Mentors

I have been blessed to have had several mentors in my professional life. I have been blessed by some people older than myself who by example instilled in me a regard for and understanding of not only the business of a business, but the humanity of a business; people who by example inspired me to learn from my mistakes, care about my reputation, conduct myself with honesty and passion, and strive to become a decent citizen of the world. By example, these people taught me, helped me, challenged me, and expected the best from me as they expected the best from themselves. They made me cry because they were tough. They made me laugh because they were playful. They made me think because they were thoughtful. They made me care because they were careful. And in the process, as I grew from being an assistant to a colleague to a peer, we became friends because we shared a deep mutual respect for our business, for one another, and for the future.

As I walk along the paths of my life and my work, I don’t always take the time to think of and thank these people who themselves never thought they were remarkable in any way, just doing their job, just doing what came naturally, just doing what was right. I stop now to think of them and thank them, for they were most remarkable indeed. Remarkable for inviting me into their offices and homes to witness them doing their jobs, doing what came naturally, doing what was right. To witness. And to embrace all that would become essential to my own growth into someone of whom I can be proud. A businesswoman, a colleague, a person of whom I sincerely hope they would be and are proud.

It is a wonder how deeply one person can touch another simply by being present. By listening. By suggesting. By living fully. And by laughing. Oh, the laughing! Would that everyone be as lucky as I’ve been to enjoy but one older person in their life by whose example they can be inspired in their work and their life.

In honor of Dilys Evans, Linda Hayward, Richard Jackson, Margaret K. McElderry, Ole Risom.

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc

Filling in the Blanks

Today I’m faced with a blank page. A blank page that’s inviting me…taunting me… exciting me…daring me to express myself. To say something. To think something. To create something.

But what if for all the enormous possibilities, what if for all the promise of what could happen on that blank page, what if…I don’t have any ideas? What if I have nothing to say? What if I am blank?

What is it that drives us to face the blank pages again and again? To put up with the doubt, the frustration, the emotional turmoil…what is it that compels us to put ourselves through the utter exasperation of feeling vanquished by something as simple and harmless as a piece of white paper? I imagine it must be the same force that drives us to keep climbing toward the mountain’s summit; to keep going around the next bend; to fly just a little higher, dive a little deeper, remain a little longer, to try it, just to see….We face it because it’s there. We face it because we can. We face it because we’re curious to find out who we will be once we get there. And once we begin, once we try, once we achieve, we’re changed forever. We have grown, evolved, stretched ourselves, shared ourselves. And how amazing that once we’re underway, filling in the blanks, so much of that pain, fear, and doubt somehow start to vanish and it turns out we really weren’t blank after all, but, rather, filled with more emotion, passion, and story than we knew what to do with.

What is it that drives us as artists to face the blank pages over and over again? What is it that drives us as people to face life’s blank pages over and over again? Poets and painters recognize the strength of the blank space as it supports and balances their line. So, too, are we all of us poised to grab whatever opportunity we have to enter ourselves into those blank spaces, thereby clarifying what we care about, giving ourselves and the world the gift of who we are. What drives us? I think perhaps it’s inspiration -- a combination of ferocious seemingly insurmountable challenge and the promise of a glorious satisfaction that’s too great to ignore.

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc

Change

In March of 2008 I was reading Eckhart Tolle’s A NEW EARTH and underlined these passages: “Some changes may look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge….When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life….If uncertainty is unacceptable, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.” I felt inspired by the book, made a mental note to read it again soon, stuffed it in my bedside table, and got back to work.

In July of 2008, as I was contending with some particularly prickly patches of chaos and mayhem in my position of VP, Publisher at Simon & Schuster, I scribbled the following words in my journal: "Is this all one big message—a flag, an arrow, a road sign— telling me to go somewhere else, do something else? To do something NEW? Is it my time to go and try something new, fresh, a new beginning? “When you're ready to take a risk, the world will crack open.” The world seems to be ready for me to take some risks. Now I just need to be ready and willing!" I wrestled with the tumult of feelings, hurriedly wrote the words to get them out of my system, secreted my journal away, and got back to work.

In May of 2009, after nearly nineteen years with the company, I was laid off. Although I’d felt inspired and energized by Tolle’s words and although I’d expressed serious questions and doubts in my journal a year before, I didn’t for one moment recall anything Tolle said nor did I recall writing those words. All I knew was that I was being shaken to my roots by events out of my control—the world was cracked open and uncertainty was unraveling itself about me.

It’s May 2010—and today marks the year anniversary of my last day with the company. It’s a day that marks an end and a beginning of such magnitude that I cannot but witness this day emotionally, physically, and spiritually. This past year’s been a time of enormous upheaval and great calm, anger and peace, imbalance and precision, doubt and determination, disbelief and proof, betrayal and friendship, loss and family. Having been forced into a position of having no choice but to make some remarkable unexpected choices, I’ve wended my way through a year that has led up to this day. It was only a few weeks ago that I happened to re-read those lines in Tolle and discovered my journal entry—and today I marvel at my place in a universe that delivers messages to us with far more clarity than I will ever be able to see or sense.

In hindsight, I wish I’d somehow documented this past year more thoroughly, perhaps jotting down a word or phrase to define and capture the essence of each passing day. But who among us has the wherewithal to do that? There’s so much I won’t ever remember. What I’m left with of this past year are the memories and repercussions of some of the lowest lows and some of the highest highs I’ve ever experienced. And in between I’ve lived a whole lot of plain old life. I’ve come to appreciate that so often it’s how we live the plain old life in between the extremes that helps us to know better who we are and of what we’re capable.

On this day and at this point in my life, I am infused with a quiet stillness and a crackling like lightning. Dreaming and wildly awake. Rooted and soaring in flight. And so, it certainly seems to have all transpired just as it was meant to: Change happened in order to create space in my life for something new to emerge. It was time for the world to crack open. It was time for a new story to begin. And so, the story is unfolding. I have no idea what comes next. And I can’t think of a more wonderful reason to get up tomorrow.

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc

Roadmaps

“Scars remind us where we’ve been. They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.”

This quotation is from the senior behavioral analyst on the TV show, Criminal Minds. It’s a series I love because it delves so deeply into some intense stories, relationships, feelings, and motivations. The people profiled are some of the most disturbed and pathological figures ever created – and, I’ll admit it, in the way that some people love horror movies, I am fascinated and horrified by the extreme personalities and characters on the series.

I’ve never had nightmares after watching the show (and that’s even after watching four back-to-back episodes when I was home sick earlier this week) and I’ve sometimes wondered why that is. I’ve come to realize it’s because just as the show repels me because of the pain and violence these catastrophic figures inflict on their victims, the show also confirms and upholds a deep sense of hopefulness, a sense of right to combat the wrong, a reminder that kindness and human connection does exist to counter wickedness and alienation.

As a publisher, editor and reader, I’ve always held to the belief that the best books—the books that speak deeply to me-- explore by what means a main character finds their light out of the dark. As teenagers, as adults, as people – we are all at one time or another on a journey to find clarity through chaos, peace through turmoil, calm through storm, safety through fear and doubt. The path on which we traverse is not easy. We don’t generally give up, though. We keep going. And, why? Because the promise of good over evil, of happiness over sadness, of healing over illness, is too great to ignore. It is the light we’re all of us trying to reach in whatever way we can. And as we make our way through the ills, the doubts, the hindrances, the barriers, the pain, the ugliness, we become stronger. We survive. We grow. We share our stories so others don’t feel so alone, so we don’t feel so alone.

The scars of living a life can be enormous, overwhelming, desperate. I hold to the notion that it’s these same scars that, if handled gently and allowed to heal properly, can become our personal roadmaps to finding ourselves to be braver, stronger, better prepared than we ever thought imaginable. Better prepared to be mentors, parents, healers, lovers, storytellers – in a position to share our lives with others in order to secure for our world the sense of hopefulness, of right, of kindness and human connection that is so essential to our future.

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc

Birth Day

When I was a child, my birthday was a day filled with a carousel ride in Central Park, chocolate cupcakes, the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company or the Paper Bag Players, pin-the-tail-on-the-mouse, and friends and family. As I’ve gotten older, my birthday’s been a day of pampering or play, and the comfort of friends. Every birthday, I feel so much love and friendship coming from many different directions, and that’s the most remarkable gift I could ever receive.  In the past few years, my birthday has been infused with a layer of pensive contemplation, as it’s the one day of the year that’s raises a question for which I have no answer. It’s my birthday and I wonder…is the woman who gave me up for adoption at birth nearly five decades ago thinking about me today?

Who are we to one another? No one, really. Strangers. Two women in the world. And yet, we’re tied intrinsically by an organic thread. An invisible thread at once weightless gossamer and immovable anchor. Filment and root. I won’t dare let myself believe that my birth mother might have passed away, though it’s surely possible by now. That’s not the picture I’m willing to draw for this chapter of my story. And so, I ask myself, on this particular day of the year, is she wondering about me as I’m wondering about her? Is she remembering? Is she curious? What’s she feeling? And I ask these questions because I’m an exceedingly curious person, a voyeur, someone who wants to know all the details of someone’s story – their past as it defines their present and informs their future. So, here’s the thing: I’ve come to recognize that while I can tell one story about my life, there’s a whole other story that I just don’t know.

The not knowing can sometimes be frustrating, confusing, sad. On the other hand, and most of the time, I’ve found great strength from the not knowing – a strength that comes from feeling unencumbered, free, innocent, at ease to be whomever I want myself to be, as if an author creating a character from my imagination. And yet, on my birthday, the questions arise and, as if Samson knows that Delilah is picking up the scissors, my strength is momentarily tempered, revealing a tender spot for which I wish I might apply a soothing salve of a story that already exists, that I don’t need to make up. And I wonder, does she ever feel the same?

It’s my birthday and if I could, I would tell her that her baby was loved. And that the woman that baby became is grateful to be in this world, this life, and she’s been given experiences beyond her expectations which have made her feel secure and safe. Loved. It’s a happy birthday.

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc

The Voice of Memory

The characters in our stories speak to us; they urge us to listen to them, care about them, tell their stories; breathe life into them and be their voice. Sometimes these characters are gentle, tapping lightly on our shoulder, allowing us to glimpse them out of the corner of our eye as we’re making our way through the day. And other times, the characters who want our attention are aggressive, wrestling with us, forcing us to stop what we’re doing to face them.

I find as it is with characters, so too it is with memories. Our memories speak to us; they urge us to remember, remind us to care, and by informing our lives, inspire us to carry on by telling our own stories. Sometimes these memories are gentle, woven delicately through the strands of the quilt that cloaks our daily lives, whereby every so often we glimpse moments of our past – that dog on the beach who looks just like Lady (Remember that wonderful dog we had when we were kids?); that trim woman in the beige sweatercoat and off-white suede gloves (And we thought it was only our mother who wore suede gloves in the summer!); the sweet-sharp scent of Lily-of-the-Valley and Hyacinth (Come on, I’ll race you to see who can find the most Easter eggs hidden in Helen’s garden!) And other times, memories are aggressive, causing us pain or fear even though the event or person is no longer in control of us. Some such memories we feel no choice but to try to swallow and hide. Some, though, will not give way, will destabilize us and hold us captive, preventing us from moving forward until we’ve faced them and overcome them.

The stories we write are infused with both the memories and the characters that seek us out, of which we’re indeed a part. Consciously or not, we often craft our stories in order to explore, understand, and overcome those most aggressive of characters, those most aggressive of memories. And as we do so – as we give witness to them – we provide voice to them while at the same time proclaiming a voice for ourselves. The goal for our stories is to resolve and bring some closure to whatever it is with which that character, that memory, is insisting we contend. As we allow the character to guide us for a while until we express his or her journey, as we allow the memory to infuse us for a while until we sort out from whence it’s come and how we want it to quiet down, we allow our own voices to resonate louder and stronger. And we, for listening, caring, wrestling, and overcoming, are stabilized once more, ready to move on.

Thinking she was my protector, my mother’s mantra was “Don’t do that, it’s too dangerous.” Such protection became restriction; such protection became constriction; such protection became strangulation. And so it happened that I was unable to shake the fears I had about trying anything new, culminating in a remarkable moment of panic, distress and an inability to breathe when I first was learning how to ski a few years ago. I recognized the need to let certain memories speak to me, no matter how painful, and through a poem, I gave them a voice, thereby once and for all quieting the mantra and giving myself permission to breathe. And to ski.   That poem is shared below, in honor of poetry month, and in order to give voice to the writer I wish to become.

From a Daughter

Her caring clutches
around me, love-heavy;
a stifle-dark night.

Her memory’s voice
freezes my limbs; a tree,
glass roots, in ice-light.

With frost-sharp breath,
my own dawn, sun-fresh, melts
a path; free-
                  fall
                        flight.


(c)  Emma D Dryden 2009

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc

In honor of poetry month: CHARLES

CHARLES

gray flannel suit
a milky white shirt
a handsome and sleek-perfect fit

with supple suede shoes
and cream velvet gloves
his style has become such a habit

a sly backward glance
then out of the house
he folds himself into the shadows

accustomed to night
quicksteps without sound
he glides past alleys and windows

"Hello, Mr. C.!
Again on the town?"
wherever he strolls, he is known

he pauses a while
for drinks and a rest
then smoothing his coat he moves on

roving by moonlight
alert to the streets
he will greet sunrise at dawn

his family's at home
wishing he'd tame --


"Where has our Charlie cat gone?!"



(c) 2009, Emma D Dryden

Through the Door of Our Past

New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s was a hard place to live—it was a volatile city reacting to the dynamics of the Civil Rights movement, the Women’s movement, and the Vietnam War; it was a city crippled by social disorder, struggling to merge its diverse and divisive populations; it was a city rife with crime, economic stagnation, and palpable unrest. It was an ugly, crumbling city. And at the same time, it was a city of artists, actors, musicians, and writers. It was a city of activists, passionate in their dreams for a better future. It was a city receptive to new ideas. I was born and grew up in this city and I attended elementary school at the Manhattan Country School--a school founded in 1966 upon the principals of Martin Luther King, Jr and reflecting the vision of the Civil Rights Movement. The school set out to teach students in a community with no racial majority and broad economic diversity, and to instill in students a desire to champion justice, compassion, and peace, and the rights of all people to equity.

I left MCS thirty-five years ago. This morning, I returned for the first time. I went back not only to see what’s changed over the past three decades, but to see what hasn’t changed. I walked through the big green doors of the converted 1904 townhouse, into the courtyard, and up the spiral staircase to attend an Alumni breakfast and take a tour of the school. There’s a computer room there now, but that room used to be a terrace, and suddenly reverberating over the tapping of keyboards was the smack of my pink rubber handball hitting the brick wall and bouncing to Derrick. From the kitchen, I was sure I could smell Consuela’s chili and rice. In the library, my face suddenly flushed at the embarrassment of being made fun of by David, just there, at that table by the window. In the round classroom, I tasted the sweet dust from the sugar cubes we’d pasted together to make igloos. As I walked down the back staircase, I heard my own voice calling to my friends—Nicole! Nina! Betsy! Maria! Leslie!—in a race to see who could line up the fastest to go to the park with Doc. In the glorious wood-paneled music room, morning light streaming in the tall windows, I was six-years-old again, singing “We Shall Overcome Someday.” And in a corner of a small classroom with a blue rug, surrounded by fabric and glue and cardboard and pencils and crayons, I smelled the Elmer’s and felt the textured brown fabric that were to become my first hand-made book—Magic Moon and Magic Sun.

MAGIC MOON AND MAGIC SUN by EMMA DRYDEN, circa 1973

I walked the halls of my past this morning, and as if being jolted from sleep by a vivid dream, I realized how much of me was nurtured and brought to fruition during those years at MCS—an interest in and respect for other people; a passion for books, writing, and drawing; a desire to help others; a sense of hope; a trust in people; a trust in dreams; and a profound belief that what's right will prevail. Out of the corner of my adult eyes, I saw my younger self becoming a citizen of the world, and for just for a moment I was that girl again—that Emma all gangly limbs, scraped knees, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off, Danskin pants, songs off-key, and make-believe—and I was overcome by the endless possibilities and promise and resilience that can envelope and inspire our childhoods.

It was a precious gift my parents gave me, sending me to MCS and thereby opening my heart and spirit to the world. I never thanked them for that; I thank them now.  It’s a precious gift to be given an opportunity to revisit one’s past and experience ones adult self within the perspective of ones childhood. It was as though I was meeting myself on a road,  two travelers headed in the same direction, suddenly striking up a friendship, recognizing ourselves in one another, one and the same. I walked the halls of my past this morning and right through the door to myself.

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks LLC

Spring Cleaning

It’s just getting on the time of year when we’re inclined to do a little “spring cleaning” – sorting out our closets, putting away the boots, moving the T-shirts up and the sweaters down, throwing off the blankets and quilts, opening the windows to let air in, holding our heads up to bask in the sun. Spring is the time we begin to free ourselves from the heavy protective cloak of winter, to emerge fresh and new, a little lighter, little clearer.


With the advent of spring, many of us begin to shed excesses of all kinds. It happens organically as we shed layers of clothing and open the drapes. Some of us cut our hair. Some of us lose weight. Some of us exercise more. Some of us renovate our homes. Some of us donate things we don’t need anymore. And why? To breathe in fresh air, create a new view, take a lighter stand in the world – all of which serve to make us stronger and more present. To reflect the sun.

And as we ourselves do in the spring, we can do as well with our stories—toss off the heavy blankets and open the windows to let in light and air. Ridding our stories of excess – extraneous details, repetitive description, slowly-paced action –is the very best way to make our stories stronger and more present. Paring away excesses – choosing one stronger descriptive sentence over another, condensing ideas, keeping dialogue realistic in its crispness and fast flow – can allow our stories’ characters to move comfortably and unrestrained through their geographical and emotional landscapes. This is not to say to diminish the story in any way, nor to pare it down so much it lacks depth or richness. Rather, the challenge for our stories and characters, as it is for ourselves, is to reveal truths with a light and gentle touch.

There was a time some years ago when I wanted to lose weight. I was finally mentally ready to do so after resisting for quite a while – and as the weight came off, I became a lighter person both physically and psychologically. The process of shedding the pounds was also a process of shedding things which for so long I’d thought I needed to be whole, but which I found had actually become burdensome, preventing me from taking the lighter, but stronger, stand in the world. By me during that weight-loss journey and ultimate emergence, were many friends, of whom a vast number were authors and illustrators. Conversations during that time were fascinating and inspiring, as talks about losing weight seemed to merge naturally with talks about getting rid of excess in our lives and in our writing and artwork. We were one in the appreciation of the struggles, the lows, the highs, and ultimately, the fine results of relieving a person, a painting, a story from heavy obstacles that might inhibit them from reaching their full potential.

And so, this spring day calls to us -- ourselves and our characters -- to run and breathe and reflect the sun.

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc

Sailing into a New Harbor

A few years ago, I delivered an address to an august audience of children’s book colleagues. I titled the talk “Sailing Away From the Safe Harbor” for the reason that over the past few years, I have been learning how to sail, and in the course of learning the techniques and vocabulary of sailing, I have discovered not only a great deal about myself, but I have come to realize that so much of the basic techniques of sailing can be likened to techniques we bring to our methods of writing, illustrating, editing, teaching, publishing and, indeed, reading stories.

Why does one sail? To explore, to journey, to see new places, to have fun, to relax, to allay fears in some instances. Some sailors say they feel most themselves on a boat, on the water. There is no hiding of the truth when one realizes we do not have dominion over the world, but that we are at the mercy of things that are basic and very much more than ourselves—the wind, the water, the weather. And if we don’t adjust our sails, change course, become one with the wind, our sails will luff, we will stop in irons, we will lose our compass bearings, we will lose sight of the horizon. We will be in trouble and our exploration will cease.

And why does one write, read and share stories? To explore, to journey, to see new places, to have fun, to relax, to allay fears in some instances. We seek to find ourselves in stories—and so often, we can and do. And we seek the truth in stories—we use story (or myth or song or poem) to tell our own stories and to assure ourselves we’re not alone. By reading and sharing stories with one another, we find a safe place in which to adjust ourselves, change course, become one with things that are at once basic and very much more than ourselves—the imagination, the light, a community. If we don’t experience story in some way, we will be in trouble; our exploration will cease. In fact, I think we will cease if we don’t explore our world and ourselves through stories.

And so it is as we live our lives and live our stories—forging our relationships, raising our families, doing our work, growing up and growing older, loving and losing—that we are as vessels on an ebbing and flowing tide. The earth’s very survival relies on the wax and wane of the moon, the ebb and flow of the oceans; so too does our own self-evolution rely on our embracing the inevitability of change, our willingness to balance the comfort of the familiar with the surprise of the new, and our staying open to the messages we may not at first understand, but which, somehow, usually fit perfectly into a space in ourselves we didn’t even know we had.

The past ten months since my layoff from a job at which I worked for 19 years and which I had come to let define me, have been, by turns, turbulent, thrilling, rocky, steady, cacophonous, and still. In one moment, you can be comfortably close to a familiar shore and in the next, you are flung out to sea, forced to question whether that shore had indeed been one of safety at all, forced to question your own expertise, forced to question who you really are. And then, there comes a moment when you realize that you’re still who you always were, you haven’t lost what you know and what you believe; you’ve just been blown onto a new course. And in whatever ways we decide to handle ourselves finding a new harbor, that’s how we become better navigators than we’ve ever been before. From that moment on, how we conduct ourselves moving towards – and away from – new harbors for the rest of our lives confirms who we really are.

drydenbks boat
by katherine tillotson

Today I've set coordinates for a new venture—a new adventure. drydenbks. The waters on which I launch this vessel are, without doubt, uneasy—this is a rough economy with no clear picture on how my family will be able to afford health care, this is a digital landscape for book publishing which requires much learning of new vocabularies and acquiring new skill sets, this is a country that ranks somewhere around 17th in literacy and doesn’t place enough cultural or societal value on books, this is a time of extreme corporate greed and so many systems broken. These same waters, however, feel buoyant to me, and the smell of the ocean has always given me strength and clarity. drydenbks comes directly from what I know so well, what I do so well, what I believe so deeply—there’s enough strength and stability in that to enable whatever flexibility, commitment, conviction, and hope are needed to stay afloat. Today I begin a new story, and by doing so, find my way towards new harbors. And I'm convinced new harbors find us when we need them most.

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc