My Writing Heroes: Robert Munch

What do you do when you have trouble coming up with new things to write about? Why, you make a series and you write installments for it over time. And that's what I'm doing here. Welcome to My Writing Heroes. This is where I'll talk about the authors, writers, story tellers and general influences on my style, my passion and my life in general and I think I'm going to start big by talking about one of my first and greatest heroes, Robet Munch.

I have to be honest when I say I've never been much of a reader. I know it's a bad trait for a writer, but reading is something I've always found slow and maybe just a little bit hard. Not to say I hate stories. I LOVE stories. Just reading them is something I've always found difficult and in my experience, not the best way I learn. I'm an auditory learner, which means I learn best when I hear something, or it's spoken to me. So, naturally, my favorite way to learn a story is to listen to it.

When I was younger, the library had so many books on tapes, read by one person or by a cast ensemble. I must have went through the entire children's section of library and all of the Star Wars audiobooks growing up. But my absolute favorites were not the ones where it was someone reading the pages of a script. I loved the ones where it was someone telling the story off by heart. These stories were always so magical and thoughtful. Some of my favorites included Native Americans telling their legends and another by a woman who told such poetic Celtic stories. But one of the best were the stores by the writer Robert Munch.

Those unfamiliar with the name Robert Munch may be more familiar with his most famous work 'The Paperbag Princess', the story of a Princess who went to rescue her prince from a fire-breathing dragon, wearing only a paperbag since the rest of her clothing was destroyed. His works are very creative, random yet structured and tell such wonderful stories and more often than not teach valuable lessons. My favorites of his work include The Mud Puddle, Blackberry Subway Jam and Thomas' Snowsuit.

I don't know to much about the man personally, but I wanted to relate how inspiring he was as a child. I owned one cassette of his performances. Robert Munch would perform in front of a crowd of children, and without a book, he would tell a story. Maybe it was a one he had wrote before, maybe it was one that he just made up as he went along. But all the while, he did the voices, he did the sound effects and he spoke with such animation and energy, you could almost see him in front of you, performing these wonderful stories. My favorites were the ones that were yet to be his books. He would perform these stories off the top of his head and he knew exactly how to keep the audience not only entertained but involved with the process. He didn't just want their involvement. The story was made for them to scream "NOOOO!" or "ROOAAR!" or for them all to laugh at loud at all of the funny things he would do. And sometimes, after he was done, he would ask, "Should I make that into a book?" And of course, the audience would always answer, "Yes!"

I didn't know it then, but everytime I listen to that tape, I knew more and more, that I wanted to be just like him one day.

The tape, sadly, has been played into oblivion, but the stories live on in my head. The man, with his infinite energy, has inspired me to this day to be a writer and a storyteller. Thank you sir. Because of you, I have found my passion. You have given me a gift and I will not let it go to waste.

Peace and blessings
Eric Rawlinson
20110119