Introduction

Find wonder here. Find singing. Find voices celebrating. Welcome, reader. You hold the latest version of Cambia, the anthology of student creative writing from The Cabin’s Writers in the Schools. Ater the pandemic forced a year break, Cambia returns illed with the imaginative creations of young artists from schools throughout the Treasure Valley. Yes, I did say artists, because that is what The Cabin does: we teach student writers they can be more than just student writers, that their imaginations—their words—can create alternate worlds, alternate versions of themselves, even. It has been my privilege to be a teaching-writer for The Cabin for over two decades, serving this year at Frank Church High School and Ustick Elementary. Each year I have had the pleasure of leading students through the worlds of poems, stories, and memoirs, exposing them to the power of language, to the love of reading and writing. I teach them that words are more than just vessels for meaning, but also are building blocks with which they can construct new realities. They can build experiences for you, the invisible audience, to have. They can express and share their own unique way of experiencing the world. When thinking like an artist, each word learned is a new color on their artist’s palette, and each color has hues—if you allow me to continue the colors metaphor—that can provide a deeper actualization of the reality of their own design. Harnessing language is harnessing power. Over my years of service I have oten noticed students generally dislike poetry. Not because poetry is bad, but because to them, and to many of their teachers, poetry is mysterious, confusing, even of putting. They don’t “get it.” I have enjoyed watching students’ eyes widen, their faces brightening with understanding, as we navigate the world of a poem together, and with that the joy of

watching them write their own poems with a new understanding of how to use their words to create—people, places!—from the depths of their imaginations; and further, through their words they can empower themselves. We learn together to consider and use words diferently: as tools, not only for self-discovery, but also to create and hone their own unique voice. Their words can empower them. The last couple of years have been rough on all of us, but especially the young artists who ill these pages. In their words you will ind resilience, vitality, and possibility, along with alien worlds, talking animals, lowers, rhymes, rainbows, and the many faces of the moon. You will ind joy and sorrow, life and death. You will ind wonder. You will ind hope. – Daniel Stewart, Teaching-Writer