How you can change the world with a good deed and a bow tie

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Julie Stroebel Barichello

One year ago, I learned the story of 11-year-old Colin, an unlikely hero who is asking us to make the world a kinder place with good deeds and bow ties.

The story goes like this: Last February, Colin’s mother Jennifer asked if he wanted a party for his 11th birthday. He replied there wasn’t a point because he had no friends.

Jennifer decided to create a Facebook page called Happy Birthday Colin. Her goal was to reach family and friends to extend birthday greetings and make Colin feel embraced. The mother wanted her son to know he isn’t alone.

In an hour, the page had 13 followers. The next morning, it had 50.

People began sharing the page and the story, and it garnered international attention. Within days, the page jumped to more than 1 million followers.

These days, the page has been renamed Colin’s Friends and has more than 2.1 million members worldwide.

One year later, Colin’s story is making a difference. Colin and Jennifer are asking people across the globe to recognize Be Kind Day, which coincides with Colin’s 12th birthday today.

This image was shared on the Colin's Friends Facebook page, featuring Colin wearing his bow tie.

This image was shared on the Colin’s Friends Facebook page, featuring Colin wearing his bow tie.

Jennifer posted this explanation on the Colin’s Friends Facebook page:

Colin has always been the first one to help someone, even when things were tough for him, he was always kind to everyone. So for his birthday, we would like to ask you all to do Colin’s favorite thing – anonymous acts of kindness. On March 9th, we’d like to declare it Be Kind Day, and we are asking all of Colin’s Friends to do an anonymous act of kindness, but to honor Colin’s birthday, please add a bow tie into whatever you do. For example, leave a card for someone who needs cheering up, and sign it only with a bow tie. Or make a care package for a homeless person, and slip a note card inside with a drawing of a bow tie. On March 9th, to celebrate Colin’s 12th birthday, let’s make kindness go viral!

This young man went from friendless to famous in a matter of days. Now he and his family are using their Facebook platform to reach an international audience of millions to encourage kindness and generosity.

Colin is changing the world, one bow tie-labeled act of kindness at a time. And he’s asking us to join him.

Let’s help him make the world a nicer place today.

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How do you define yourself?

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Julie Stroebel Barichello

“Who are you?”

It’s a question society asks every day.

Everywhere we turn, we are asked to define ourselves: Twitter bios. Facebook profiles. Blog and website About Me pages.

Our definitions categorize us. We say we are writers, designers, artists, engineers, doctors, librarians. We call ourselves knitters, painters, parents, sons and daughters, book lovers, sports fans.

We define ourselves in so many ways.

But we never say who we are. Only what we are.

For writers, authentic characters depend on who, not what. We can say our characters are dentists, or journalists, or newspaper delivery boys. But that doesn’t tell us who they.

Who is about motivation. It’s about quirks. It’s about desires. It’s about personality, emotions, actions and reactions.

So … who are you?

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You’re never too old for fairy tales

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Julie Stroebel Barichello

Once upon a time someone (no one seems to know who) dubbed Feb. 26 as Tell a Fairy Tale Day.

Each year, those who recognize the holiday — mostly elementary schools and libraries — grab their favorite happily-ever-after tale from the bookshelf and read aloud to students, patrons or, in my case, a fat house cat named Webster Oxford Roget Derek Stroebel.

(Yes, my cat’s initials spell WORDS. Fitting, since he’s named after two dictionaries, a thesaurus and two journalists.)

Others take it upon themselves to channel those medieval days before computers or typewriters and write their own with pen and paper. (Bonus points if their writing utensil has a feather plume.)

Or perhaps they celebrate in the tradition of oral storytellers, imparting their tale verbally without a scribe to save it for later.

Whatever the method, it’s a holiday that gets two ink-stained thumbs up from me. Tell a Fairy Tale Day 2015 is tomorrow, so there’s still time to plan a fantastic fantasy celebration.

Fairy tales didn’t leave us behind in childhood. There’s a little bit of Peter Pan in all of us who never grew up, and the magic of folklore and fantasy has followed many of us into adulthood.

A sampling of film and television is a reminder of fairy tale influence in everyday life.

The television series “Once Upon a Time” (7 p.m. Sundays on ABC), now in its fourth season, follows the lives of the residents of Storybrooke, a New England town populated by fairy tale characters transplanted from their magical kingdom into the United States by a curse. The TV series “Grimm” (8 p.m. Fridays on NBC), a police fantasy drama borrowing from the famous Brothers Grimm, debuted in 2011 and is in its fourth season.

In 2012, two Snow White spinoffs competed for attention in movie theaters: the spoofish and laughable “Mirror Mirror,” featuring Julia Roberts as the wicked queen, hit the silver screen in March, and “Snow White and the Huntsman,” featuring Kristen Stewart as a sword-wielding Snow White, came out in June.

One year before “Mirror Mirror” was released, Amanda Seyfried hit the theaters in March 2011 playing the title role in “Red Riding Hood,” a spin on the classic story that includes a village-terrorizing werewolf.

The 2005 film “The Brothers Grimm” not only features the fairy tales but also Heath Ledger and Matt Damon playing the writers of those tales. There’s the 2009 SyFy Channel miniseries “Alice,” a modernized version of “Alice in Wonderland.” And, of course, Disney’s latest rendition of “Alice in Wonderland,” directed by Tim Burton and casting Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.

And who can forget the 2014 Disney silver screen musical “Into the Woods”?

You get the point. You don’t need me to list them all. The examples are countless — I would miss dozens if I tried to list them all.

Fairy tales aren’t just for children anymore. Their popularity only seems to be gaining ground. The Maison Mochino, an Italian hotel, opened in spring 2010, and each room is tailored to individual works of literature, many inspired by fairy tales.

The Little Red Riding Hood room includes a plush wolf lying in the bed when guests enter. One of the tables in the Alice in Wonderland room is a giant teacup. And who could resist a giant ruffled pillow shaped like a cupcake? Hansel and Gretel certainly couldn’t, and I wouldn’t object to having one at home.

All of these tidbits in our culture — the television shows, films and hotel — are marketed toward an older audience. And it’s an audience that seems all too ready to consume.

So go ahead. Celebrate Tell a Fairy Tale Day this year. Pay homage to the stories you continue to treasure, whether it’s reading an original or a fairy tale-inspired book, watching a movie or catching up on the latest spinoff on TV.

Or better yet, just start writing. Throw in some dragons and dwarves and swords. Make pigs fly.

And may you keep enjoying fairy tales happily every year after.


[Editor’s note: This originally ran as an installment of Julie Stroebel Barichello’s newspaper column SpeakEasy in The Times (Ottawa/Streator, IL) on Feb. 25, 2013. It has been updated to reflect the 2015 observance of Tell a Fairy Tale Day. See the original column at bit.ly/1fhyyCf.]  

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Do judge a book by its cover … and other elements

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Julie Stroebel Barichello

* This post originally was published in March 2014 on my previous blog, everyjournalistblog.wordpress.com.

everyjournalist's avatarEveryJournalist Fiction

I have a confession.

Are you ready?

OK. One moment. Let me take a deep breath …

Here goes: I judge a book by its cover.

I know, I know. That “don’t judge a book by its cover” adage is a time-honored favorite. We’re supposed to judge a book by its contents, not by its design.

But I’m going to buck the trend and say it’s OK to judge a book by its cover.

Part of my saying so is the designer in me speaking. Each day in the newsroom, I handle newspaper and magazine design. I believe design is important. How a newspaper article, magazine story or novel is packaged and laid out matters.

As a consumer, when I go book shopping, undoubtedly there are dozens — in fact, probably hundreds — of books worthy of my reading. However, when I go on a book-buying excursion, I can neither…

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3 building blocks of writing for young beginners

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Julie Stroebel Barichello

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to speak about the writing process to local third- and fourth-grade girls during the Zonta Club of Ottawa’s good citizenship tea.

When I received the offer to be the guest speaker, I was asked to discuss the writing process and my path to becoming a writer.

My path began at the very age of my audience: elementary school. Reflecting on the beginnings of my writing career, it occurred to me that early stages of writing have a different focus than advanced years.

Third to fourth grade is the perfect time to begin grooming creative writing skills. During the Zonta Club of Ottawa girls tea, I named three components as vital starting points for beginners.

The three components to writing for elementary school students are:

  • Imagination
  • Inspiration
  • Writing

IMAGINATION

Imagination is the very foundation of storytelling. It also is the first building block of fiction writing for beginners. Imagination is the engine that drives writing.

Playing make-believe and daydreaming are excellent practice for young writers. Just as running or stretching exercises the body, make-believe and daydreaming exercise the imagination.

Daydreaming allows us to create settings, meet characters, and put ourselves and characters in new situations. A story first finds life through the writer’s imagination.

INSPIRATION

Finding inspiration for a story is the second building block for beginners. Just as make-believe and daydreaming exercise imagination, inspiration feeds the imagination.

So where do we find inspiration for the imagination to chew on?

The answer: Everywhere.

A common tool for writers is a pocket notebook or journal to carry everywhere. In it, we jot observations about our surroundings. Observations can include describing what a person wears or looks like, transcribing an overheard conversation, recording the sounds and smells of a location like a train station or coffee shop, etc. Tidbits from everyday life carry into writing and give it authenticity.

The ideas and observations we write down one day inspire the imagination another day.

WRITING

This is the third and most obvious of the building blocks.

To be a writer, the act of writing is essential. Writing daily — be it in a writer’s notebook, a journal, a diary, a research paper, a poem, a story, etc. — is important for habit-building and practice.

Word count doesn’t matter in the early stages. Two sentences, two paragraphs, two pages, two full stories … any amount is fine, as long as the commitment to write is present.

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