WE: May [May Paddock – Kate’s high school English teacher] was a friend of your grandmother’s, and your grandfather was the librarian at the Rudolf Steiner Library before May’s husband, Fred, was. Were you influenced by them while you were growing up?
KC: I didn’t know Hans well, but I was deeply influenced by Ruth. Like her, I’m an avid reader of English novels and mystery novels, a drinker of tea, player of Solitaire, NPR listener. When my grandmother died a number of years ago, she bequeathed me the unfinished adventure story she had been working on for many years; she asked me to finish it and see that it got published. I have since sent it to my agent, who agreed to represent her! Now I just have to finish writing it… so stay tuned for “The Adventures of Tyl.”
WE: Your aunt lived in Camphill and I understand you two were very close. I’d like to hear anything you’d like to tell us about that relationship.
KC: I adored Aillinn, who was deaf and “retarded,” but was one of the most keyed in people,
emotionally, I have ever met. She followed conversations closely, laughing when we laughed,
comforting us when we seemed sad; she knew exactly what was going on, and she radiated
intelligence and empathy. We were very close — two fellow firstborns — I felt a deep kinship
with my aunt, and I was heartbroken when she died.
WE: Who were your parents, and why were you/they in Arizona?
KC: My mother graduated from High Mowing, then attended Juilliard and planned to be a professional cellist, but got sidetracked by severe stage fright. She left the East Coast and moved to Berkeley, where she met my father, a radical Marxist lawyer who worked pro bono for various rabble rousers (Black Panthers, draft dodgers, conscientious objectors, etc.). They split up in 1968, and in 1970 my mother got into the graduate psych program at the University of Arizona, and we moved to Tempe.
WE: May recalls that she was trying to get you guys through an Advanced Placement course in twelfth grade but then she became so amazed and impressed by the class’s writing that you all ended up having a year of lots of interesting creative writing instead. Do you remember that?
KC: I remember only that the creative writing class was absolutely absorbing for all of us, and everyone in the class wrote such great things – poetry, stories, essays. May was an amazing teacher. Her classes were some of the brightest spots in my adolescent life – she was able to inspire us to do things we didn’t know we could do. Our senior play was “King Lear” – and I think we actually pulled it off, if only because May would not settle for anything less than our most dedicated, all-out efforts. It was an unforgettable experience to speak those lines, to experience the greatest play ever written in such a visceral, personal, profound way at such a young age. It’s stayed with me ever since.
WE: Of course we all want to know how YOU think writing should be taught in high school. Would you consider teaching in a Waldorf school?
KC: I have always been most moved and struck by great characters brought to vivid life by great language. I have never taught fiction – but if I did, I would focus on this idea of character. I think the foundation of all great novels is a cast of characters who live like real people in the memory when the book is done, who are in some way larger than the book itself: Jane Eyre, Lily Bart, Raskolnikov, Anna Karenina, Elizabeth Bennett, Scrooge, and on and on. I would encourage my students to talk about archetypes vs. individuals, what makes a character interesting rather than ethical or well-behaved, morality vs. aesthetics.
I taught ninth grade English briefly at the Rudolf Steiner School here in New York City in 1991, and during that year, I realized that Waldorf teaching is not my calling. It demands a dedication I could not and cannot muster. My monomaniacal life’s passion is writing novels; Waldorf teaching is an art in and of itself. I don’t mean to imply that I don’t think any artists can be dedicated to their work and also teach in a Waldorf school – just that I can’t!
WE: Who did you play in King Lear?
KC: Regan, the evil daughter! I wanted to play the Fool, but May had other ideas for me…