Author Aids Writing Program at School

As the youngest in a family of eight children, Mary Helen Ponce would often lock herself in the bathroom or climb trees in search of a quiet place to read. Lacking paper and pencils, she used sticks to scratch her first stories in the soft dirt around her family’s Pacoima home.

On Wednesday, Ponce, the author of “Hoyt Street,” which describes her childhood experiences in 1950s Pacoima, and four other books, brought her enthusiasm for literacy to Vaughn Next Century Learning Center. During the next year, Ponce will collaborate with teachers and parents on a new creative writing program at Vaughn.

“I never knew I could be a writer, but as I got older I developed a love for books,” Ponce told 1,200 students at the kindergarten through fifth-grade school Wednesday. “I never knew that words and books could make a difference, but now I know they can.”

Ponce, who has four grown children, lives in Sunland and writes articles and teaches creative writing at Cal State Northridge and UCLA when she is not working on one of her books.

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Her appearance at Vaughn on Wednesday marked the kickoff of a yearlong program in which parents will be encouraged to work with their children on family-based storybooks. The stories will be compiled in a volume to be unveiled at a writers’ festival at the end of the year, said Matt Oppenheim, coordinator of Vaughn’s Parent Academy.

“Many of our parents are immigrants and many of the children are not aware what they have gone through,” Oppenheim said. “The general concept is about family literacy, but it is kind of a cultural education as well.”

“I think it’s important to publish the work because it is valuable for them to see their names in print,” said Ponce, who will visit Vaughn every third week to help with the project. “It shows them that what they have to say really matters.”

“She was nice and she said we could reach our dreams to be writers,” said Vaughn fourth-grader Beatriz Juarez, who was one of about 20 students invited to meet Ponce and ask her questions after the assembly.

“It’s good to write about your life so you can remember it later,” Beatriz said.