JC’s engaging interview with Open Book Ontario appears at www.openbookontario.com. The interview offers insights into JC’s writing process, with a focus on her play, “What My Grandma Means to Say” and how the book adaptation evolved from it to create the back story for Jake as Alzheimer’s changes relationships within his family. The interview also reveals some of the writing strategies JC uses in leading workshops for emerging writers of all ages. Thanks to Open Book Ontario for profiling JC and her work this way.
Capital Parent profiles “What My Grandma Means to Say,” the video
In the March/April issue of Capital Parent Newspaper appears a great feature on the YouTube video of the pilot performance of “What My Grandma Means to Say.” The paper is available free at Ottawa-area newsstands and also can be read on-line at http://server14a.pressmart.net/capitalparent/index.aspx Go to page 6 to read about the play.
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“What My Grandma Means to Say” plays in Thunder Bay
Professional actors took JC’s play into local elementary schools in March through a project for which the Alzheimer Society of Thunder Bay (ASTB) received an $8000 grant from the Thunder Bay Community Foundation.
JC welcomed the new partnership with ASTB and applauded the Society’s initiative to engage elementary school-aged students in learning together about dementia through “What My Grandma Means to Say.” ASTB donated a copy of the storybook about Jake and his grandma to each school’s library.
The project includes an art dimension by giving each student the opportunity to contribute a square that will be assembled into a memory quilt, one for each school. Here’s a link to media coverage of the program in Thunder Bay. http://www.tbnewswatch.com/entertainment/196736/Living-with-Alzheimer%27s. Shaw media posted its coverage on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_I-HKvPkuE.
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My Care Journey features “What My Grandma Means to Say”
For family caregivers, there can be no better site than Bart Mindszenthy’s www.mycarejourney.com.
Bart is one of Canada’s leading caregiver advocates and co-author of the best-selling book, “Parenting Your Parents.” The site is very user-friendly and provides family caregivers with a rich source of information and practical strategies to help them manage the challenges they face in caring for someone dear to them.
JC is very pleased that “What My Grandma Means to Say” is now listed among the resource books on this first-class site at http://www.mycarejourney.com/blog/?page_id=1053.
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Talking with Kids about Alzheimer’s: “What My Grandma Means to Say,” a new video.
Here’s a video that shows how to stage “What My Grandma Means to Say” as a play for elementary school-aged students. Performed last October by actors from Prince Edward Collegiate Institute in Picton, Ontario, for 200 students from C.M.L. Snider School in Wellington, Ontario, the play kick-starts discussions to which kids bring their questions, their own perceptions and their experiences about supporting someone who is living with Alzheimer’s. The production was made possible by a community partnership between the Alzheimer Society of Prince Edward County, Prince Edward Collegiate Institute and JC Sulzenko and by financial support from The Community Foundation of Ottawa and The Organix Foundation, Montreal. The March issue of Canadian Teacher Magazine profiled the video among news items on page 34. http://www.canadianteachermagazine.com/pdf/CTM-MarApr12.pdf
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“A gem of a story” says City Mom about “What My Grandma means to Say”
Do read City Mom’s review today of JC ‘s storybook. Not only does City Mom call the story “amazing” and “a gem,” she says it spoke to her on “such an intimate level.”
Her own history with grandparents who were living with dementia is “almost identical to Jake’s.” she admits. She wishes that “What My Grandma Means to Say” had been in circulation at that time in her life.
Go to www.citymom.ca/2012/01/grandma-means-helping-kids-understand-alzheimers-disease to read the full review.
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Line-a-day Poetry Project Extended for Another Year
The Line-a-day Poetry Project began in October 2010, on this site under the “for Mature Readers” tab. JC imagined the challenge as an opportunity to distill into one line some element from her daily experience. It was both surprising and not to her that the project took a different road than she had foreseen. Instead of lines of free verse linked to one another, at least in chronology if in no other way, stanzas emerged. First haiku; then tanka forms dominated. JC often used the repetition of a word or related subject matter from one stanza to another to enable the flow of her ideas.
While, JC admits she found herself impatient, at times, for this commitment to write for a year to end, the anniversary date passed without her notice. When she realized the year was over, instead of sighing with relief, she felt regret. So she has decided to continue the process for another year without any preconceived notion of whether the lines will follow the pattern set to date or not.
JC welcomes comments on the Line-a-day Project on this site.
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Canadian Dementia Knowledge Translation Network: a featured interview with JC
The Canadian Dementia Knowledge Translation Network (CDKTN) interviewed JC about “What My Grandma Means to Say” and just posted extracts from that discussion on its website (www.LifeandMinds.ca).
JC is delighted that CDKTN recommends “What My Grandma Means to Say.” As LifeandMinds.ca states: “it provides another excellent resource for families.”
JC welcomes that endorsement. “I know that sharing information with researchers, caregivers and policy makers in the Network will bring the focus to children, who are often drawn into the role of caregivers when a family is affected by Alzheimer’s or related dementias.” That reality is at the heart of the project which includes a 10-minute play, a discussion guide for teachers, the illustrated storybook about Jake and his grandmother and a video project, for which fundraising is underway.
LifeandMinds.ca is the web publication of the CDKTN. “Established on March 31, 2008 through a 5-year CIHR grant, the CDKTN is a network for knowledge translation (KT) and exchange (KE) of research in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. In a nutshell, KT is the adaptation of research findings into effective treatments, services, and products. KE is collaborative information sharing and problem solving between researchers, caregivers, and policy makers.” (As described on the Network’s website.)
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“What My Grandma Means to Say:”Now Available from General Store Publishing House
JC Sulzenko’s 48-page storybook adaptation of her one-act play about 11 year-old Jake and his grandma, who is living with Alzheimer’s disease, is now available from General Store Publishing House (www.gsph.com). You can download an order form and send or fax it to GSPH if you want a copy for you or someone about whom you care.
Illustrated in full colour by Gary Frederick, the book lets young readers, ages 8-12, and their families, share Jake’s experience as he watches his grandma change from world traveller, expert birder and best cookie baker to someone who forgets where she lives and cannot remember his name. Once Grandma moves to a long-term care residence, Jake becomes her regular Saturday visitor. He develops a routine and knows what to expect when he is with her, until an extraordinary conversation makes him think she is cured. Read More
JC’s Op Ed Article on talking with Children about Alzheimer’s disease
Please go to this link at the Hamilton Spectator of January 17, 2011, to read JC’s article, which appeared in papers across Canada, from the Montreal Gazette to the Calgary Herald.
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A Play for children from JC Sulzenko
What my grandma means to say, JC’s one-act play, gives elementary school-aged children and their families the chance to learn in a gentle way about how Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias can affect a person and what they can do to support someone living such a disease.
The setting provided by the play encourages children to ask questions in a safe-feeling environment, removed from the emotion that attaches when such an illness affects someone close to them.
Verses just published in Florida: JC’s Poem Targets Industrial Wind Farms’ Threat to Species at Risk in Ontario
The May 11 issue of The Island Sun, the weeklypaper on Sanibel Island, Florida, carries verses from JC’s Line-a-Day poem at www.jcsulzenko.com (for mature readers). Using the tanka form, JC’s observations in “Spectacle” begin with watching a fox at the shore. The focus then moves to the destruction of sensitive habitats and species at risk, particularly birds such as the Whip-Poor-Will and Loggerhead Shrike, posed by plans to site almost 40 wind turbines, each up to 400 feet high, in an area which carries the international designation as an Important Birding Area (IBA.) Read these verses in Don Brown’s Poetic Voices column on page 38 at: www.islandsunnews.com/Read_the_Island_Sun.pdf.