Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown!
It certainly gives me great pleasure to introduce to our listening family. A very amazing author and storyteller. Her name is Alison Woods. Ms. Woods was born in Chicago. She graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota and began her career in Information Technology with I B M in 1974, and she then retired from PepsiCo in 2017. Ms. Woods is an author. She has written four children's books based on experiences with her grand children. My name is Kayla 2019. We are happy.
On Sundays we go to church 2021, and My name is Cash 2022. My name is Kayla, is a delightful story of discovery as the baby girl learns. Her name Taylor is Alison's oldest granddaughter. We are happy is a story of how two brothers figure out that they are twins. On Sundays we go to church. Kayla tells the reader all about the summers that she spans with her grandmother in Texas. My name is Cash, is the boy version of My Name is Kayla, and features Alison's youngest, the grandson, cash.
Now as a storyteller, Alison entertain her children and now her grandchildren with her own bedtime stories. She took things one step further with her grants and challenged them to set the stage, prompting them by saying, give me two words and I'll give you a story to our audience and families. Help me welcome Allison Woods!
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
I really love your book covers. I found them to be very colorful and even I was attracted to them, I can imagine what a child sees and thanks when they have all of this colorful information in front of them, and I'm wondering, when did you realize that you had a strong interest in writing and storytelling?
I guess I'll start with the storytelling first, cuz that's what I did first. I'm a talker and I always had a story to tell. Even growing up in Chicago, I probably told my first story when I was about nine years old. And it was always something to do with what had happened to me during the day. So back then they were true stories, things that happened to me riding the bus or the EL. The funny things my mother would say and do.
All of those things were just like, just provided me with just an amazing amount of resources to which to tell stories. I tell a story about when I bumped into Muhammad Ali on the street growing up in Chicago, and so just all kinds of different things that happened to me. So that's when I started telling stories. But they were just all basically true, right? Things that happened, and with the writing I never intended to be a author of children's books.
I was gonna retire from IBM and just not from IBM, from PepsiCo, and just relax. When Kayla was about three and she was coming to visit me for her third summer. I went to, a local, big bookstore to look for a series of books that would feature African American little girl as the lead character. I didn't find any series.
I found a lot of one-off books that were lovely and most of them I had, but I didn't find a series and I remembered the the person helping on the floor said why don't you just get her Doc McStuffins? There are a lot of Doc McStuffins books. Doc McStuffins is a cartoon and she's a cartoon character, and in the cartoon Doc McStuffins is about seven and she's a veterinarian. So I said to them, and I said I was really looking for books that would tell realistic stories.
She, and she says what's wrong with Doc McStuffins? I said, I don't know any seven year olds, seven year olds that are veterinarian. I got home and I gotta thinking I'm gonna be able to write some simple children's books. So my first book that I ever wrote was, My name is Kayla, and my first draft was pretty awful in that my language was too complex, I'll say, for children.
So I had to learn that if you're gonna write a children's book, you have to find a children's voice and that's what I have done with all of the books is now that I've got that down pat, I'm good to go. So I wrote, My name is Kayla. I've written several others, but I didn't even think about publishing them until I retired.
Sounds like an exciting transition from storyteller IT consultant to author. As we, as I introduced you, I said that you are known for saying to people, give me two words and I'll give you, I'll tell your story. Here is your test. Here are your two words. They are octopus and the number 10. Go for it!
Octopus and 10. Okay. Once upon a time there was a octopus. When he was born, his mother checked to make sure that he had eight tentacles, just like mothers checked to make sure their children had five fingers and five toes. This octopus mother checked to see if her baby octopus had eight tentacles. She counted eight, and so she was satisfied, but the father said, I dunno, it looks like he's got a couple extra tentacles. She says, oh, that's that. That's not true.
I, you're just making, you're just saying things. As he grew up, low and behold, the dad was right! He didn't have eight tentacles or eight arms if you would like. He had 10. My goodness. Everybody was amazed. But the younger octopus friends that he had were not amazed. They didn't wanna be around him. They thought he was weird, just too different and his mother explained to him, you're not different. You're unique, and your 10 arms help a lot. You can swim faster, you can gather more food.
It's gonna be just fine. But still, his friends ostracized him. He was so disappointed until one day when they were out playing, one of his friends got caught in the net and when he got caught in a net, he was fighting to get out, but he couldn't.
So our favorite octopus, whose nickname was "U" for Unique went up and he took his 10 tentacles and he was able to grab ahold of the net in 10 different places and lifted up and his friend was able to swim out, but when they got back home, everybody was so excited because "U" had saved his friend. And from that day forward, everyone was happy to play with the very, very unique "U" and needless to say, "U" and his 10 tentacles lived happily ever after the end. Thank you!
I have to say that was impressive. Absolutely impressive. So this means that you should come out with a myriad of books just based on this talent that you have. I'm just wondering, can you describe your creative process for developing, as you call it, spontaneous fiction?
Once I get the two words, I just, I, the stories are gonna be very short, no more if they're longer than four minutes, then I must be like on a whirl or something. But I get the two words and I usually stall in the beginning with the opening, cuz I'm thinking while I'm doing the introduction, what am I gonna do with the two words? Then once I figure out, okay, octopus and 10. He's got eight tentacles, I'll make him have 10.
I don't know where I'm gonna go with the story until I start talking and then I just let it take over. And if I make a mistake or if I say something crazy, it doesn't matter because it's spontaneous and what matters the most when you're doing the stories is that it's just your voice. That's all that the children want. Your time and your voice. So if you are willing to give up your time and then they can hear your voice, that's everything to them. And they will be extremely forgiving.
Sometimes when I'm telling the story, I'll say, what was that second word again? Cause I wanna make sure they're listening. And whenever I say the word, now my grandchildren will look at each other okay, she got the first one, will she get the second one? And now their goal is to. Give me two words and I won't be able to do a story. That's never going to happen cuz it's just, it is my story.
I got the floor, I can figure something out and so that's, it's just, I don't think I'm unique or special that way. It's just that I've taken the time, I take the time to do that. I think by telling them the stories now that my youngest not the youngest, the second to the youngest grands are eight. I now. I'd give them two words and have them tell me a story. So in the beginning, they might only tell a one sentence story and the other twin would go, that's just, that's not a story.
That was only like one sentence. I said, it's okay. You can develop your skill and you can, one day you'll do a two sentence store, and then one day you'll do a two minute store. And so that's how we work it. So it's just a lot of work.
Absolutely. Beautiful creative process. I was thrilled a bit when I heard that story and somehow I see it developing into a book, the Octopus and the number 10. I was fascinated with that. Let's shift a little bit from that at this point, and in your bio it says that you were in IT for a number of years, so what attracted you to that?
The truthful answer is the money. I had thought I was gonna, I, I thought I would be a doctor when I got outta college and I would go to medical school and I got to my end of my four years and I was basically tired of just being not poor, but just struggling, financially. I mean we, I was on scholarship to school. I did fine, but it was just, I wanted to be able to take a vacation. I wanted to be able to, I. Get my hair cut every other week. Just simple things.
So the recruiter from I B M came on campus. I went to a small liberal arts college. Nobody was talking to him, and the lady called me from the placement office and said, we got this guy here from I B M. Could you come talk to him? Cuz no one's come over yet. So I went over and talked to 'em and I did okay on that interview. They called me up to Minneapolis. I did a couple more and they hired me and that started my, almost 40 year career, if you will, in information technology.
Wow! That's a story within itself. Yeah. How you rose to the occasion. You come from the south side of Chicago, and I'm wondering how living there could have been a challenging experience and additionally, did this storytelling that you developed did you use it as a form of escape or a coping mechanism?
So I would say, when I grew up in Chicago, I'm I grew up in the fifties. The fifties and the early sixties. And I can say that my childhood, growing up in Chicago, in the neighborhood that I lived in was just lovely. We knew all our neighbors, we knew all our friends were on the block. I still see the people who I grew up with, in Chicago. And so Chicago is very different today than it was when I was growing up.
When I was growing up, we would get on our bikes and we would leave home at 10 o'clock in the morning. We might come back for lunch, but then we could just stay out and do whatever we wanted to until the streetlights came on. My mother never worried about us. There were no cell phones. There was nowhere to check 'em where we were going. We knew we had to stay within, a certain, part of the neighborhood. But we pretty much were like independent bicyclists and we went wherever we wanted to go.
So I didn't need any escape growing up because, It was just, when I look back on my young years growing up in Chicago, and I don't know what other people will say about their formative years, but they were some of the best years of my life. I had wonderful teachers, my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my godparents. I was just surrounded by a village that, basically thought I hung the moon and I wouldn't trade growing up in Chicago at that time for anything in the world.
I hear you loud and clear. It must sound like it was a joyful experience growing up there for you. So thanks for sharing that with us. Now, as you may know, SpeakUP! International, aim to educate, to inform and to inspire and there's no question that you're helping us to do that right now. So thank you very much for that. I'm wondering if there are any stories, any other books waiting to be given birth to tell us about them?
I have written two books with Kayla as the main character. The third Kayla book will come out in November and it will be called Me and Santa. Then I'm working on another book. I haven't, my books aren't available on Amazon. That's a whole nother story, but it's because of their size and the fact that their hardback dust cover. They don't lend themselves to being on Amazon. But I wanted to try putting a book on Amazon to see what that's like and to get that experience.
So that book will be a compilation of conversations that I have had with my grandchildren. And I haven't decided on the title yet. The first title I thought I was gonna go with was, when You Die, does God Take Your Cell phone? Because that is a question that one of my grandchildren in fact asked me. Then someone said some people might be turned off by that title. They'll think it's a religious book.
So the other title we've looked at is my granddaughter, one day I was talking to her and she was eight years old, and she was talking about, sh all her life, she wanted to go to Paris. I'm like, you're eight. How you all your life, you wanna go to Paris. So I looked at her, I said, Kayla, when I was your age, and she looked at me and her eyes got huge and she said, Memom, you were eight? It's I just appeared as an old woman, I said, indeed I was. So we're thinking maybe Memom you were eight?
So we haven't decided on. I will go back and forth. I go back and forth with the title. So I did a poll on my Instagram and it turned out half and half. So that didn't help me either. So I don't know. I haven't decided quite yet what that title would be, but that will come out on Amazon at some point this year.
You are a writer, storyteller IT person. Wow. I'm just wondering, do you have any other interests that you lend yourself to?
So that pretty much is about all I can handle. I spend a lot of time with my family, with my grandchildren, with my children, so helping them out. So I do that and the books and just the writing and the whole process of printing and publishing takes a lot of time. And, I still do a lot of things with my friends. So in retirement I do the books and then I just do whatever I really want. And so that's pretty much the only, that's all I have right now.
You mean at this time?
At this time.
At this time. I'm curious, do you have a favorite story or do you have a favorite book?
I get asked that all the time and I say, it's like asking who's your favorite child, but I would say that On Sundays we go to Church is probably my favorite because although it's a fiction book it, it actually did happen. I could sell the book as non-fiction if I wanted to. And so that one is probably my favorite.
I know that writing speeches sometimes can be like writing books for me. I can be walking down the street and this idea hits my head and it's wonderful. I give this entire speech as I'm walking down the street, people are applauding and standing up and ah, and then I get home and I get in front of the computer and I open up Word and I go to write it and the speech is gone forever.
Have you ever found yourself catching these beautiful ideas and somehow or another, They don't get to electronic paper.?
So I, what I try to do is a cell, the cell phone for me has been an amazing tool so that if I get an idea, I just open up notes and I just type it out real quick.
I don't not, I don't type out a full book or anything, but if I have an idea or if I hear a phrase or if I think of a phrase that I want, wanna use, then I, I put it in my phone cuz the last phrase I put in the phone was I was trying to describe a smile and I came up with the word the words to describe the smile for this particular character as the piano keyboard, smile. And so I just type that into my notes real quick so I won't lose it. And then that's what I do in my notes.
And then I go back to the notes and figure out how to piece something together. And I try to keep them separate. So by, so if I'm thinking about a book, a Caleb book, I'll have a Caleb thread. If I'm thinking about a book for twins, I'll have the twin thread and I just pop those notes in there real quick. It's the only way to do it, because I can't remember. All the things that cycle through my head in the course of a day, and I just have to write 'em out. It's like having a calendar.
You have a calendar to keep track of your appointments. I use notes to keep track of my ideas.
Sounds very wise, sounds very smart. Sounds like a backup plan. I will learn from that. Keep my ideas in my notes. When I was growing up, there were not many children's books with illustrations with people that looked like me. I'm not sure if the same applies to when you were growing up, but today there are quite a number of books with people who look like us. Would you wanna talk a little bit about representation in children's books particularly, please?
Sure. I think that when I grew up, the books I learned to read on were basically fun with Dick and Jane and those were the books that, that I, that we read. Every birthday card I got had, blonde haired, blue eyed children on the cover and that was the norm back then. I think. There's a realization now that black people do in fact read and we do in fact read to our children. And now that we are old and wiser or times are changed, we wanted our children to see people who look like them in books.
And that is an awakening that's happening. And that will, hopefully will continue forever. And I think every race, every culture has a right. An entitlement to be able to see themselves in the literature. And the reason I believe that's important is that if children see themselves in the literature that they read, they will read and they will read more and more. The ability to read is a entry level skill almost for life. Once you can walk and talk.
The next thing, you really need to learn how to read. You can learn how to throw a ball if you want to. You can learn how to pitch, but if you can walk, talk, and read. Those are three of the, like the fun to me, the fundamental things you need to be able to do. If you can learn to read and you can learn so many other things, you can go so many places. If you can read, just in the literature, I've been to Rome in the literature.
I've been all over the world reading books to places I may never visit in person, but I have visited through a book. I learned how to cook and do some things by reading, and I don't know. For me reading was, I can remember when I finally figured out how to read. We were in the car one time with my mother and we were driving, I was reading everything, billboard, street signs, anything that came to my, I when we get in Chicago. Cause I was just fascinated with that.
These letters make words and then I can read them and then I know what they're talking about. One time we're riding along and I'm just reading the street names off Indiana and Michigan, Wabash State Street. And all of a sudden my mother said, Alice, We would like to ride in silence for five minutes. I said five. She says, okay, make it 10. Because I just was fascinated with this new found capability that I had, that I thought they had hidden from me, and I just couldn't get enough of reading.
Even today, I still read. Constantly. I just finished a book called black Girls Die Exhausted by Jane Allen. And it was a very nice read. I read it cause I, whenever I travel and I'm on a plane, I'm gonna read a book. And so that's the last book I read. So I think that representation matters in the children's literature, but I also think it matter matters in the other books that we read as adults.
So I read, I don't just read books by black authors or just books of blacks, people as the lead character. But that is the, that's probably 60 or 70% of what I do read for pleasure, and. That's just what I'm gonna do. It's important. Children will do better if they see themselves. Children will do better if they are read to, if you read a child one book a day or from birth to kindergarten, you will have read them almost 2000 books.
And if you can instill in them the love for reading, for language, for story, I, they will definitely do better in school.
Thank you for responding to that question in such a wonderful way. It sounded to me as if you were inclusive in that you said that all children need to see themselves represented in what they read. Thank you so very much.
I was just wondering. As you were talking about the importance of reading, and you've written many books and ones based on Kayla. How have you seen your grandchildren develop in reading and being confident in doing so?
I would say that, my grandchildren range in age now from 28. The older two that was where my technique was not, was pretty raw. I was still working and they weren't with me as much as the younger ones. So with the younger set, the ones that are 15 and younger, I actually see them reading more. For the eight year olds who are just in the second grade, they'll be in the third grade next year I see them. Reading and writing more.
So I got a letter from one of my eight year old twins this week, which who knew? He's thanking me for some things. He's also reminding me of what he wants for his birthday. Yes. But he still wrote a letter, and I could read all the words. I understood what he was saying. I always tell them, don't worry about spelling correctly, just write it how it sounds, and people will know what you mean. And so I see that in him.
And then in my youngest grandson, he's the one who's I guess the last three, they're, they've brought up a lot more with electronics and I am trying to get them to listen to eBooks. I'm not necessarily a fan of eBooks for children cause I really feel like I want them to touch the books and I wanna be able to ask questions and, but if that's the medium that they have, then I'm going to use that medium and I won't like discount that.
But they are, he is definitely interested in words and letters and colors and shapes, but he's not quite two yet. But we got a couple more years to work with him.
The story you told us about reading as your parents were driving reminded me of my son and my niece. She was two years older, so she started to read before he did, and we drove a lot around Canada and through the States, and she would be reading every sign that she saw and he sat there and he was so upset that here's my little cousin. She could read everything and I can't read as yet. And when he did learn to read, the sky opened up for him.
I will never forget that he was so upset because she would read the stop sign and read the street names. So reading is critical is so important, as you said, for children and particularly for our children. So thank you so very much for the way you responded to that question.
Have you received any feedback from any of the parents that have purchased your books for their children?
Absolutely. I get they'll send me pictures, they'll send me videos. I don't post the pictures or the videos with the children in them because I'm very careful about putting on children on any type of social media. Yeah. And, but I will post the parents' comments. I won't e I'll extract them out of the video and I'll just post the comment. I won't cuz I just, I'm not gonna show children and sometimes they send them with the children's faces.
That's a definitely no. I, if you send a picture and you're reading and it's from the back and I just see the back, then back I might would post, but I'm not gonna post anything. But I've gotten comments and I've even got comments from parents who don't have any small children. Especially for, My Name is Kaylan, My Name is Cash. It says they, it makes them think about when their child first realized what their name was and what a special time that was for a parent.
As exciting as it is for the children to figure it out, it's just that exciting for the parent, when you call their name. I've gotten, I don't think anyone has come back and said, oh, It was awful. All the comments had been so supportive and so complimentary of the illustrations of the color of the technique.
And I used three different illustrators so it wasn't all the same illustrator and each of them has a unique style and it has and it, but it was the right style for the book, and I'm just excited that I was able to find great illustrators.
How did you find your illustrators?
So for, My Name is Kayla. A young woman I worked with recommended her cousin. She says my cousin can draw and I was really reluctant to reach out to her first because, everyone thinks that their relative can draw, but can they really? She really could. So that's how I found her. But are happy. I went on a tool online called Upwork. And decided to try to find an illustrator there. You can find all different types of professionals there.
Graphic artists, financial people, you name it as they're on Upwork. And she turned out to be just outstanding cuz she had done illustrations before for children's goals. And then the final one the young man who did cash, his mother and I go to the same lady to get our haircut. And when I was mentioning to her that I needed a new illustrator, she said I have another client whose son is an artist and that's how I got him.
So it was all nothing scientific per se about it, but they were, they all clicked with me and they clicked with how I wanted the stories illustrated. I wish I had a more scientific way that I could say that I did that, but I don't
No, it's organic enough.
I don't think that type of thing has to be scientific. Okay. See, because there's a lot of emotional output that's going on as you're delivering your content. There's a whole lot of other stuff that's going in there, so I wouldn't call it scientific. Have you, as a storyteller found other avenues to use it? Maybe verbally not using your skill through writing.
So I will do stories for children's events, so I will. If someone's having a birthday party and they ask me could I come tell some stories, I will do that. I tend to just do that with friends or friends of friends because, it could take up a lot of time, just getting to the place where they're having a party. And then I went to one party and they wanted me to do two or three stories, and so I got two words from two or three of the children, but there were 12 children, so the other.
Nine. Wanted to gimme two words as well. So I was telling stories for quite a while, but I, so I will do that and I'll, whenever I do a book signing, if they, sometimes I'll let a couple people give me two words and I'll tell a story, but I have to limit it because I've been a place where I've done 20 stories and it's a lot of mental hoops to go through to do all those stories, but I absolutely, I love to tell them. When all of the kids want one, I'm never gonna say no. Or some.
Now what I do sometimes is I have them I have the host, I send her cards that say, one first word, second word, and I take those just from the parent or the child. That's whose birthday it is. I'll take those and then I'll just tell those stories and then gotta be enough.
Lots of storytelling, lots of writing. Now, before we bring this session to a close is there anything that you wanted to tell our audience that we haven't asked you?
I guess I would just, other than, buy my books, my, my main message to them would be to take the time. Sit down, turn off your phone, and let your children just sit in the joy of hearing your voice, either telling them a story or reading them a book. It will provide a memory for them that will last a lifetime, and it is probably the most, one of the most unselfish things you can do is just be still with your children.
That is something that I think most parents can do, and it doesn't matter what their background culture happens to be. I think parents this day and age are so busy working, trying to provide for their family, that's a good thing. But the priceless thing that any parent can do for their children is to sit down and just listen and allow the children to hear their parents' voice. I don't know how many funerals I've been to, not to bring this to a downer.
But that's sometimes, that's the one thing that they, the person that's lost someone, the person that's still alive, they remember that voice, the way they sound. I can still hear my mother talking to me, and so it is really important. I think that families come together, share stories. Play this game that you play, which is, give me two words and I'll whip up a paragraph or two to entertain you, I think is wonderful!
As a Toastmaster you have given me an idea to use when I go to my Toastmaster meetings, we do something called Table Topics. So this will be a fantastic place to give someone, two words and then they have to come up with a paragraph or two, creating some type of sentence, some type of story. I think it's amazing.
Oh, thank you. I think, I think the two word stories are a big hit because of that, and they're spontaneous, so you don't get to know the words ahead of time. You don't get to prepare. You have to really wing it, and it's the winging of it that is really the most fun with the kids. It's just, you know what I do though?
Well, Ms. Allison Woods. Author, storyteller, mother, grandmother, former IT professional. On behalf of SpeakUP! International, we extend a hearty thank you to you. For gracing us with your presence and for being the proverbial storyteller as you told us your story. I certainly appreciate that and I know that our audience will enjoy it immensely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you so much. It was my pleasure!
Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International. To contact our guest Marie T. Djeugo and request her wellness services. She offers to the community. Please submit your request to info@speakuppodcast.ca. If you would like to be interviewed by us, SpeakUP! International. Please drop us a message containing your name, company, name the service you provide to your community and email address to info@speakuppodcast.ca. You can reach us and using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
To connect to our podcast use Spotify or your favorite podcast platform and search for SpeakUP! International. You can also find our podcast using the web address, www.speakuppodcast.ca. Our logo has the woman with our finger pointing up mouth open. Speaking UP! At SpeakUP! International we aim to inspire, to inform and to educate.