Jeannette Walls

The auditorium was packed full of bustling people who were awaiting the arrival of just one person. The chorus of multiple voices meshed together making every conversation, apart from my own conversation, indiscernible. Seated in one of the front rows I patiently waited for Jeannette Walls to speak. I was anxious to put a face to Jeannette Walls after reading her book The Glass Castle. Then someone came out and gave Jeannette Walls an introduction, to be completely I didn’t catch a word they were saying, I was distracted by the woman doing sign language at the far end of the stage.

Then a sound of applause started up and Jeannette Walls walked on stage with a large smile. Everyone became quiet as Walls started to talk. The way Walls talked reminded me of her writing style, it had a certain flow to it that was unique. Walls began talking about how she came to tell her story and what brought her to so. She talked about how she was ashamed for the longest time, and that she was afraid everything good in her life would be undone. When Walls talked to her current husband about her story he told her that it needed to be told. Walls talked about starting to write the book and how she used the glass castle her dad wanted to make as the title for the book.

Walls then recounted a time when she was younger and she told her dad she saw a monster. Wall’s dad told her it was a demon that had been following him for a long time; the two went out searching for the demon calling out to it with threats. Walls used this illustration from her book to talk about how to face our own demons. Walls talked about how her past was her demon and no matter where she went it would always follow her, so the only thing she could do was face her past. Walls used her demon to her advantage and wrote her book.

Walls then talked about her brother Brian and his friend whose name escapes me, ended up so different even though they were very much alike. Walls humorously told the story of how her brother and his friend were inseparable during childhood and how they would get in trouble with the police in Welch. When Brian moved to New York City he became a police officer himself. Brian returned to Welch to visit his friend and told him that he was a cop to which his friend replied that he was a criminal.

I really enjoyed what Walls talked about next, the power of storytelling. I would love to become a writer one day, and hearing her talk about storytelling was very inspirational. Walls talked about how her first drafts and how she related many of her stories to people in her life. This was something that caught my attention because that’s what I would always do if I wanted to create a character in a story.

I really enjoyed Wall’s presentation; it really spoke to me about my own ambitions as a writer. That kind of inspiration is something that will stick with me for the rest of my life.