to say that about your book? I just want
to play though.
Speaker 2: That you have absolutely reached in and touched the heart
of what I do. So thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Living artfully means what to you? Because I know what
living artfully means to me because I'm a daily writer.
I've been doing it since July of nineteen ninety four.
I know what's been invested. So I love the idea
that you're opening up the door saying you can do this,
and you need to trust it because you're going to
grow in ways that not doing the artful thing is
going to keep you away from.
Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent and what I The definition for
me of living artfully is to expand the definition of
what art means people are living artually every day, and
once they recognize that, they can expand it and lean
into it and embrace it. So if you think about
the word art, you know, so often we have a
narrow definition of it. It means someone who is trained as
an opera singer, or who's trained as a landscape painter,
or a chef who has you know, gone to the
cordon bleue. For me, art is any way we express ourselves.
It could be that we tap dance, or we bake
the best championship cookies and our family, or we like
to sing a song for our kids before they go
to sleep at night, uh, you know, or we are
a poet and we jot down little words and messages
that that that touch our heart and that touch others
when they read them. And when someone finds the way
in which they best express selves, it's often not just
one way, it's often many ways. But when they say
and give and validate that that's important to learn and
to share the best way and the most meaningful way
we express themselves ourselves, then we're living artfully. And it
could be any way of self expression, you know, really
take off all the rules, no right or wrong, just
what we think is beautiful and what feels great to us.
Speaker 1: See right away, I'm going how many times have I
said use your words? Use your words, when I should
have been saying, what's your art? Let me hear your art?
What are you feeling, what's your emotion? Let's put it
in a way where art moves other people.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and move yourself. You know, how do you feel
most authentic? How do you feel you and celebrate that.
And that's where we begin to celebrate differences in the
most incredible way, because we all express ourselves in unique ways.
Like when I was a little girl, I realized that
I couldn't say what was in my heart with words.
I sound words so difficult. But when I began drawing
pictures with those words, then I could. I started getting
closer to what I wanted to say. And you know,
throughout a lifetime, I just kept practicing and figuring out ways,
and so I went from just paper and page and
art and words tout the book like Silly Witch or
all the books to do with Scholastic have another component.
They have a novelty component. So there's feet coming off
the top of the book or ears coming off the
top of the book. And now I'm combining toys stuffed
animals with words and images, and there I feel like
I can speak to kids in a way that I
really can speak to kids about themes and ideas and
messages that are different than other authors who have their
own way, which are equally as wonderful but different than mine.
Speaker 1: The playfulness and excitement does not end. Coming up next,
we've got more with Sandra Maximine, the name of the
book Living Artfully. We're back with author Sandra Maximine. I
invite listeners as well as readers to reach out to
you in so many different ways. Because when your first
book arrived with me, I remember sitting out there in
the middle of the street with GARYK and Hannah, and
I read the book to them and then I watched
them play with the witch at the top of the book.
But this time around, when I brought this book out,
Gary got off his bike and he told me, I'm
going to read it to you this time. And so
so that's what's happened with this second book with me,
is that now the little guy across the street is
turning into a little man.
Speaker 2: Well, and think about what's happening there. He now has
some self esteem and some confidence and he wants to
be the leader. So he's reading, he's reading those jokes,
he's taking charge. That's what we want with our kids,
who want them to develop these skills, and this book
is a tool to help them do that. It is
fun and their funny jokes, for sure, but the action
of a child taking that initiative is what we want.
And that's how why books change lives and books matter
because it's different than holding a phone in your hand,
or holding a tablet, you know, or being on a computer.
Now they have something that they can engage with another
person with and that's exciting. You know.
Speaker 1: What I call that, I call it mine. And what
I mean by that is is that when we used
to order those scholastic books from school and the teacher
would bring them in on that Thursday or Friday so
we could take it home for the weekend because we
purchased it. I would sit there and hold a book,
going mine, this is mine, and see that's what your
books do. It provides that mine moment.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, And it's agency, you know, I mean it
really is. This is I'm developing what I like, I'm
putting a library of interests together, which really forms who
I'm going to become, and who I'm becoming I'll never
forget when I was a little girl. I grew up
in Maryland and really hot summer, really human summers. But
the bookmobile would come to our school and our mom
would let yes, right, and so my mom would let
us ride our bikes. Number one big deal. I had
freedom and agency all of a sudden, I could ride
my bike alone to get to the school. And then
when I got there, it was an air conditioned bookmobile
in the middle of summer, and I just fell in
love with books and reading, and I discovered things I
didn't know existed. I went, you know, like into a
land of magic, and books are that. And I think
you know from very early ages that we can can
give books to children, read with them, share our enthusiasm.
They will be readers for life, and that enriches a
life in no way anything else could ever ever ever
come close to.
Speaker 1: Don't you think that the new bookmobile are the community
little libraries? I mean, I mean, we have just in
within my walking distance in this forest, we've got three libraries.
But what's missing from these libraries are the kids books.
It's all adult adult So if a child is walking
by with their parents, oh, there's nothing in there for you.
We'll go to the store and get yourself. And it's like,
don't forget about the little ones.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think you know. I'm fortunate enough to
live in a village in Vermont where our library every
Saturday morning at eleven o'clock in story times, children are
walking with their parents and every Saturday morning to go
in there and hear a story read. And it's a
great children's library section. And I was in Baltimore recently
for the Baltimore Books Fair, and there was this incredible
woman who started her own bookmobile with kids for kids,
and she goes all over the city on the weekends
and kids can come in and borrow books, and it's
changing lives all over the city. So I can't you know,
shout loud enough how important it is to get books
in the hands of our little ones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't you think that, being the art therapist that
you are, that the journey of reading actually starts with
activating the imagination. And that's why a book such as yours,
with that book cover, what it does is it does
something to we're very inquisitive as human beings, and as
long as we get to that first page, we're on
our way exactly.
Speaker 2: And children are born this way, you know, I mean,
that's their innate nature to be curious, to be creative,
to to you know, seek things out. And the more
we can continue to encourage that and not stop it,
it will grow naturally. But getting all these getting these
tools and of books in front of kids is the
way that we just encourage it.
Speaker 1: But when am I going to see you at a
comedy zone or a comedy club, because I mean, I
love your corny, quirky jokes, and yes I do know
what happens to a skeleton at a dance, but I'm
not going to spoil it. But yet, when these little
ones get in there to find out what's going on,
do you hear their laughter as you're writing these stories?
Because in radio, I do, I hear people talking, Oh
my god.
Speaker 2: Yes. And I go to schools and read, and I
go to bookstores and read, and it gives me so
much pleasure to hear their laughter. I said to I
was with some of my scholastic friends the other day,
and I said, I would love to put together a
group of kids, like on a mock stage, like they're
the little comedians, of having them tell these jokes, because
I think they would love it, and I know the
audience would love it too, because they're just there's a
sense of joy that a child that stills are faith
when they tell the punchline because they're so proud of themselves.
And proud is really good, you know, And I think
that's what we want for our kids, to want them
to feel proud. And you know, we've come out of
you know, the pandemic, and kids are getting back to
school and there's still sense of isolation, and here a
joke can really connect one heart to another, and that's
what we want right now.
Speaker 1: All right, So you've covered Christmas, You've got Halloween. What
is the next holiday that you're going to be covering?
So that I can get Garrick and Hannah all excited
and fired up?
Speaker 2: Oh in the Silly Witch in the Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got a series going on here.
Speaker 2: Yeah we do. I can't tell you. I've been that secretly, sorry, Charlie.
Speaker 1: You've got the ingredients inside the Witches brew, then you
can't tell me what's inside there?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yes, like you know, this is like Harry
Potter Top Secret.
Speaker 1: Well, what is the website where people can go to
find out more about you? Because I want them to
know your entire journey, not just this one book. There
is a series of many, multiple layers here when it
comes to you.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, of course, my website is Centramangsalmon dot com.
Scholastic has a wonderful website and I'm featured on that.
I have an Instagram also, my name CenTra mag Salmon.
And you know, please join us, come join the party.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I love people write to me. I write them back,
you know, happy to touch base. I love it, love it,
love it.
Speaker 1: Well, you've got to come back to this show any
time in the future. You know that door is always open.
Speaker 2: You're here today, Well, thank you so much, and it's
just such a pleasure and joy to speak with you.
I love your heart in your spirit. Is it's my day?
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you and you have a beautiful day.