Hello, Goodbye...

Recently Brantley Senn helped me rebuild my website.  Everything, including the blog, is now located here.  

October Status Check

Deirdre Sugiuchi with Killick Hinds

I co-curate the New Town Revue, an Athens, GA music and literature series, which is hosted at Athens' Avid Bookshop. Friday, October 11, was sublime.

I volunteered at the Great ARTdoors, a fundraiser for the Hambidge Foundation. They have hosted me for three different residencies; it's one of my favorite spaces on earth. I led a tour of Didi Dunphy's studio. There were so many exciting things to discuss- she made a swing that was set up in the garden. This video was linked to an embroidered QR scan.  This punch list was drawn on her studio wall, things she did every single day at Hambidge. I love the way she reminds us all  to integrate play.  

I began my third workshop with Sabrina Orah Mark. For our first assignment, she asked us to select a piece of work we wished we had written.  I chose Steve Almond's essay about Kurt Vonnegut, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt.  You can read the first part here.

Brantley Senn has been rebuilding my website. Heads up- this blog will soon migrate to wordpress.  The whole site will be much more user-friendly. Soon we will debut the design.  

And all of this means so much more to me because this weekend marked the 24th anniversary of my entry into the teen treatment industry.  My gateway to Escuela Caribe began at a place in Olive Branch, MS, then known as Parkwood Behavioral Health Services. I wish I could go back then and show myself how much I adore my life now.

Lost in the Letters, Elf Power, & a User's Guide to Unreformed

I read for Atlanta’s Lost in the Letters this weekend. Listened to some fab writers (Jamie Iredell is hilarious!). Really enjoyed meeting LIL curator Scott Daughtridge. Am looking forward to future collaborations- he's doing much to build the regional lit scene, like this festival in November (to be linked soon) which features some of my heroes- Roxane Gay, Jericho Brown, Mary Miller, and more. Stoked!

I read two Unreformed excerpts*- Certificate of Affection (you had to have a commitment ceremony to have a relationship at Escuela Caribe- which was then horrifying but now is funny- provided you yourself didn't experience it) and First Gulf War, which delves into some of the apocalyptic dogma.  My husband, who is a musician (fave album- Ham 1: The Captain’s Table), helped me prep. When I came to the part where I referenced this verse in First Gulf War, he stopped me. “Wait, so that’s why you make jokes about riding the beast (when referring to difficult situations/people)?" “Totes, babe!”

Saturday night we walked down to the World Famous for Elf Power- a band we LOVE to see live, especially in this current iteration.** Former collaborators Bryan Poole and Jamie Huggins have reunited with Andrew Rieger and Laura Carter, and Peter Alvanos (who plays in our off/on project, High Ranker) is on drums. They closed with one of their oldest songs, Down to the Drugstore, which is about being all messed up in high school. Adored!

And after the show Andrew and I were talking about how much I enjoyed their set. When I watch them play they remind me of how my life could have been- had the adults in our town not shipped so many of us off to teen mistreatment facilities (and my parents not been religious control freaks) but instead helped us find some sort of creative outlet. But that's why I love how my Athens' friends were raised in Greenwood, SC, Ruston, LA, Charleston, Orlando, etc., because they have helped me discover how to be. And even better, that's how the kids in my town (especially my son) are being raised now.

One last thing- a reader (<3) emailed and asked for excerpts from Unreformed. Danzas Con Lobos en Santiago was published in Marco Polo. This Rumpus interview with Craig Zobel begins with a scene from Escuela Caribe. My Guernica interview with Julia Scheeres is essentially a comparison and contrast between Escuela Caribe and Jonestown. And the following posts from this blog include research or explore various topics pertaining to Escuela Caribe/ Caribe Vista/ Caribbean Mountain Academy. Enjoy!

• More from that Guernica Interview with Julia Scheeres
• Everyone Carried the Cross at Escuela Caribe
• Stockholm Syndrome Is for Real
• Caribbean Mountain Academy in Need of Reform
• Lifeline Youth and Family Services Under Scrutiny Stateside
• Escuela Caribe/ Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Crosswinds Updates
• Why NHYM Alumni Are Concerned About Crosswinds
• Petition to End Abuse of Children at Crosswinds
• New Horizons Youth Ministries Expelled from Haiti in 1974
• Abusive Tactics at Escuela Caribe Featured in 1979 Congressional Report
• Romney Linked to Abuse at For-Profit Teen Treatment Facilities
• 1988 Escuela Caribe Promotional Video
• About Unreformed
• For years, I wrote as Deirdre Sayre.  There is so much more on this blog.

*My buddy Scott M. and I were both super stoked that Eno's Needle in the Camel's Eye was my entry music to walk onstage, a song which (ZOMG- coincidence!) Elf Power also covers.

**Not that we haven't loved the other combos- Eric Harris and Derek Almstead from the In a Cave era- wow!

September- So Much!

This past month has whirled by...because this lady has been busy.

I returned to my job as a school librarian. I love it, though it keeps me from writing all day.  I still wrote almost every day. So close!

I re-read Jeff Jackson's Mira Corpora.  We are currently collaborating on an interview. Fun!

I am prepping to read for Atlanta's Lost in the Letters on Sunday, September 22.  Stoked!

I helped curate and promote the September edition of the New Town Revue at Athens' Avid Bookshop.  Thibault Raoult, Ari Lieberman, and Kara Kildare performed. Was a blast!

My husband spoke at Rabbit Box about our friend, Vic Chesnutt. <3...

On Labor Day I drove out to the near country for my friend's birthday. We set off fire balloons, flaming red beacons that drifted across the night sky.  It's a memory that will stick forever, but I love Ray Bradbury's description best.  

Down the Rabbit Hole Audio- Delta Edition

I was one of Rabbit Box's storytellers in July.  I spoke about discovering the unspoken history of racism in my home region, the Mississippi Delta, which is where my father's family lived for at least seven generations.  Audio is posted here.

Learning to Fly- July Recap

Ever since I left the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, I've spent almost every free moment in my studio, because, while at Tin House, I figured out where Unreformed stops and starts.* I owe this revelation in part to my mentor, Jodi Angel, who read and critiqued the whole hot mess of my manuscript, Steve Almond, the leader of our “Gimme Fiction" workshop (a.k.a. The Almond Joys),** as well as the crew of writers with whom I studied.  You all ROCK!

On this past Friday, my last true Friday of the summer, my friend Bart Lemahieu recorded me reading Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot, a piece that has helped me come to grips with accepting loss in my life.  Amazing! Afterwards, as the sun set, we listened to the cicadas.  Audio will be posted when we get it right.

During the past few weeks I also began conversations with Escuela Caribe alumni who came after me- and all I can say is- Crosswinds/ Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Escuela Caribe/ Caribe Vista- despite your denials- I KNOW YOU ARE THE SAME PLACE. You kept the same people on as staff.  You were mentored by former abusers.  Many of the procedures remain the same- the only major change seems to be the name (and we have seen that before!).*** And I will address that matter soon- in another post- but now I am writing, writing, writing...

And to all of you who read and engage and comment here- know that I appreciate you.  And I cherish your assistance in helping me expose the abuses of Caribbean Mountain Academy/ Escuela Caribe. Thank you so for being... <3 <3 <3...

*This is huge- I was meandering way over on both ends.

** Album by the band Spoon. My mental soundtrack in Portland. I write nonfiction, but studied fiction this workshop to learn more about craft. Love learning outside the box.

***Newsflash- Crosswinds/ CMA/ EC- in regards to your blog post: writing is NOT a lucrative career.  Most writers have jobs to support their passion. And understand- I am extremely passionate about ensuring that other kids are not abused. 

Down the Rabbit Hole- Mississippi Delta Edition

I’ve been prepping for Rabbit Box Storytelling at the Melting Point tomorrow night- I have eight minutes to tell about a rabbit hole I went down.  The decision is difficult- ever since I was a kid I’ve loved to immerse myself in history- I’m still obsessed with the Holocaust.  Forced exercise, Arbeit Macht Frei, Eichmann "only following orders”- so many parallels to Escuela Caribe in my teens.

However, I decided to focus on 2010’s summer obsession- when I began exploring the untold histories of Greenwood, Mississippi, my hometown. I'd begun writing about this amazing teacher, Mrs. C., who taught me in 9th grade- I adored her- because she was one of the few adults who told us the truth about where we lived. How Emmett Till was lynched in our county.  And how (when I was in high school) Medgar Evers’ murderer still walked the streets and bragged, and how when Kennedy was assassinated  people in my town celebrated. Take note: that scene in the Help (which I only saw because it was filmed in my friends’ houses in Greenwood) where all the white people were crying over Kennedy’s murder, was a white wash.

In 2010, I began writing about the Delta, and, because I’m obsessive, discovered so many things I am not going to have time to tell.  How for a brief period, my hometown was a civil rights hotbed- Medgar Evers, Dick Gregory, Bob Moses, Alice Walker, Harry Belafonte, James Bevel, Sam Block and so many others sacrificed so much to make Greenwood a better place.  Dr. King came twice. Stokely Carmichael was provoked into delivering the black Power speech in my town.  There was so much brutality, so many murders- it sickened me- but also beauty- that part in Don’t Look Back where Dylan is playing in the cotton field, it happened right near where I grew up.

But what I am focusing on is how white people behaved in Greenwood, and the segregationist literature, particularly 1957’s Manual for Southerners, which was printed in my hometown.  Because it’s important for people to understand how hate speech programmed generations of Southerners, of Americans, to be racist, and also that the painful history I unearthed was not just from Greenwood, but from Athens, and all over the world. It's important  to explore unwritten histories, no matter how painful- because knowledge is power- it's the only way to create a better world.

More from that Guernica Interview with Julia Scheeres

 I remember it was 1978 and I saw this magazine cover on our dining room table.  And there were bodies lying on the ground and I remember asking my mom what is that? She didn't answer my question, just flipped the cover over, said something about a bad thing happening. And I remember I kept hearing this name on the news "Jonestown" and for a while Jonestown was the news- it was inescapable- and I know I realized lots of people- including children- died- and as a kid, that resonated. I thought about it constantly. So I guess you could say I've been a Jonestown obsessive since I was four. 

I remember I didn't understand how parents could kill their children. I remember I didn't understand how so many people could kill themselves. And until I read Julia's Jonestown book, A Thousand Lives, which we discussed in the Guernica interview, I didn't understand that most people there didn't just "drink the Kool-Aid"- many died after months of being broken down- many were violently coerced.  She talks about it in our Guernica interview, and other things- how Jim Jones staged traumatic events to bond with his congregation, and how having been at Escuela Caribe (our reform school, where her memoir Jesus Land is set) helped her and Jonestown survivors bond. Her take (again in the interview) on how Jim Jones fits in culturally is not to be missed.  As is the witness she bears to racism in America- which resounded differently with her than with most whites- her adopted brother David was black. 

I loved our entire conversation, but obviously the Escuela Caribe parts hit the closest home. Ever since she and I spoke, and then I transcribed it and thought about it, I've felt like I understand so much more about myself, about so many survivors.  Some of my favorite parts are after the jump....Or read the entire interview at Guernica.

Interview With Julia Scheeres in Guernica Magazine

Recently I interviewed Julia Scheeres.  She wrote Jesus Land, a memoir about our reform school, Escuela Caribe, and A Thousand Lives: the Untold Story of Jonestown.  

One of my favorite aspects of the Jonestown book is how Scheeres captured the day to day tyranny of life under Jim Jones' rule.   I was intrigued to discuss how living in captivity at Escuela Caribe helped inform her Jonestown work, but I came to understand so much more not only about Jonestown, and racism, and religion, but also about myself.  Like why I shut down emotionally. And why one of my integral values as an adult is living in an open-minded community. But this is just why I'm interested personally.  There's so much more to be gleaned (such as how Jones used deceptions like the King Alfred plan and staged shootings to trick people into following him, his theory of revolutionary suicide, or details of racism in the heartland) in Guernica Magazine. 

2013 Hambidge Residency Recap

Arrived home yesterday from my third residency at the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts.  It's located in the foothills of the Appalachians- the birds would sing and the sun stream green through dense trees and I'd write- hiking the trails or running or reading* whenever I got stuck.

The conversations and work shared by my fellows were hugely impactful.  I devoured the upcoming dystopian adventure, Mira Corpora of playwright, jazz writer and novelist Jeff Jackson- such tight prose!!!  Susannah Felts' This will Go Down on Your Permanent Record inspired me to delve much more deeply about being a music-obsessed teen in the South- and captures the sticky dynamics between teen girls.  I adored visual artist Jessica Caldas' work in progress on connections (which will premiere at an October show in Atlanta- have to go), ditto for the compositions of Charles Zoll. 

My last night we watched Josh Zeman's trailer for Finding 52: the Search for the Loneliest Whale about a whale whose voice can be heard by no other due to frequency- but it’s also about loneliness and lack of connection in this modern world. Part of my heart is still stuck in my throat.  Jeff and Josh also were collaborating on a screenplay about sentient plants turned evil- we three shared an obsession with cults- can't wait to see what they've wrought. Also am very excited about Barbara Blatner's poetry and her upcoming play about race and the South in 1963. We had great discussions- my other project, Delta Drive, taps a similar vein.  Excited to see how Ginger Krebs' performance art is impacted by Hambidge, and can't wait to read the work of Nova Ren Suma, who arrived right before I left. 

It might sound like all play but I worked hard for ten days - churning out eight chapters, plus drafted notes for three more- under the advisement of my Tin House wolf pack (you know who you are)- it was the last original material I needed for Unreformed. Plan now is to finish the beginning- then ready to excise the entire draft with a scalpel- (see above admiration for tight prose).

*Inheiritance (Chang), Financial Lives of Poets (Walters), Brain on Fire, Center Cannot Hold (Saks), American Dream Machine (Specktor), Dark Side (Mayer), Chain of Command (Hersh), Mira Corpora (Jackson), This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record (Felts)

2013 Hambidge Residency

I'm leaving for a residency at the Hambidge Center for the Arts- one of my favorite places on the planet. Savannah sugar heiress turned bohemian Mary Hambidge established this artists retreat in the foothills of the Appalachians in the 1950's- it's an amazing place.  This will be my third visit.

I completed this interview for Hambidge in July 2012.

·   What are you writing?

I am writing Unreformed, my teenage captivity narrative, which is set in the Dominican Republic at the evangelical Christian reform school, Escuela Caribe, (also the setting of Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres).

·          

·  What inspired you to write your most recent work?

  After my son was born, an event that coincided with the War on Terror and abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, I returned to writing. (They read everything I wrote in reform school- I didn't write anything personal for years). The Iraq War and 9/11 triggered many repressed memories. I had to make sense of not only what happened to my me and my friends at Escuela Caribe, but to understand how and why individuals can be coerced into hurting others.  I also had to face my worst memories in order to be a healthy parent. 

·   

    How did you come up with the title? 

  Writing helped me reform the individual I was before I entered reform school.

·  

    What books or people influenced your writing? 

  The Lucifer Effect by Phillip Zimbardo, Help at Any Cost:  How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids by Maia Szalavitz, Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres, The Ticking Is the Bomb by Nick Flynn, The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott, The Road to Whatever by Elliott Currie, To Be Human (essay) by Anouar Benmalek, the poetry of Langston Hughes and T.S. Eliot, the music of Vic Chesnutt, particularly North Star Deserter…and so much more….

·   How did you research your book?  

  I transcribed journals and diaries from the time period about which I am writing, read the above books, and reflected upon them, connecting them to my experiences.  I have interviewed people I went to school with.

·  Did you base any of your characters on real people? 

  Everything I have written is based on actual events and people.

·         

  Do you have any other books planned in the future? 

  I’d love to write a biography of my friend and neighbor Vic Chesnutt. I would like to write about growing up in the Mississippi Delta, where my family lived for seven generations.  

·   Which of your stories or characters are your favorite? Do you dislike any of them? 

  I had a friend I call Crystal.  She wasn’t raised religious.  She constantly challenged my acceptance of dogma.  I am trying to learn to love all my characters, even those who did me harm.

·       

     What advice can you give to young writers who want to publish their books? 

  Even if you have a full-time job, aim to write every day (I’m a school librarian).  Revise. Revise. Revise.  If you are writing memoir, when you begin, focus on scenes/ memories, as opposed to a chronological structure. Everything else will fall into place.(I learned this the hard way).

How did you hear about Hambidge?  

I wanted to attend a residency in the South.  Hambidge’s location, an hour and a half from my front door, is ideal.

·        

  What made you decide to come?  

  Initially I came because of its proximity to Athens.  I returned because it truly is an amazing place.  It’s beautiful, the staff is amazing, the residents are all creating inspirational art.

·         

  How has the experience affected you or your work? 

  Uninterrupted time for reflection cannot be overestimated.  I love roaming the trails in between writing bouts.

·   What do you do when you’re not writing?

  Spending time with my family, taking my dog on runs or dancing to zumba with my girlfriends, reading, rocking out to one of Athens’ 500+ bands.

·  Do you have any pets? 

  A Borador I adopted on my last Hambidge visit, named Mary Hambidge.

·  Is there a specific place in the house (or out of the house) that you like to write?

  My husband restored a ‘58 Mercury teardrop trailer….it’s my backyard studio.

·         

  If you could go anywhere in the whole world, either for a vacation or to live there, where would you go? 

  The Dominican Republic

·         

  What book are you reading right now?

  I just finished Anna Jean Mayhew’s a Dry Grass in August and Erin Tocknell’s Confederate Streets.  Both were written by Hambidge residents---great reads!  I also am reading the Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick, Come On All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder, and re-reading (Not That You Asked) by Steve Almond.

Six years ago today...

Six years ago today, Vic Chesnutt played my birthday celebration. Chris Sugiuchi and Eric Harris backed him.  They set up on the skateboard ramp which used to be in our backyard.  

I love so many things- Vic's guitar, which said "Chesnutt." The break where he throws his head back and howls in Cobbham Blues.  My favorite moment's last, when he looks toward the camera... it's right where I was sitting by Ben beneath the walnut.  Vic and my eyes met briefly. Even now, watching, I get chills.

Stockholm Syndrome Is for Real (for all NHYM Survivors...and anyone who has triumphed over trauma)

I was fifteen.
We were building the Director's house.
Our housefather would punish us if we didn't move
 faster, faster, faster...

What I need to tell you now is about Stockholm Syndrome and how it impacted me.

I need to tell you because for the past eight years I have been working on my book about the evangelical reform school Escuela Caribe. I have been vocal in speaking out against Escuela Caribe, both here and in an online private group for survivors of New Horizons Youth Ministries.  I need to tell you because I wasn't always like this, concrete that what happened to us was wrong.  I need for you to know that I had a (short) period where I adopted the party line and thought the program saved me, followed by years of ambivalency, all this before the outright surety I have advocated for the past several years ...

I need to tell you because I keep getting responses to this one post I wrote last summer.  And because of that post I need to tell you again- I wasn't always like this- concrete that what happened to us was wrong- because I too had Stockholm Syndrome, that phenomena where survivors of captivity relationships defend those who abused them.  

The last time I experienced an extreme version of Stockholm Syndrome was in 2006.  It was after Julia Scheeres' Jesus Land had been released (thank you, Julia for confirming I was not alone), when I (accompanied by the ever-amazing esposo) visited the Dominican Republic.  I had to see with my own eyes whether Escuela Caribe was abusive.

I went back to the campus outside Jarabacoa. It is beautiful-nestled high in these emerald mountains, the Cordillera Septrional. I haven't hiked the pine forests at the top of the mountain in over twenty years but it's still my safe place.

I was met at the gate (still guarded by locals- this time they had guns) by A. B.S. ( a staff member who has been affiliated since the eighties.) She took me on a tour of the school.

It was all prepped just like when we had visitors back in the early nineties (my time)- everyone smiling- no one being yelled at- no one receiving exercises- no one in the director's office being slammed. Certainly no one doing forced labor- digging a garbage pit, macheteing, moving rocks. After the tour, A and I sat alone in a new (to me) gazebo (which I recognized as being built by student labor- nice craftsmanship, my friends).  She brought out photo albums- she had all these pictures I didn't even know existed (there is one of me by the trash pit, back when I was on zero that I would love to own--I can't remember ever looking that young). 

As we talked, she reminded me of all the good memories- Bacardi Beach and whale-watching in Samana, the aquarium and Tropi-Burger in Santo Domingo, eating helados in Santiago’s park- things I had forgotten were amazing- things that looked fun but that I could remember turned ugly, once the camera was off.  And for a little while I was overwhelmed with love. I smiled and laughed mechanically all the while thinking "Is speaking out wrong?" and other variations of "Do I dare disturb the universe?"...We smiled and laughed and looked into each other's eyes and I was so overwhelmed with love that I almost caved and agreed that “Yes, you worked miracles.” 

I almost caved until I pushed back. Because we were looking at pictures back when my friends and I were young and beautiful---but then the rational part of my mind remembered how we all have struggled as adults and I had to fight those Southern girl/ Christian submissive repressions against speaking out- I had to question the system.  I asked her "why did we had to have zero level?" "Why did students have to broken in order to be fixed?"  Because do not mistake me- that is Escuela Caribe's (and most teen treatment centers) philosophy- that students HAVE to be BROKEN through demeaning loss of all freedom (to stand, to sit, to eat, to use the restroom without being watched, etc.) in order to enact change. For some people, this "change" has devastated their life. I told her that for me to believe that they were doing no harm they had to abolish the level system.  

And A. was startled. Her hazel eyes widened.  The smile dropped.  "But students have to be broken," she insisted "You have to have zero level.” 

And that's when the rational part of my mind took over, and I began more pointedly (quelling that Southern female, Southern female- never say what you really think) pushing back.  "Oh yea this person (you are showing me) has an eating disorder.  That one (and that one, and that one) is a drug addict.  They found that boy’s body in the desert...his corpse was burned."

That boy, M, haunts me. He had the face of a choirboy- and oh! the voice.  Large blue eyes.  Brown curls.  After his parents’ divorce he was sent to Escuela Caribe- not once but twice.  He’d come in young---I want to say twelve---I guess they convinced the family when he came back to the States the first time and acted out (because that's what PTSD does to you) that the second time would be the charm. 

I heard they identified his body with dental records. I could be wrong. Whatever happened was gruesome and undeniably in part connected to his trauma. Part of my mission is to pay you tribute, my friend. I hope you have found peace.

So I am telling you all of this to say that yes, I comprehend that people can feel affection for people for staff at my reform school, Escuela Caribe.  And I am telling you that even though face to face I spoke up, that later, when I went back to my hotel, I was still conflicted.  Somewhere (I WILL find it) I have this notebook where in BIG BLOCK LETTERS I wrote (like Mulder) I WANT TO BELIEVE.  Because OH I wanted to. I wanted to believe that what they were doing wasn't wrong.  I wanted to believe that in my silence I had not been complicit in allowing two more decades of student abuse.  I wanted to believe because that's what bonding under trauma does to you.  You have all these intense emotions and love for the one who hurt you and it is super hard to break.

Craig Lieske

Last Friday the extraordinary Craig Lieske-musician, writer, innovator- suddenly passed.  Several of us composed tributes to him for Flagpole. This was mine:

Craig Lieske and I became friends four years ago. We were at the 40 Watt, the Truckers were playing and I was raw with grief over a friend’s sudden death. Everyone knew—Flagpole had recently printed my eulogy. I remember sometime that night, Craig found me alone by the side of the stage. I was probably crying.  That’s how I picture myself that night, brown eyes streaming tears. But what I remember now was how vulnerable Craig looked as he pulled me aside, telling me he knew how it hurt to lose someone you’d thought you’d be close to the rest of your days. He’d been devastated several years before, back when he’d lost his wife. For the longest time, he told me, he felt he’d never get past her death. He told me how the grief eased, but that it took years.

I remember that night was the first I’d felt good since my friend died, that night, the one I first really talked with Craig. And it wasn’t the whole night, just the five or so minutes it took the Truckers to blast out "Puttin’ People on the Moon."  I remember as they played how I thought of Craig’s words, how he said the desolation would eventually pass. I remember wanting the Truckers to never finish singing that song.

But what I now like best remembering is that that evening was the first that Craig and I connected, and that every time afterwards I was stoked to see Craig.  I liked seeing his bright smile lighting the 40 Watt’s shadows, liked how he’d surprise my husband Chris and I on the sidewalk outside the club. I like remembering the way his white hair shone in the marquee’s glow. I like remembering how he was such a good listener, blue eyes watching intently, asking pertinent questions in that gravelly voice. I know I am not the only one who liked how you could be in a crowd, but he could make you feel like you were the only person there.

Craig was at my other favorite haunt, Avid Bookshop, one of the last times we had a real conversation, the place where he now (then?) worked in-between tours. Velena and I spotted him through the window—he waved us in. The thing I remember best about that night is that Craig was so happy. “I thought I’d had my chance,” he told us, but he’d found a second one with Melinda—together, the two had constructed a beautiful life. He told us how excited he was to be making music, with his own project, with others. How he was looking forward to embarking with the Truckers on their upcoming tour. He told us how he loved working at Avid, how he was writing regularly, how recently he’d even sent to publishers a finished manuscript.

Like many, I thought I’d have years to know Craig Lieske like I wanted to. I’ll always regret never being able to discuss his book. But the one consolation—and I’m remembering that conversation way back, that night when Patterson sang about Mary Alice’s cancer, back when Craig and I first connected—is that Craig went out happy, heartbreaking as it is for the rest of us to live with the news.

-Deirdre Sugiuchi

Caribbean Mountain Academy in Need of Reform

 This summer, I signed a petition addressed to Crosswinds/ Lifeline Youth and Family Services CEO Mark Terrell.  Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres wrote the petition after requesting input from various survivors of New Horizons Youth Ministries, including myself. 

Talking Community at Athica, October 10

This Wednesday, October 10, Talking Community: An Evening of Poetry, Storytelling, & Song takes place at Athica. Alan Flurry, Janet Geddis, Marc Tissenbaum, Beth Hall Thrasher and I will be reading. Star Room Boys frontman Dave Marr will play some songs.  This event is in conjunction with their current exhibition, Center, which "explores current ideas of community and place that are ever-present in contemporary art today."  The image above is from a painting by Jennifer Hartley, currently featured in the show.

Southern Women Writers Conference

I’m headed to the Southern Women Writers Conference at Berry College.  Lots of great speakers: Isabel Wilkerson (author of Warmth of Other Suns, my favorite history ever), rocker and writer Marshall Chapman, poet Stacey Lynn Brown (love Cradle Song), A Dry Grass in August’s Anna Jean Mayhew and so many more...

Excited to attend a creative nonfiction workshop with Melissa Delbridge (just finished Family Bible last night). Dorothy Allison knocked my socks off twice earlier this summer at the Tin House Writer’s Workshop---can't wait to hear her keynote address.

On Friday morning, poet Caroline Young, a fellow Athenian, creative nonfiction writer Joy Wilson-Young and I will be reading in a symposium called Recovering from Endings and Troubled Histories.  I’ll be reading from Delta Drive, a story set in Greenwood, MS, my hometown.  

Escuela Caribe and Crosswinds/ Caribbean Mountain Academy Updates

This past Wednesday, Kidnapped for Christ filmmaker Kate Logan, Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres, journalist Kathryn Joyce (who wrote the Roloff/Hepzibah House expose for Mother Jones), and others appeared on the Ann Walker Show (September 12 edition).  They discussed the history of New Horizons Youth Ministries and similar fundamentalist reform schools, their abuses, the lack of regulation of such programs, and the stigma that hampers survivor allegations of abuse from being taken seriously.  
Joyce noted that many of the female survivors of the Roloff programs often "ricochet into addiction" in order to deal with the trauma.  Scheeres provided anecdotes from discussion between many NHYM alumni, who acknowledge struggling with failed relationships and/or addiction.  A high percentage of us have died early or committed suicide, which, whenever I force myself to remember, always reminds me of that Jim Carroll song, People Who Died.
Walker briefly noted the connections of the Romneys (George and Mitt) to the troubled teen industry.  Mitt Romney has received financial backing from numerous Utah troubled teen programs.* His father, George Romney, was a supporter of the Floyd Starr Commonwealth Home.  Pastor Gordon Blossom, who founded Escuela Caribe, the school where myself, Scheeres, and hundreds of other alumni were abused, was a Floyd graduate . EC alumni from the seventies have told me stories of how Blossom would tell them that even though they were being beaten and locked up in the Quiet Room, etc., they didn't have it bad---Blossom's hands were permanently deformed from having them beaten by a leather belt at Floyd.
What constitutes abuse is all context I suppose. Which leads me into update two. 
Mark Terrell, CEO of Crosswinds/ Caribbean Mountain Academy, the organization that purchased New Horizons Youth Ministries, recently held a webinar where we alumni were allowed to send in questions.  Ever awesome alum Tim S. compiled a list. 
We appreciate Crosswinds holding a forum to answer our questions.  We appreciate that they understand that our mission is to help them help kids.  We don't want kids to be damaged the way we were by Escuela Caribe, which is why we are so focused on the CMA campus.
However, we are troubled by their decision to continue to employ former Escuela Caribe staff. At least five of the eight staff employed by Crosswinds are former Escuela Caribe employees.  Many were there in 2006 when Kate Logan filmed the original footage for Kidnapped for Christ, when (among other abuses) teenagers were receiving swats and were being sent to the Quiet Room. They were also anti-gay.
I visited the same year (separately)- I met a girl who suffered from an anxiety disorder (before she went to the program), who was "on silence" to everyone but staff, who was given swats frequently.  Her parents were paying $6000/month for this "treatment."  (They pulled her- but not before they spent their retirement trying to help their daughter).
Many alumni and I find the presence of these former individuals as current staff members unacceptable. We believe that by witnessing abusive behavior over a period of years, their norm for what entails abusive behavior is WAY out of whack...they have mental blinders to what would actually be abuse.  Even if these individuals did not commit abuse, through their silence they were complicit in the abuse of numerous children, and therefore are not trustworthy to counsel the teens who are currently there.
Understand, I offer this opinion with utmost respect.  Like many of my fellow alumni, I appreciate the strides Crosswinds currently is taking to improve their program.

*Robert Lichfield, Mitt Romney's co-chair for fundraising in Utah, founded the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs, a coalition of twenty plus programs wracked with allegations of extreme physical and sexual abuse---interestingly, Lichfield was employed by Provo Canyon [a WWASP school] around the same time as the 1979 Congressional Hearings into the Abuse and Neglect of Children in Institutions; Escuela Caribe was also cited in the same report.