The Karla Peterson Effect

“Talk about a dream/ trying to make it real…” Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics that are the “ties that bind” a former teacher turned author to a veteran columnist.

This essay is one that Karla Peterson would never author about herself. I knew if the story ever got out, it would be up to me to write it. Why?

If you know Karla Peterson, even superficially as I do, you will learn that she is the personification of humility. This is contrary to some major newspaper columnists, for whom tooting their own horn is part of the gig. Not Karla.

As a matter of fact, when she interviewed me recently for her review of my newest novel, Karla told me that she really didn’t know the effect of her writing makes on the readers for the San Diego Union-Tribune—or the affect, for that matter. I was flabbergasted and I am planning on making sure that in just my small sample size—Karla Peterson moves mountains.

We met in unusual circumstances. I read her 2002 essay on the power and wisdom of Bruce Springsteen’s album The Rising, which was inspired by the tragedy of 9.11. I was planning on teaching selections from that album to my juniors at Mt. Carmel High School, and she wondered how I was going to present Springsteen and the entire horrendous topic to seventeen year olds who had just lived through it, albeit on the West Coast. At that time I realized, as the saying goes, that we were ‘of the same mind.’

As years passed, we kept in touch, and after I retired from teaching, she was kind enough to read and review my novels—even though they were self-published; that is what makes her “Effect” so amazing. Fast forward to July 23^rd, the date she published her review of my latest novel Meet Me at Moonlight Beach—her headline: Author Writes a Love Letter to Encinitas. Needless to say it was very flattering. 

Within 48 hours, over 38 books sold on Amazon; the La Jolla Kiwanis Club asked me to speak to their members; Mira Costa College put me on a writers’ panel; and my reading at the local artsy shop Bliss 101 in downtown Encinitas was crowded with folks who had “heard the word” from Karla.

Then the unimaginable (for me, an indie writer without an agent or traditional publisher) happens. I call Barnes and Noble and plan to pitch my new book (since they did have a table of books with the sign: What Encinitas Is Reading!). Thinking I was just going to get another stink-eye from the mainstream bookseller as I have for 9 years, I am “shocked, shocked” to have the lovely Katie, the community Relations Manager, tell me “Mr. Pacilio, we already carry your books…and we have already sold some.”

“What?” is my first reaction, and that is followed by “How?”

To find the answer I race to the store to find Katie, who takes me to my books, filed under P in fiction. I catch my breath. I was an English teacher and the San Diego County “Teacher of the Year”; however, that means absolutely nothing to the publishing world. (And that is fair.) So to finally see my work on the shelves—well, it is a moment to remember. Then Katie politely says, “Would you like to autograph these copies?” My pen is at the ready. She even puts that green seal that read: “Autographed Copy.”

Then I ask the most important question: “How did this happen?” Katie’s response is that someone in the store must have read Karla Peterson’s column and realized what Karla herself told me, “I really enjoyed your book and I was pretty sure other people would, too.” So they purchased books from my distributer. We decide the books need to go on the aforementioned ENCINITAS table so folks can see it.

Before I leave, Katie asks me: “Would you like to speak here and do a book signing? I can order all your other books, too?” Would I? You bet I would! So thanks to “The Karla Peterson Effect” I will be speaking at the Encinitas branch of Barnes and Noble on Saturday, October 19^th from 2-4 pm. Drop the mike.

Karla Peterson WOULD NEVER write a column about how much her opinion matters. So I figured it was about time somebody else did. Thank you, Karla, for helping me out of “these ‘Badlands.’”

Karla Peterson is a longtime San Diegan whose beats at the San Diego Union-Tribune have included TV criticism, pop-culture, Comic-Con and San Diego people and lifestyles. She has won awards for entertainment criticism from the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors. A graduate of San Diego State University, she has been with the U-T since 1985.

Robert Pacilio taught English from 1977-2010 and has now written four novels.

Teachers: 5 Songs to Play for Your Students NOW and WHY

Photo by Mohammad Metri on Unsplash

A long time ago, I thought that the first day of school was about the rules. That ended 25 years ago when I realized that there was no greater method to make the students believe that you, the teacher, were like one of the horrifying teachers in the film Pleasantville; if you have not seen the film — for shame! You have missed a film that captures the form of magical realism so “colorfully”…but I digress.

Music, you see, is the medium that teachers and students still have in common. It may be the last link a teacher has to the ‘kid culture’ — especially if you are over 40 years old (and still think Flock of Seagulls was a band that would become legendary). I learned that a song could speak to students much like it speaks to me and, without them knowing, create a literary bond.

That’s right — I said literary. For all you stubborn snobs who believe that only Dylan and his ilk of folk singers were the last of the literary luminaries, I have news for you. When you were following that Pete Seeger group down the Hudson River, the generation before you thought you and they were commie/ hippie/ Woodstock druggies. That generation looked at you “upstart crows” and dismissed you completely. So it is time to get off your high horse and recognize music is literature, even if “it’s still rock and roll to me.”

Here are 5 songs to start your teaching year.

First. Rise Against is a band and their anthem is a song entitled “Swing Life Away.” I would play it on Opening Day. Why? Because its message is that we all have scars, we all have fears, (even the teacher), and if we could just take a step closer to each other and reach across the aisle, we would discover that we have so much in common. It is a heart and soul melody that show the students that you care.[all grades/ all classes]

Second. Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” is the finest example of the vicious circle of poverty in America. It does not matter the color of one’s skin: poverty is poverty. Chapman’s song is focused on black circumstances, particularly a woman’s plight as her hopes to escape poverty vanish much like the symbolic and illusionary “Fast Car” that lured her long ago. Since America is recognizing “The 1619 Project,” the 400 years of slavery beginning with the Dutch slave trade of that year, this song speaks to the inherent injustice that is at the root of this nation’s Original Sin. { high school, English or Social Studies}

Third. The Beatles’ “Yesterday”is a compliment to Romeo and Juliet in that it is ‘Romeo’s Lament’ to his lost love, Juliet. Just listen to the words and you can hear how Shakespeare’s “star crossed lovers” surrender to a fate that they cannot escape, one that they do not deserve — one that continues today as lovers are torn apart by wars and drug lords that are interchangeable with the families of Verona. {high school preferably}

Fourth: Bruce Springsteen’s “41 Shots- American Skin” is a must when teaching the fate of Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird. Springsteen, inspired by the police shooting death of Amadou Diallo, warns his audience that “you can get shot just for living in your American skin.” For students living far from the inner city, or naïve to the power racism and fear instills in all of us (even if we are afraid to admit it), it is an eye opener. After all, Harper Lee’s theme is that you “can’t understand a person until you walk in his shoes”…even when his shoes are stained with blood. { high school — try the video of the live performance; it is particularly chilling}

Five: In 1989, Bruce Hornsby warned folks of the upcoming disaster that is Global Warming in his song “Look Out Any Window.” Hornsby looks to the sky, the sea, and the landscape and sees just how much damage is being done. That same year Lester Brown and the World Watch Institute published The State of the World and warned of the calamity approaching faster than even Al Gore predicted in A Inconvenient Truth. As I type these words, the Brazilian rainforests are burning due to deforestation that is rooted in a mentality that deems profitability over sensibility. {All science teachers middle –high school should be on to this; I taught this in English as part of non-fiction literature}

There you have it. I know I have not included music from the last five years, but I could. As a matter of fact, that is probably my next essay. But for now, just remember this:

You cannot teach kids if you cannot reach them