Science, Puppetry, and Writing: "Think bigger," Melissa Hamilton (interview)

The delightful Melissa Hamilton joins us on this episode to talk about her MFA experience, her work in science, puppetry, and planning unicorn parties! 

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We've just finished putting the touches on the six week pitcher pants off challenge from November 1st to December 15th, which contains the same steps. We've used a published, nearly everything we've written. Since we graduated with our MFAs this is a complete challenge that gives you everything you need to get your writing out into the world. So we hope you'll join. The challenge is totally free. Totally, totally, totally free. Register before November 1st at MFA payday.com. Welcome to MFA Payday where we talk with people about all the ways they make their MFA pay. We're your host Dreamer Drudge and Barry Drudge. Today our guest is Melissa Hamilton. We have to tell you right off the bat that we've traveled with her and our MFA experience abroad and had some wonderful times, including one of the last times was having Italian food. At a Japanese Italian restaurant in, uh, Kyo. No, no, no. It was Hiroshima. Yes. In Japan in 2018. So welcome, welcome, welcome. Thanks. I'm so glad to be here, virtually, at least. That's right. Oh, definitely. Maybe someday we'll have one big, reunion. I would love that. I like it. Yeah, me too. That would be. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about your MFA journey, Melissa? Like how you got there or what you've been doing since? Sure, sure. Um, so I, I, I am in education and I was actually finishing up my doctorate degree and was watching some. Movies. I'm like, I really wish someone would create something like Back to the Future, but maybe in alternate universes instead of time travel, and then something just clicked. I'm like, Oh my goodness, I should try that myself. And then a lot of my writing was not in the creative area, so I. Figured that I better try to build up that side of my writing skills. So I actually did the online writing certificate program through Stanford, and it was a wonderful program and I really liked it. I, it had a lot of workshop based programs to it. It was a 30, 30 some, uh, Semester unit I believe, or quarter unit, I don't know, 30 units of class. And I really, really enjoyed it. And I worked on, uh, I have written a series of five books. I have four and a half of them before I even started the Stanford program. Four and a half of them done. Uh, I'm not saying there were any, that they were any, So in that Stanford program, I worked on the first book and then enjoyed that experience so much. I wanted to find something to continue that process. And Spalding just seemed to fit the, all the check marks that I was looking for. It was during the summer, it was international, which I love traveling. Any excuse to say, Well, I have to go overseas because my program's there. Uh, so. Check so many boxes that I didn't even know could be checked off at the same time, and. I really liked how it was, uh, supportive of each other, and that's really what I liked about Stanford as well, that I had made some connections there where people were very supportive of each other and then to go to Sping, it just seemed like that just magnifying the parts of the original program that I had enjoyed so much and, uh, really am grateful for that. So, uh, worked on book two for my thesis. So in theory, I have book one and book two that are pretty much done. Uh, what I am doing with them, I have, I have hit that area of fearful for submitting them and having them rejected. I actually, before the covid lockdown stuff had some agents that expressed interest, but then the covid lockdown happened and I just kind. Paused and doing anything with it, uh, including submitting it. So that is on my list of things to do, to be brave enough to submit those things again. Uh, the last couple years I haven't done as much with writing, but I did. At Spalding in Italy, actually, I took the elective choice where I did stuff in script writing instead of, uh, writing for children, young adult, which is what my focus had been. So you can take a semester in another area, so, or workshop in another area. And I actually was working on two different scripts for that. So, uh, Summer of Sales sos and which is kind of based on some of my funny experiences of doing a teacher at sea program on a tall ship. Uh, and then another one evil dust bunny. So, uh, so that is obviously more of. Children's thing. Uh, and then the summer of sales would be more romcom, uh, young, not young adult, but like new adult, like college age, right outta college. So those are what I was working on in the script elective. And in over the last couple of years, I've taken a few classes from, uh, UCLA extension course, uh, on script writing and was working on some of those, so, It was good, but then, uh, very hard to concentrate the last few years. So I still need to get back to that, but I like some of the things I, I was working on with that. Um, and then for fun, occasionally I would say, Okay, I need to do something with writing. So doing some of the little contests where they give you a prompt and, um, which has helped to kind of stimulate the writing gene again, so that hopefully I can get back. Wow. And you are a woman of many, many hats because let's talk about what are you doing for a day job? Let these listeners know that, you know, there's a creative side to Melissa and then there's what she's doing during the day, which can be creative, but it's a whole other world. Yeah. I am a science teacher as a simple answer. Right now I am the planetarium coordinator slash teacher and a school district, which means basically on the field trip for students preschool through high school. So, uh, Wow. One of the things you had asked is in your preliminary questions that you sent was, What am I reading? Well, nothing fun right now, but I, It's interesting. It's a. It's character building it. Nothing else. I've been reading about quantum mechanics and how that impacts, uh, the stars and the, you know, relationship between that because I'm preparing for AP chemistry groups coming into the planetarium, doing some experiments, and then having to explain why AP chemistry relates to the planetarium. We need to clone you. That's, you know, But then on the other side of the spectrum, I'm also preparing a unicorn planetarium party for preschoolers. And I'm so excited about it cause it just so happens to be mono, the unicorn consolation. So I thought, What better way to get little kids excited, And so I was able to get some, um, funds approved for my budget to buy some little crafty type things that we're gonna do ahead of time. And then we'll do the Planet term show and look at, uh, monos among other things. That's amazing. That's wonderful. Now Melissa, does your job, like do you write scripts Occasionally I do. Now, obviously with the shows that I'm doing, I have done a lot of them, so much, the regular ones, so much that I even have my usual jokes that I add in there. They're kind of like bad dad jokes, but I call them bad science teacher jokes like you know, or Ryans you. Three stars that make up his belt. You know, I'd say, well, some people think, Well, Ryan's belt is a huge waste of space And I'm like, I know. Bad joke. Only three stars, And then of course, like during the covid lockdown thing, I did have, an opportunity to create some, 30 minute lessons, if you will, for the local, school districts. Which, by the way, you have a special guest with you, right? She helps sometimes with in Love with Sunny. Can you describe, since unfortunately we're just using audio, can you describe her for us? Really? Yeah. So Sunny, I ran into Sunny, uh, she is a real puppet. Oh. Oh, Puppet. Who's puppet? Uh, so she is a full body puppet that I found on one of my trips. I think I was at a science conference. She was not at the science conference, but she. In, um, I think in Florida or, uh, Georgia or Florida, one of those places. And I saw her and like, Oh my goodness, I have to have her. I, when I did in college, I did some puppetry work at a camp as a camp counselor because they actually taught us some basic skills as a puppet. Puppet tear. So I, I'm not really good at not moving my mouth. But fortunately for the things that I've done with her, I haven't had to, worry about people seeing me and her at the same time. Uh, I also used her quite a bit when, for fun, over the last couple years, um, before China had. Change their policy on foreign teachers teaching English to Chinese students. Uh, we would wake up early in the morning and teach the little kids in China, uh, English and. She actually got me a lot of customers because you put up a video of yourself, uh, and so that way the parents can know who you are. And I, I know that some of the people chose me purely because of Sunny and because I would hear them before their camera came on, we could hear a couple minutes of the teachers can hear a couple minutes before you turn on the camera. I would hear multiple kids practicing. Hello, Sunny. How are you, Mommy? Not me. That was sunny. Yeah, Well, thank you. You've just solved a mystery because I actually thought about doing that sort of teaching a few years ago. Um, and there were ads everywhere, and then ads went away, so that was a change of, Yeah, in November, like November. Third was around the last date that I was able to, uh, teach the students and it was really sad. I think a lot of us were really, really sad about that because, you know, you get really close to these students. There's some that I had taught over a hundred lessons to, which means like 50 hours of just one on one conversations with these kids, and sometimes they were arguing with. You know, she tried to convince them that she was a hundred years old. And so the, the little kids were like, No, you're not Oh, good. Um, I, I was able to have, um, um, Like a virtual phone call with one of them, um, on WeChat, which was really fun to be able to see one of them over again. So, but ala until the policies changed then. Um, and, but it, it was, it was very sad when that changed. But they, they still are, this company still. Doing things globally. Uh, but I haven't done any teaching since they changed the policies. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus it's nice to sleep in a little bit longer. Yeah, because I remember trying to look at what hours I might be available. I'm like, Oh, I'm have to get up off, literally. Right. And sometimes when Sunny was busy arguing with one of the students, um, then I would be like, too bad that I couldn't yawn or take a sip of water. I, you know, because like, you know, Sonny's doing the teaching now, why can't I just relax So, you know, that would be one of those really, really early sessions when I'm, My logic wasn't quite there yet. I love it. That's one of the first things I remember about you, you were doing reading. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I think it was actually, uh, so I have my main series, which Kayla is, um, your every day average 16 year old. She's smart, little geeky, little clutchy, and she finds herself threatened and has to escape to another dimension where she realizes she's a rare two world, one parent from Earth. One parent from Earth Time. That's, yes. So, um, one year I might have read something from. And I think they read something from book two for the, uh, graduation in Japan. Uh, but then I also have a character that starts in book two, uh, who's a middle school, um, boy. And when he's in eighth grade, I believe seventh or eighth grade, I have him have his own series because he was just like begging for it. He was, he. And, and I realized that one of the students that I bonded with who was really hyper and high strung was actually probably reminding of me of my character Tony, because like this, this kid's awesome. I'm like, Oh my goodness. He's like my character that I made. So, but yeah, so he, Tony is not a bad kid. He just, Happens to have things happen to him that he gets in trouble for. So, uh, yeah, that's also on my list of things to do. I, I, I have a really good start to Tony's troubles, but I don't quite know exactly how I'm gonna get from point A to point B, and I like to have, once I kind of figure out what that is, then it's a lot easier to write. So with my series, I plotted out the whole five books in the first couple months. Of even beginning to write. So I always knew where I was going to head with it. There's a couple of the parts that are not written for Book five yet are um, more complicated cuz I'm not really good at fight scenes. So but you were engaging because it was, not only was it a reading, but it was a performance, Right. When you had voices and gesticulations and it was just, I wish they would've videoed it. I mean, it was, it was. That got me, um, then invited to help perform for some of our, our other cohort cohorts. And that was really fun. That was really fun. You authored our, uh, senior skit as well. Oh, I guess, Yes, I did. That was a lot of fun. I know. I don't think they want, I don't think they want you to sing Sunny Star Well, and you know, we talked to people about the different things they do, like, you know, the last person we interviewed or one of the people, um, was a photographer. Do you feel like, you know, sunny and puppetry, is that another way maybe to express creativity for you or no? Uh, yes. I, I believe so. I think there's always been, you know, the creative side of me and the science geeky side of me, and they're not necessarily opposed to each other, they're just different aspects. So, um, I do play the piano. Um, so I do play the piano and Oregon. Um, I actually started, um, Oregon when I was younger and eventually I switched over to piano because, uh, It's a lot harder to find organ teachers. And um, but then when I got into college, I stopped officially taking lessons because in college, if you're taking music lessons at the college level, then they expect a huge amount more time than as a science, uh, major I could give. So, um, so, but that's, that's definitely one of my creative outlets and, um, Because I, I think it's important to have creative outlets, so I might not be writing as much as I was, uh, several years ago, but I still need that creative outlet. So, uh, that's been fun now that I, uh, I bought this place last year, so now I have finally have room for, for a piano. Technically that's supposed to be the dining area. But you know Yeah. I married to a musician. I totally get that. Yeah. Our, our first, one of our first places was like for, what, three or four years? The dining room was drums and guitars and amps and keyboards. There was, there was no dining table. There was no room for a dining table. I Right. Plus sunny sets, you know, on the other far side of the room too. She has her own desk over there. So I love. Well, do you have advice that you would give to other MFA graduates or any words of wisdom to pass down? I think that if, if, if people are trying to find an MFA program to really look at the different characteristics of the program that will best meet your needs, so I know that. I had a student from the Stanford program that went on to one of their really well known schools, but that would not have been a, I mean, there's a part of me that like, Whoa, that sounds like a really great program, but that wouldn't have been a good fit for me. I, I can't imagine. Having had a better experience because it met me exactly where I needed it. And, uh, the first mentor that I had was perfect, just kind of, uh, very supportive and that was great. Now, some of the other mentors were tougher and I learned things from them, but sometimes my brain is not ready to handle and make sense of the criticism as fast as you need to in. A semester and even. And so I was very grateful to have the extended semester. It was a nine month semester for the summer cohort. So you do the summer workshop and then you have nine months for the one semester, which was great because I don't see how I could have done it otherwise with having to keep up in a much more condensed, normal size semester. Um, so that, I think that's important. Like make sure you find a program that meets you where you are, and especially. To find a program that understands the impact that international travel can have on creativity, I, it's like, wow, to be with not only like-minded people who have chosen that same program, but like-minded people understanding the importance of international travel and how it sparks creativity and in ways that you can't even. No, until you actually come back and start digesting things and, and, and seeing how that impacts you. So, uh, so I, I think my advice, I, mom, my general advice for anyone is always think bigger, think big, think bigger. Uh, and that was the vice given to me in the late nineties by, um, someone who was awarding me a grant for. Teacher Achievement award program grant. And they said, you have really great ideas that you need to need to think bigger. And so that's kind of always been my theme since then. Like I need to think bigger. How am I gonna think bigger? Uh, so. I did that program, I did, um, I had a chance to go see the total solar clips of the sun back in 99 in England. And then like, okay, this is amazing. How am I gonna think bigger? So, uh, you know, then you know who would've fought that. 20 years later, I'd be in a planetarium. You know? And so it, there's things that you kind of just need to take advantage of and think bigger and like, Okay, I don't know how this is gonna impact me in the future, but I'm gonna think bigger. I'm gonna do this. Total Solar Clips, I'm gonna justify it to this grant people, the grant people agreed that that was an amazing thing for a science teacher to do. And then, um, that kind of started me thinking, Okay, what am I gonna do that's bigger than this? I'm gonna do Teacher at Sea program. What am I gonna do that's bigger than this? I'm gonna spend the summer in Paris as an adult. Learning French, you know, it's a, it's kinda like, It just kind of propelled me on. So, um, I got a second round of that grant and was able to go see a total, so clips in South Africa and a few schools in, in Australia and Singapore and Japan, and that's been amazing to see how all those experiences shape. Uh, what I do as a science educator, but also having been in various science leadership roles over the years and being able to even create programs to help some teachers have some of those experiences too. So that would be my advice. Think bigger. So a few years from now when I've sold millions Yes. And I have my, my Chateau in France. Uh, cuz I decided against the castle figuring that the chateau would be more warm and friendly, you know? Uh, but then that way we can have writer conferences in my chateau. Now I'm flexible. Mansion in the US could be possible. I'm trying to keep an open mind. You think quite like us. That's, Yeah. Well, you know, I'm gonna have to title this episode. Think bigger, right? Yeah, there you go. But, but really, I, I think that's, that would be my, my encouragement because like I, you never know what's going to happen and, uh, so because of those experiences, it led me to continue to do things. And, um, so it just so happened some of those Total Solar Eclipse programs had. Science experts in them. So I was able to hear and talk directly with like astronomers in the field and assistant editor from uh, Astronomy Magazine at the time, and, uh, was able to then get him to come and speak to teachers, uh, when I was, uh, planning professional development for people. And so I. I never expected to be in a planet charm, but now that I am, it's outta this world. boom, Perfect. it's hard to believe that it's only been what, a half hour-ish because we've packed so many things and you've got so many. You're, you're like your own little galaxy Ooh. So I guess as we wind down, my question is, is there anything else, I mean, outside of just what we think, big theme, which is wonderful, uh, is there something else that we could, uh, that you would like to talk to our listeners about? Something about you that they may or may not know? Well, um, At this point, I'm not sure. I, I think that if, if I am able to sell my books and, uh, you know, become an official published author, like Dream Us, then, you know, that way, um, it would be great to have a chance to, um, help. Science educators in the future. So I'd, I'd love to have like a nonprofit to help, uh, like professional development to, to give other teachers the same chances and opportunities to think bigger. Like I've, I've been able to do. Uh, but, uh, You know, it's one of those things I, uh, education is very challenging right now and teachers are really burnt out, and I'm very fortunate that I'm in a really unique. Position to not be having some of the same challenges that the teachers across the hall from me are having. So, uh, I guess, you know, be nice to the teachers. Be nice to the teachers. They're overwhelmed. They're doing everything they can, They're not trying to, you know, you know, brainwash children or whatever we're the latest that we're being accused of doing. Right. So it, it's one of those things like that. That's a way to get me riled up is to, to say something bad about teachers when teachers are just so overwhelmed now. So right. There you go. Be nice to think bigger and be nice to teacher. Be nice to teachers. This has been so wonderful. Yay. Melissa, just appreciate, wanna thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. It's, it's like for us, it's like a little mini reunion and also to catch up on what's going on. Thank you for coming along and everybody listening. Keep writing, writing all of the things.