Interview with Charlotte Safieh

Charlotte Safieh is a teacher who specializes in teaching creative writing to new Canadians. She's also an author. Charlotte talks about her efforts to self-publish her environmentally themed picture book, “A Cry for the Ocean”, including her use of Kickstarter to help raise funds to cover costs.

Watch: https://youtu.be/MEclAMQL460

Unedited transcript.

Jim Allan: With me today is author and teacher Charlotte Safieh. Welcome.

Charlotte Safieh: Thank you.

Jim Allan: So, Charlotte, you're a teacher and an author, right?

Charlotte Safieh: So teacher and author. Yeah.

Jim Allan: Which do you prefer to be addressed as?

Charlotte Safieh: I would say teacher first because I really love teaching so much that I don't have a lot of time left for writing my own writing.

Jim Allan: You have a book out. We're going to talk about that later, but it's a children's book, right? Spoiler alert, right? But we'll get to we'll get to that later. So let's go back to the beginning of your story though. You went to teachers college roughly ten years ago, right?

Charlotte Safieh: Yeah.

Jim Allan: Is that right?

Charlotte Safieh: Roughly. Yeah.

Jim Allan: As I understand the story, when you graduate, and it's a common story that opportunities are somewhat limited. So you're kind of looking for work. So tell me, tell me about that time in your life.

Charlotte Safieh: While I was doing my teaching practice in the classroom that I was working, the teacher had got her students all to write their own story, and they'd made it into a book. And it was pretty basic. It was just paper, stapled together. They'd made a cover. And I loved this project. I just fell in love with what the kids had done. And I got really involved with this project. So I knew I had to volunteer. And I was like, I know what I want to volunteer doing. I want to do creative writing in the classroom as a volunteer. And I ended up doing that, first of all, with my daughter's class. And then I went back to the school where I did my teaching practice. And I did it in a few other schools as well that I kind of got introductions to. One time I did it through an Indigo grant, and it was it was such a joy. It was to go into classrooms and get the students to write stories.

Jim Allan: Even today, you specialize in teaching children creative writing.

Charlotte Safieh: Yeah, that's what I do for my job.

Jim Allan: What age range do you teach?

Charlotte Safieh: It's mostly grade four and up, I go all the way up to grade 12. And the department I work with is for newcomers. So I do it as a newcomer program. So I work a lot in ESL classrooms. And they write stories, and usually fiction, but sometimes they decide they want to write their story. And then recently, I've been doing poetry as well, which has been really fun.

Jim Allan: From the school board, or your employer's point of view, you're you're, you're encouraging literacy, are you? Or is it part of the English program? Or how do they think?

Charlotte Safieh: The focus is on wellness and integration. So it's, it's settling them in to Canadian culture. It's kind of like a settlement program in the classroom. But it's also giving them a voice, making them more confident. It helps with their literacy. I've had teachers say, it's really boosted their literacy in the ESL program, and they've been able to graduate more quickly because of the experience of writing.

Jim Allan: How do you teach children how to write or be creative writers?

Charlotte Safieh: I create a space for them. I don't think you can teach somebody to write a story. I think you can create a safe, welcoming space for them to feel safe enough that they can come up with a story. I spend a lot of time building the culture in the classroom, making them feel like they can engage with their imagination. I spend...

Jim Allan: There are no bad ideas?

Charlotte Safieh: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I've got this, I've called it, I call it radical encouragement. I don't criticize their work at the beginning at all. I only look for what's good in their work so that they gradually build that confidence in their writing and they feel like they can write and they start to believe in themselves. And it's a big thing is confidence. But I do teach skills, I teach them how to describe settings, using their senses. We create characters together and think about all the different aspects of characters. We talk about plot, how the plot, you know, has an arc to it and building up. So we talk about the traditional elements of a story. But for me, the focus is about creating a space where they feel like they can be creative and they can make things up and it is not going to be judged. That's really important for me.

Jim Allan: What made you... I know you now write yourself as well. So you're teaching writing, but you're not writing. What happened to make you want to write a little bit more for yourself?

Charlotte Safieh: Well, way back, I did a couple of creative writing courses before I moved to Canada when my kids were really young. And it was fun, I enjoyed it. And then when I started doing more teaching creative writing, I was like, hang on, I need to be better at this. I need to do some of my own studying. So I joined some courses at University of Toronto Continuing Ed and did some basic story writing programs and creative writing to get more knowledge so that I felt like I'd know better what I was teaching. And I kept doing it because I love learning. I really like doing courses and I was doing short stories, children's stories. I did a children's picture book story course and did some poetry and really enjoyed them all. So yeah, I just felt like I had more experience and more knowledge. And it was through one of those courses that this idea for The Cry For The Ocean came up. It was a course called Generating Stories.

Jim Allan: And, that's your book, your book that's out. It's been out a couple of years, I think, right? Or was it fairly more recent than that?

Charlotte Safieh: It was summer 2019, I think I published it.

Jim Allan: What's A Cry For The Ocean about?

Charlotte Safieh: It's about plastic pollution. It's, it's about caring for the environment. It is a story. It's a story about a child called Tsukara. And it's a story that I wrote for the classroom. I wrote it thinking that it will educate kids to care more about the planet. But it's been quite interesting because I've had quite a lot of parents and teachers read it and go, Oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting. So yeah, it's a book for learning. And I like, I think the key message in the story is that we have to care. We have to care enough to make a difference.

Jim Allan: The question every creative person knows is coming, but they don't really like the question is, where did you get the idea for it?

Charlotte Safieh: Well, it started as an adult short story about the plastic islands, the plastic ocean. I read about it a long time ago. And I was like, Oh, my goodness, this is horrible. This is floating around in the ocean. I should write about this. And I had some kind of idea for a short story. And I played around with it. And it didn't really go anywhere. And, and then I read something about mermaid tears. And it was that beachcombers call, you know, the little nerdles of plastic that you find when plastic breaks right down. They call them mermaid tears. And that stuck with me. And I just imagine this mermaid crying plastic tears. And it was just, it was just such a powerful image for me because, you know, mermaids are this pure magical creature, kind of almost like a unicorn. And that was where this story was born with this image of a mermaid crying plastic tears. And that is what happens in the story. The opening of the story is Sukhara, the girl character walking on the beach, and seeing this mermaid just bawling because she suddenly realized that her tears have become plastic.

Jim Allan: What age is it targeted at?

Charlotte Safieh: It works on different levels with different age kids. The younger kids get really caught up about the mermaid and want to know if mermaids are real. And sometimes they, because in the story, the tears can melt plastic, people's tears melt plastic. That's kind of the, the thrust of the, the magic of the story of how they're able to heal the ocean is that people's tears can melt plastic. So I've had younger, younger children try crying onto a plastic bag to make it go away. And, you know, so they, they really believe it, which I think is, is really cute. But yeah, I think it works. It works for all kids and older kids really appreciate the metaphor of the story and appreciate the, the sentiment behind the story as well.

Jim Allan: Some of the material that I saw, something like your emotional material, I guess it may be a website. You say, you mentioned in it's about plastic pollution in the ocean with a happy ending. Now, why, why did you feel you needed to tell everyone that it has a happy ending?

Charlotte Safieh: Because I just feel like environmental news is bad news a lot of the time. Like, I wanted, I wanted people to believe that you can have a happy ending. I want to believe that we can have a happy ending with what's going on. It's so frustrating.

Jim Allan: That was my next question. Are we going to in real life, are we going to have a happy ending when it comes to

Charlotte Safieh: Well, I don't know. I mean, I walk around in the grocery store and see people buying huge crates of plastic water bottles still. And I'm like, why, why are we still doing this? Why don't we know enough that we're not doing this? That we that we still think this is okay. I don't know. I mean, I, I follow some really positive people who are doing some amazing things that's been in the news about this new type of fungi that can eat plastic. But we haven't turned the tap off. Like the last 15 years has been more plastic than ever before. I mean, we are still pouring plastic into our world. So I don't know about the happy ending. I hope there's a happy ending. But writing this book helps me with my hope.

Jim Allan: It's therapy for you.

Charlotte Safieh: Yeah, it gives it gives me hope. And whenever I read this book, I feel like I'm just making a tiny, tiny little bit of a difference by maybe some of the some of the children that I read who will go home and tell their mom to stop buying those plastic water bottles in the supermarket. And the mom will say, oh, okay, yeah, I guess we could do that. Yeah, but these are small changes. I mean, it does have to come from above. It has to come from governments. It has to come from regulations. But it's I mean, it's also has to come from the consumer. I mean, every time we buy something, we're making a choice. And the more educated we are, the better the choices are that we're going to make. You know, if everybody boycotted Nestle water bottles, they would stop making them. They're only making them because we are buying them. So it's it's a very complicated issue. And I was trying to simplify it in my book. And, you know, I think I've kind of made it digestible for for younger people. And I actually did a lot of research for this book. I read a lot of books about plastic and the people that discovered the plastic ocean. I looked into all the different issues. I mean, I felt like it's interesting because it's a simple short story. But at the same time, you know, you can you can do so much research about this subject. But I mean, that was quite a long time ago. And it's it's only got worse since then.

Jim Allan: You’ve self published this. That's more and more popular these days because you got to do what you got to do. But are there advantages to self publishing? What are the I guess disadvantages to self publishing?

Charlotte Safieh: Well, a huge advantage is time. It can take three years to make a picture book through a big publishing company. And they pre order it from China months in advance, and they get huge discounts because of how they order and pay for the publishing. So you can you can turn something around pretty quickly. You have complete control over everything, which if you do it in North America, if you do it, if yeah, if you if you publish the way that I did it is I started a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to pay for an illustrator in the first run of the book.

Jim Allan: You said here's the story. And do you like my story? I'm going to hire I'd like to hire an illustrator. So people really get had to get hooked on your words first then.

Charlotte Safieh: Yeah, and it was really enjoyable. Really, it succeeded the campaign. And I had people who I had no idea who they were. And I did have friends and family back me on the Kickstarter campaign. Everybody who backed me got a free copy of the book, either hardback or softcover depending on how much money you put into the campaign.

Jim Allan: This allowed you to hire and pay an illustrator. This person wasn't a friend.

Charlotte Safieh: No. It's Tamara Piper. Yeah, yeah. Tamara lives in Belgrade.

Jim Allan: Really?

Charlotte Safieh: And I've never met her.

Jim Allan: This was an internet collaboration.

Charlotte Safieh: Yeah, we were through Fiverr, which is a freelance website that connects you with people. So I sent her the story. And she sent me first of all, she sent me a picture of Zucara. And then I kind of sent her back some suggestions. Yeah. And then I sent her, then she started working on the whole story. And I absolutely love this process. It was like Christmas every day that I'd open up these pictures. It's so beautiful.

Jim Allan: And, so your story is coming to life.

Charlotte Safieh: It was it was and I just think there's something about the way she draws people and especially with the cover, the way these two characters are connecting with each other. I really, really enjoyed the process of working with her. I would love to meet her one day. Yeah, maybe work with her again.

Jim Allan: Any projects in the pipeline? Any stories?

Charlotte Safieh: Yeah, I'm thinking you can talk about it. No, I'm thinking of tackling the rainforest. There might be some orangoutangs involved because I really love orangoutangs. Yeah, that's something that is possibly in the pipeline. When I when I do my readings at schools, I often get really good suggestions from the kids. And we talk about possible story, story ideas. And I love that because I'm kind of encouraging them as well to write. I was like, well, oh, that's a good idea. Why don't you try that one and, you know, write the story and you can send it to me. And, you know, so it's really fun.

Jim Allan: When you're in front of your students and you can actually show them a book that does that impress them and motivate them? Like, here's what I've done.

Charlotte Safieh: You can do it too. I was once like you and you can, yeah, definitely. And I mean, I mean, a big theme of the book as well is it's about having a voice because Sukara in the story, her voice is loud enough to turn the whole world to to have this big day where they all cry for the ocean. I mean, it's her voice that does that, her story that does that. And I think that empowers kids because they think, oh, well, if you know, if this if this person, the story can do it, anybody can do it.

Jim Allan: Now, if someone's watching this and really, really wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

Charlotte Safieh: Well, you can go to the website and there are contact details there. This this one. So it's bluejaypress.ca

Jim Allan: Okay. A cry for the ocean. Where can we buy the book if we wanted to?

Charlotte Safieh: It's on Amazon. Okay. My favorite way to sell this book is to come into a school and talk to the kids and they can buy the book from me directly in school. That way Amazon doesn't take all my profit, which is quite nice. And it's also just so nice to have that connection with with the kids, but it is available online. And I think it's with some other websites as well. And it's in a few book in a bookstores around Toronto, and it's at the public library as well in Toronto.

Jim Allan: Well, very nice to talk to you today, Charlotte, and best of luck with the book and with your teacher and with your teaching and with your students as well.

Charlotte Safieh: Thank you.