This week I’ve done things that I had never done before. As one of the requirements for this internship to be successful, I interviewed one of the authors whose workshop I took during this week. The writer that I chose to interview was Marc Tyler Nobleman. Marc Tyler Nobleman is a children’s book author, who wrote the first biography on Bill Finger (Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman), one of Batman’s creators. I decided to interview him after he kept talking about the process that he went through to write about Bill Finger’s story during class. The interview went smoothly, with Marc responding to my questions on the publishing industry, book bannings, and Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. As a fan of superheroes, it was nice to talk to somebody who helped save Bill Finger’s legacy, after decades of not being credited as one of Batman’s creators, just by writing a book on his involvement in the creation of this iconic character. After I was done interviewing him, Marc interviewed me, by asking me questions about Cornell College, and my internship here at Chautauqua.
I was glad that he didn’t ask me questions about the things that I’ve been doing here, since I would have to shamefully admit that in the past few days I've had to force myself to participate in activities that I have found interesting.This is not because there isn’t anything going on, but rather because at the end of the day I want to go back to my room and rest from interacting with others and walking around all day. I’m not lying–this is most of what I do throughout the day, aside from working at the Poetry Makerspace and going to my writing workshops. But despite how tired I may feel some days, I still like to take some time to go to different events. This week I saw a magic show, a comedy show, and the fireworks that people lit up on the fourth of July.
Expending the fourth of July in the United States for the first time felt like an experience out of The Twilight Zone. The displays of patriotism felt kind of strange to me since I come from an island that is currently a colony of the U.S.A. Even though I don’t celebrate that holiday (I feel like celebrating the independence of the United States, as somebody who is from Puerto Rico, would be a bootlicker thing to do), I still put on a red, white and blue shirt that I had, and spent the afternoon with some of the friends that I’ve made here. We went to a diner outside of Chautauqua with a fifties aesthetic to it to enjoy some good trashy food and talk about anything and everything.
Of course, there were other interesting things that happened during this week. For example, I put to the practice my editing skills by helping curate the weekly community poem. This is something that I will be doing every single week until I leave. Working on that poem entailed choosing the best lines from every poem that had been submitted for this week, and then creating a different poem using those lines. The final result was a combination of my efforts and other interns' efforts, which made the final result something very special to read and be a part of.
With this being my penultimate week at Chautauqua, I can say that I’m very excited to keep getting the most out of this internship during these last two weeks. To take everything that I have learned here, and the connections that I have made, and bring them home with me, that lets me know that my internship has been successful.