Along with three others of my five siblings, I was born in a (then) remote area of China. It must have been something to do with the Calvert course – a home-school correspondence programme that taught our nurse-mother how to teach, because all of us have been involved in writing since then, one way or another. From the age of eight I had to write an essay a week. This certainly affects the way you look at life around you, doesn’t it! Our mother, Myra Scovel, later became a published writer whose books are still selling today.
Out of the five things in life I vowed never ever to do, I’ve done them all: read music at university, become a teacher, work overseas when single, marry an Englishman, and follow our children to live near them. Each has offered strange adventures and untold delight.
It was about this time that I learned to write with a thick black pencil.
Having been born into a missionary family that spent most of its time outside its native USA, I too followed the family pattern, travelling and working in many countries, feeling more at home in learning how to understand other cultures, rather than exploring the vagaries and curiosities of being American.
Blessed with the confidence those early years provided, I have written all my life: poetry, essays, letters, diaries, lists, informal textbooks on how to teach English to speakers of other languages, and thousands of hours of lesson plans for teaching favourite subjects of music and adult literacy. I still habitually cram notebooks and journals, post-its, paper napkins, and backs of envelopes with scribbled ideas. Some are even good. There’s a wonder in the feel of the paper, holding a pen that begs to be writing, and I can’t resist!
Now I want to share the joys and catastrophes of creativity with others, keen to learn from you who are developing your own projects, whatever they are.
My John has recently passed away. I hold on tight to the faith he had in me, missing his praise and encouragement, but grateful for 53 years of life together.
For further reading from Scovel family members, try
The Chinese Ginger Jars by Myra Scovel. .The courageous human story of an American missionary family in China during the Japanese occupation. This work has been considered culturally important and reprinted as part of a “commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world’s literature in a high quality affordable mordern edition staying true to the original work.
Mom wrote many other books, too.
A Tombstone in Jining, by Jim Scovel. A peculiar true story of American missionaries to the China of a century ago. A tale filled with first hand accounts and documents, as Jim unfolds a story only now being told for the first time.
I Do, by Carl Scovel. In his small book two hundred men and women tell the stories of their marriages in short quotations — the odd, the ordinary, the familiar, and the unforeseen.
The Year China Changed, by Tom Scovel.
Born and raised in China, Tom was one of the first Americans to be invited back to the new People’s Republic of China and was fortunate to witness first-hand transformative policies which laid the foundations for the powerful nation we see today.
I also like his linguistic experiences as he taught English to eager students.
I’d love to hear from you!
Invitation to create 