Writer Knows How to Keep the Creative Juices Flowing

Recently, a student asked Rachelle Burk what she like best about being an author.

She could have responded any number of ways: finding a subject for a new story by random, having her first children’s book published, having her website named to a prestigious list of best web resources for writers.

Instead Burk simply answered, “Doing this.”

"This" was one of Burk’s “Creative Genius Author Visits” to area schools, where she speaks to elementary school children, helps them start to uncover their own creative process, and strives to leave miniature storytellers behind.

“Everything I do is for children,” said Burk, a New Orleans native who now calls East Brunswick home. “I always liked to write. Most people who end up writers do. But I wasn’t doing a lot of it as an adult. But when my kids were little they’d ask me to tell them stories. Every so often I’d think, ‘Hey that’s interesting, I should write it down.’ ”

She hardly impressed herself with her early literary efforts, but that didn’t keep Burk from trying to take her craft to the next level. “I searched out a critique group to help me improve,” she said. “We’ve been together 10 years now. I don’t think I ever would have had anything published without them, and I know the others feel the same.”

Stemmer House Publishers published Burk’s children’s book Treehouse in a Storm in 2009. “The book is set in my hometown, New Orleans, in 1965, during hurricane Betsy,” Burk said. “I actually wrote the story before Katrina. It didn’t get published until after Katrina, but it was inspired by my own experiences.

“I remember my brother crying because he was afraid a treehouse he built was going to be destroyed by the hurricane, so that was the inspiration; the hurricane and my brother’s fear of losing his beloved treehouse.”

However, Burk did not need a book to hit the shelves to consider herself a professional storyteller. She’s been that as well for the past 17 years, entertaining at children’s parties and other events. “I have a bunch of characters but my favorites is a clown. So it was a pretty comfortable step once I got my book published to doing the author’s visits.”

These visits are very much the fuel that keeps Burk’s creative juices flowing. “I put a lot humor in it. It keeps the kids attention and the teachers like it. It’s pretty curriculum based.

“The program is called Locate Your Inner Creative Genius. At the end we have some brainstorming sessions: characters, settings, and so on, and then we mix and match them and come up with some pretty funny ideas. I talk about all the different ways authors come up with stories. And I promise them that after this, they will never have to say in their school career that they don’t know what to write about.”

The joy of Locate Your Inner Creative Genius seems to be anything but one sided, given the comments listed on Burk’s web site, www.rachelleburk.com. As one teacher quotes on the site say, “I couldn't believe she kept my kindergarten class captivated for a full hour!”

The sessions may be light-hearted in tone, but they are not light on content. One of Burk’s favorite subjects to discuss with budding storytellers is the various ways inspiration strikes. “I get ideas from reading, from travelling. Every adventure can lead to a story," say says. “I also stress research and revision. I talk about the illustrator, and that even illustrators need to do their research to draw realistic things. One thing I stress in my lessons is fact versus fiction.”

Burk has advice for older storytellers as well. A second website she maintains, www.resourcesforchildrenswriters.com, was recently named by Writer’s Digest as one of their “101 Best Web Sites for Writers.”

All this, and Burk still holds down a day job as a social worker in crisis intervention at Raritan Bay Medical Center.

“I’m never bored,” she adds with a laugh.