Episode #152: Effecting Change!
Thank you for listening and following along for another great episode of The Book Friends Forever! Grace and Alvina talk about how to effect change, and whether it's better to try to effect change from inside or outside of an organization.
How have you been?
Grace has been busy with virtual school visits and realizing how tired they make her feel just like an in-person school visits. Sadly, they are dealing with another sick chicken in their family. Alvina ran the Brooklyn half-marathon! She also attended the in-person book launch for Emily X.R. Pan’s, An Arrow to the Moon at Books of Wonder.
Effecting Change!
How would one go about effecting change? Is it better to do so from the inside or the outside of an organization? We are used to goal setting to make changes within ourselves, but what about making bigger changes?
Grace talks about her RISD workshop coming up and how she suggested doing it on something to effect change. For example, such as how to approach stereotypes when illustrating. (Inspired by the BFF”s interview with Sarah Park Dahlen last week.) Alvina mentions how We Need Diverse Books inspired change. It is important to make sure everyone understands the problem and to keeps the conversations going! It can come from both inside and outside the organization.
Social media, social pressure, shame, and also cancel culture have all played a big role in getting changes to occur. Alvina mentions how she helped get all gender bathrooms in her office. Although it was not her voice alone, she was sure that she helped by writing to the CEO and being persistent about asking for this change. Grace talks about her Tikki Tikki Timbo blog post and wonders if that was smart to do or not? Did it change anyone? Also she mentions the drama at the Plum Creek Literary Festival. Will this effect change?
Fortune Cookie Segment: Favorite Poems
Alvina’s favorite poem: “I Carry Your Heart With Me ( I Carry It In)” by E. E. Cummings:
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
Grace’s favorite poem: “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver:
You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
Gratefuls:
Alvina is grateful for reality TV shows and the one they are watching now called “The Ultimatum.”!
Grace is grateful for the week she has alone to work while her husband and her daughter go to Montreal. She is grateful that her husband knows that is what she needs. It is a gift for her!
Thank You!
*If you’re a patron, don’t forget to check out this week’s Random Questions feed! Authors Molly Idle and Grace Lin answer the random question: What color do you think has the most misleading name and what do you think it should be renamed to? Click here to listen! If you’re not a patron already, join today!
Thank you for tuning in! Thank you to Hachette Audio, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, and Alex at Pacyworks Studio for producing and editing this podcast. Be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about us. (Use the hashtag #bookfriendsforever.)
You can find Alvina @Planetalvina on Twitter and TikTok and @Alvinaling on Instagram
You can find Grace @Pacylin on Twitter and Instagram and @gracelinauthor on TikTok and @authorgracelin on Facebook
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