The William Nicholas Liberi Memorial Prize: Got fliers?

Monday, October 15, 2007

Got fliers?

Want to help with fundraising? If you'll be attending a conference, community outreach event, party, or other gathering, drop us a line and we'll e-mail you a copy of the William Nicholas Liberi Memorial Prize flier that Carrie made. It's a great way to get the word out about Will and the prize fund. (This past weekend, for example, I got to spend some time with Vic Munoz, Ednie Garrison, and Jenna Basiliere at the American Studies Association conference in Philadelphia, where we distributed the fliers and posted them on the info boards for folks to look at and pick up.)

If you work at or spend time in a community center, safe space, or other venue with a bulletin board or literature table, we'd love to send you an electronic copy, too. Download our flyer here or send e-mail to willmemorial@gmail.com

(Please note, the flier contains the wording for the prize as of our posting on October 9th, and does not yet reflect any upcoming changes or poll results.)

3 comments:

Queednie said...: Hi all! I'm going to respond to several threads so bear with me:

First, the posters Carrie and Katie made are really nice! The photo of Will is gorgeous (the same one here on the blog). It's simple and informative, and not too busy with graphics. Respectful. I definitely encourage people to use it to spread the word, but please be sure to engage people with stories of Will, too, so that people who did not know him understand why this is so important.

Second--I think the title as it is now being expressed is just right.

Third--after reading chelle's suggestion for how the committee who awards the prize should be constituted it occurred to me that maybe the model used by the Board of Trustees could be borrowed here--but without some of the obvious problems of BOT constitution. :)

fourth--I love the idea of approaching a non-wells org about setting up a prize of some kind for teens. However, I would ask that in this kind of situation we not rush, and that the idea be not to honor only Will, but to acknowledge as well other tg persons who've impacted the lives of others. I've got some ideas, but must wait to lay them out here because of timing. (not a bad thing at all--just need to avoid being premature). I just want to register for now that this is a thread that would be interesting to explore further, although at this time it is not an immediate priority.

Fifth--regarding Sarah's request for tg materials to use in class: remember that "X: A Fabulous Child's Story" is not necessarily a tg kind of text. It depends on what ii is read next to, and by whom it is read. People without tg-consciousness are going to read it in a more strictly sex/gender system construct, whereby sex is biological and gender is social, and that there are only two sexes. Reading the story along with a couple chapters from MY GENDER WORKBOOK, or something with a similar consciousness of gender fluidity is going to help students see the tg potential in "X." And don't forget: students are often deeply deeply disturbed (at least initially) by the possibility that gender is NOT biological, much less that binary gender is not "natural" but rather "naturalized." One of the reasons "X" CAN work as a tg-conscious story is because of the love and sensitivity exhibited in the telling, especially by the psychologist at the end.

On this note: if anyone on this list was in Intro to WS my first semester at Wells (F03) and remembers how our discussions of "X," MY GENDER WORKBOOK, and the film "Adventures in the Gender Trade" went, I hope you will share your accounts. I am asking because those discussions were directly influenced by Will (who was also in the class), and also because I am writing a story about that class in honor of Will. So the request is partly selfish, but the selfish part of the request has everything to do with the fact that some incredibly powerful learning happened in that class, and Will played a central role in that process.

If Carrie and Katie think this request is not appropriate for this blog, please let me know. If we could move the request to a separate thread without setting up a whole new blog, however, I would be very grateful.

Sixth--Lee and Vic: having been unable to attend the memorial, but having been told a bit about what happened, i want to thank you both for talking about it here. I hope that we can all make use of this space to archive this history as it's happening.

Seventh--well, there was 7th thing I wanted to say, but I've forgotten what it is. I'll just have to come back later, I guess. Thank you all for taking the time to read my little tomb. Sorry it's so dang long. :)

love,
Ednie; October 15, 2007 at 1:43 PM
Meghan Roberson Sommers '05 said...: Hey, so, I don't have as many blogging skillz as ya'll but here's the link:

http://rememberingwillwithbooks.blogspot.com/; October 16, 2007 at 4:16 PM
Vic Muñoz said...: Hi Meghan,

That's great! I put a link to your book blog on my blog, too.

Thanks!

Vic; October 16, 2007 at 5:07 PM