“Community is the single most
important factor in learner-centered classrooms.” (Carol Avery)
Hello,
It’s
Mary Lee (alias M. Lee Prescott) saying hello. The quote above is from my life
as a teacher (retired in June 2021). Creating a community in one’s classroom is
critical if a teacher wishes to build trust among all stakeholders – adults and
children – and encourage the kind of risk taking that allows learning to
thrive. You might be asking yourself—why in a writer’s blog, is she writing
about teaching and classrooms? The answer is simple creating a supportive,
nurturing community where my characters live is at the heart of most of my
fiction. Certainly, community is, indeed, a main character in all four of my
series. I thought in this post, I tell you a little about these communities.
Perhaps you’ll come and visit someday?
The
Morgan’s Run books are set in the southwestern United States in the fictional
town of Saguaro Valley. An orographic effect characterized by unusual cloud formations and abundant
moisture has created this extraordinary green valley that lies between two mountain
ranges, vast deserts beyond.
Home
to six thousand residents—ranchers, farmers, entrepreneurs, and others – much
of the land is owned by a few wealthy ranchers, Ben Morgan among them, who take
their stewardship seriously, providing livelihoods and support to every
resident. The undiscovered valley mostly remains isolated in its pristine
beauty and agricultural abundance, except when the occasional movie star
arranges a pack trip up into the mountains. Saguaro Valley is a place where
everyone knows everyone and takes care of everyone. If you’re in danger,
trouble or need, you are never alone. Many beloved characters leave home and
return, to heal, to find love, and to raise their families. Others spread their
wings and move east as do two of the Morgan sons, Sam, an architect to Maryland
and Kyle, a veterinarian, to Horseshoe Crab Cove, a New England town that is
home to the Morgan’s Fire community (see below!).
In
this spin-off series to Morgan’s Run, readers come to the village of Horseshoe
Crab Cove, home to Ben Morgan’s younger brother. Formerly a world traveler and
longtime Maine resident, Richard purchases a five hundred acre property, where
he builds an enormous farmhouse, barns, stables and eventually a winery.
Richard is also an investor in Field and Field, a farm-to-table restaurant on
the property, created and run by his son-in-law.
The
community encompasses several small seaside towns, Horseshoe Crab Cove at its
center. On tiny Main Street, with its shops and restaurants, is a garden space,
Laura’s Community Garden, started by Richard’s daughter, Pam in memory of her
mother. There in the four acre plot, residents come to plant, grow, and share
the fruits of their collective labors. Horseshoe Crab Cove is also home to the
Darn Yarners, a group of eight women in their sixties, friends for over four
decades, who support each other, each other’s families, and the village proper.
Over the years the Yarners have raised money for parks and other civic projects,
their fellowship intricately woven into the fabric of village life. Like
Saguaro Valley, no one in Horseshoe Crab Cove is alone and the close community
provides a safe, loving place for longtime residents and newcomers like Kyle
Morgan, who follows his wife Harriet, daughter on a Darn Yarner, to town. When,
at age fifty, Joe O’Leary leaves the priesthood, he, too, comes to the village
to learn how to live outside the confines of the church.
Village
of Old Harbor, a coastal village with a Quaker school at its center, seems like
just another sleepy town, where murders happen a little too regularly! Born and
raised in the area, Detective Roger Demaris, and his team, along with his
former schoolmate and high school girlfriend, art teacher Bess Dore, explore
the worlds beneath the town and school’s placid surfaces uncovering unimaginable
evil. Despite its aura of tranquility, this is a sometimes fractured community,
infiltrated by outsiders bent on dredging up the past, wreaking havoc on the
present, and changing the course of the future for the residents of Old Harbor.
There is, however, a core of community resilience that prevails and triumphs over
the darkness—thank goodness!
Finally—there
are the communities traversed by private investigator, Ricky Steele. When not
chasing criminals at a snobby boarding school or helping a friend find her
husband’s killer in the exclusive, coastal town of Windy Harbor, Ricky prowls
the mean streets of Spindle City, trailing errant spouses, and mingling with
sex workers and drug lords. All of these communities have an identity that
shape Ricky’s often bumbling, but heartfelt investigating style. Her office is
in one of the old granite mills that populate the landscape of Spindle City.
These behemoths, left over from the city’s heyday as a thriving textile
manufacturing hub, reflect the gritty strength of the community and its
denizens.
The
above notwithstanding, the community readers love more than those mentioned, is
where Ricky lives—the Grove. There in her ticky-tacky beach cottage, she is
surrounded by friends and neighbors like Maddie and Fulton, the deaf
octogenarians to the east, who keep the canapes and cocktails coming, and
Vinnie to the west, a dear friend who helps with carpentry, security, underworld
information, and cat sitting. The Grove also draws to its community, Dr.
Charlie Bowen, who renovates a waterfront property around the corner, while wooing
the independent Ricky. Will love win out? Time will tell.
So…
is “community” synonymous with setting? Are they the same? I would answer no,
but I could be persuaded either way. As author, community unfolds in my stories
as the living, breathing manifestation of setting. Community allows characters
to take risks to dare to be themselves, to grow, to develop, to thrive. Is this
the same as setting? Hmm… You be the judge!
Great
blogging with you! I love to hear from readers and writers so please be in
touch anytime.
Warm
wishes,
Mary
Lee
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