trevordayschool

Interviewing Trevor's Visiting Authors Interviewing Trevor's Visiting Authors by Jason Tarbath by Jason Tarbath I prepare for each interview I prepare for each interview convinced that every author who has visited Trevor's Upper School has been interviewed by conversationalists who are infinitely more astute and cultured than I. Since my first interview with Jamaica Kincaid in 2011 to my most recent one with Jason Reynolds this past March, the fear that I am not quite worthy—but working really hard to be such—is always in dramatic tension with the fact that I am living a dream that many English teachers have, but rarely fulfill. I place great faith in the belief that my rigorous planning and reasonably affable personality will go some way to getting me through any interview, and I overcome my nervousness by taking inspiration from the intellectual expectations of Trevor's students and my own experiences as a student and learner. While my scrupulous preparation for an author visit is motivated by the conviction that our students should know more about the artists behind the wide range of texts that they read, it is also driven by the teaching of Mr. Llyn Morris, the A-level English instructor from whom I learned so much about the power of literature when I was a teenager. If anyone had told me as an 18-year- old student at Hereford Technical College that I would be given the opportunity to interview major authors while teaching at a NYC independent school, I would not have taken them seriously. I was, however, fascinated by Mr. Morris' literary mind; he was a man whose teaching illuminated the worlds within the novels, plays, and poems that I read in his class. He funneled life through the pages of classic and canonical texts, finding humanity and emphasizing the uniqueness of characters who were distant from my reality. rough his teaching, Shakespeare's characters lost their remoteness, came to life, and existed in the present, with strengths and flaws like mine. With his guidance, abstruse texts came to depict the inner workings of tortured personalities in ways I could sympathize with and understand. While Mr. Morris' pedagogy left me dreaming about the power of literature to change one's perspective of the world and the people in it, my teaching at Trevor has enabled me to combine such dreams with the reality that comes from a deep understanding of an author's work. Interviewing authors and seeing them interact with our students is more than I could ever have imagined when I was in school, or expected from my life as an English teacher. To be in the presence of authors like Jamaica Kincaid as they deliberate over questions about their life as a reader and writer, or to attempt to respond to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's justifiable ire in response to a student's question about Britain's detrimental impact on Nigeria ("Ask him!" she replied, looking sternly at me) has been both sobering and mind-blowing. Presence of mind is hard to retain, especially when authors move from their lives and work as novelists into their other work as writers. I started to panic when Dave Eggers went off script to discuss his work as a journalist during his visit to Trevor in early 2019. e East Campus room was packed with parents and faculty, many of whom had submitted thoughtful questions for the author ahead of his visit. Time was passing quickly, and though I had asked Eggers only two questions, we were over halfway through our interview.

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