Statement of Walter Fishkind On Writing Hello, my name is Walter and I am aspiring to be a writer. After completing graduate school in 1971, I taught for 45 consecutive years teaching English in the New York City Department of Education. I worked for 14 years in the junior high school division and for 31 years in the high school division. During this time I would often think about becoming a writer but I never thought it would become a reality for me. However, I did enjoy writing with my students. Often I would write a first draft to discover what problems the assignment presented to them in order to help them with their own writing. However, it was only when I retired from teaching in July of 2016, that I seriously devoted myself to writing. My first book was "Walter’s Ways: The Teaching of English With Methods, Models, and Movies," a textbook on the successful techniques I had learned through my years of experience with my students. It is a first book for the new English teacher who is inquisitive about what can be accomplished in the English classroom. I felt I was justified in writing this book because I had spent so many years in the classroom. Many teachers spend approximately thirty plus years in the classroom before they retire. However, I worked over 40 years. At the time, I thought I would teach forever but my physical limitations caused by age caught up with me. The second book I wrote was "Brooklyn Loves, A Novel." This is the coming-of-age story of Joshua Bernstein, a 16 year old who experiences his first love and the death of his mother during his junior year in high school. In addition, he learns about his religious tradition and begins to doubt it. This was the book that I had to write. As I walked through the hallways of the different schools I taught at, it constantly entered my mind and I always wondered how I would develop it. My third book is "Portrait of a Teacher as a Young Man." It is the story of how Joshua Bernstein, once again the protagonist, finally decides he wants to become a teacher and not a lawyer. It is a continuation of the journey begun in "Brooklyn Loves, A Novel" and it explores many pivotal events in his twenties. For example, he dates and meets many different kinds of women in his search for a meaningful relationship. At the same time, he experiments with different approaches to teaching. He is never satisfied with his accomplishments and he is always searching for new ways to relate to his students. When I wrote these books, I was exploring what had happened in my life. I used the idea of “writing as discovery” as my rationale for what I was writing. I believe that the first draft of any novel is for the writer to discover what he or she wants to communicate. Then come the later drafts where the writer thinks of how the reader is reacting. Sometimes writers can do both at the same time. I am not there yet. Also, I enjoy “the writing process.” I love the idea that the writing does not have to be perfect the first time but it can be developed (or not developed) as the story continues. I liked listening to “my unconscious” which gave me ideas which I had not thought of when I had first started writing these books. After so many years in the classroom, I became fascinated with the idea of “levels of complexity” in a work of literature. For me teaching a work of became a challenge to see how many different levels I could explain to my students. For example, in "Oedipus the King" by Sophocles, there are a number of levels the play can be interpreted. Two ways are Oedipus as a “tragic hero” and the second Oedipus as an archetype of the hero. Now, I want to turn this idea around and focus on the writer. One of the writer’s tasks is to make his characters as honest and as complex as he can by giving them different levels so his story can be as meaningful as possible. The story becomes a puzzle of meaningful possibilities. It becomes a never ending search for meaning. These are my latest thoughts on writing.Read more about this authorRead less about this author