STORY BY DANA HUCH, PHOTO COURTESY GORDON JACK

With ears alert and pen poised to capture realistic characters in his novels about high school misadventures, Gordon Jack is a keenly observant author undercover as a librarian.

In the Los Altos High School library, he’s able to both draw inspiration from and teach students with his passion for telling stories. Visitors give Jack a window into the authentic language and characters of high school, such that he strongly based one main character in his 2018 novel “Your Own Worst Enemy” on a real-life library regular, he said.

“What [being a school librarian] allows me to do is see kids unfiltered,” Jack said. “Kids in a classroom immediately put on a [classroom-appropriate] persona. …Whereas, in a library, I don’t go around shushing people, so it’s really kind of a student space. … If I just walk around and eavesdrop on conversations, I can kind of pick up on language and just stuff, you know.”

But students aren’t the only ones with library alter-egos. Gordon Jack has published two books for young adults and just recently wrapped up his second draft of a new novel. Mr. Jack is but a humble and passionate librarian. He said he prefers to keep the two separate.

“Sometimes it’s a little awkward, you know, because they have to both check out and return the book to the person who wrote it,” Jack said. “I try to keep a low profile and not ask them, ‘Hey, did you like it? What did you think?’”

He is more interested in hearing students’ writing than what they might have to say about his own; Jack has worked to cultivate the library as an inspiring space for young writers using his extensive background in English education.

Jack started out as an English teacher at Mountain View High School then Los Altos High before teaching and designing the English curriculum at the Freestyle Academy for seven years. During his time at Freestyle, Jack took a leave to teach at The American School in Santiago, Chile, for a year.

Everything about being an English teacher was a dream, Jack said — apart from grading papers. He admitted that transitioning between schools was partially motivated by his desire to combat the unfortunate reality of grading with the excitement of new environments.

“The grading papers sort of took its toll on me, which is why I bounced around and did different things,” Jack said. “It’s really hard, especially if you have a family or an interest in doing anything besides grading papers to do anything else.”

Jack said he never developed the necessary expediency to be an efficient grader because he always preferred to study student work as he would a manuscript and give feedback. The ambitious curriculum he engineered didn’t make things any easier. In one case, his idea for students to write in a daily journal entry quickly became overwhelming to grade.

“I remember, that first week I took home 120 journals and I was like, ‘Wait, I can’t do this; this is crazy!’” Jack said, laughing.

Eventually, grading became such an obstacle that he searched for alternatives to teaching English and was grateful to be able to transition into the role of librarian at Los Altos. This way, Jack said he could continue to be involved in his sphere of interest but also free up time previously spent grading for family and writing books. In addition, he is able to lead small classes, clubs and seminars for students through the library.

He said having the freedom to offer classes with more student-directed curricula and without the consequence of ungodly grading hours was the ideal situation for him. One such class he led was a creative writing seminar during the latter semester of the 2020 school year in which students practiced developing and revising their own work as well as critiquing others’ works.

“My theory is that all of freshman year should be storytelling,” Jack said. “I think that’s going to help you be a better writer; that’s going to help you discover your voice. It’s going to help make you more fluent in writing so when you get an expository assignment, you feel like you’re just ready to go and you don’t look at it as [being as] formulaic as you maybe would have if you didn’t have that.”

Jack put this concept into practice when he taught a class for writers in need of more basic skill development. He said he concentrated most of the curriculum on storytelling assignments to challenge students stuck in the checking boxes mindset of writing.

“The traditional English curriculum emphasizes expository writing and analysis,” Jack said. “While that’s important, I don’t think it should be emphasized as much as storytelling.”

He explained that in becoming better storytellers, students become better writers by learning to apply ingenuity and creative thought processes to even academic papers. Fluency in all types of writing is much easier when you know how to tell a story, he said.

“You take those storytelling choices that you make and you bring them into expository writing and it just frees you up to have a more creative experience in that particular mode of writing,” Jack said.

So while his years as an English teacher may be in the past, Jack continues to share his love of storytelling with students in the library.

“The place where students really discover their voices, their interests, their passions, is when they’re writing things that are meaningful to them and I think for a lot of students, those are stories,” Jack said.

STORY BY DANA HUCH, PHOTOS COURTESTY JIA HIREMATH

Jia Hiremath once sent a letter so heavy that it took six stamps — even though it only needed to travel a few streets away. The envelope, with calligraphy of the recipient’s name adorning the address line, contained a personal letter along with stickers, washi tape and other cute bits of stationery for her pen pal to use in their own creations. Apparently, the Palo Alto High School sophomore regularly sends stuffed envelopes like this to her 18 penpals.

“I go through more stamps than the average person,” Hiremath said. “I don’t know why.”

The stationary and decoration are part of the fun, but Hiremath said she finds the exchanges most rewarding for the genuine connections that come from taking time to write vulnerably. The art of letter writing has made a resurgence among Hiremath and her pen-palling peers with a new, less utilitarian take — using elaborate mail art as a way to make friends. 

“It’s something that you make and then send out and never see it again,” Hiremath said. “You want your pen pal to have a nice letter from you. I think it inspires you to write well and decorate it in different ways and find your style.”

Hiremath’s visual style shows through in her creative layering of unconventional materials including doilies, translucent stickers, washi tapes and even rough-edged pages torn from books.

Hiremath said that for contemporary letter writers, the physical medium offers something no other modern communication technology does: the opportunity to connect through artistic keepsakes.

“When you receive a letter, that’s the only letter you’re going to get that looks like that and you can have that for however long you can keep it — hopefully forever,” Hiremath said.

Her interest in letter writing was first sparked when she “fell down the YouTube rabbit hole” of artists using mail as a creative medium. But it wasn’t until Hiremath was in Arizona away from her best friend for a few weeks that she decided to explore this interest. The friends communicated by letter because it felt like the most personal way to stay in touch, Hiremath said.

“It’s a really cool way to expand your relationship with someone or make genuine relationships if you’re open,” Hiremath said.

Once Hiremath discovered her passion, she sought to find more pen pals through Instagram, which is how she has gotten in touch with most of her correspondents. Since August, Hiremath has been writing to the same 18 people. She said that her current pen pal pool size strikes the right balance of being personal and broad. Hiremath said she has been surprised at the depth and authenticity of pen pal connections she has made through Instagram.

“I think everyone has been really nice because [with] letter writing, it’s really easy to express our feelings and be vulnerable,” she said. “I’ve only had good interactions and met kind people.”

Hiremath said she often finds pen pals easier to confide in than friends with whom she goes to school or shares social circles in person because she knows her letter will remain between the two of them. Her secrets are most certainly safe 6,000 miles away with her most distant correspondent, who lives in Hungary.

Hiremath has met many different types of people through her fascination with letters, and she said much of the magic comes from seeing her different pen pals’ personalities shine through visually. Down to the handwriting, everything knits together to create the quality of “realness” in a letter that allows deep bonds to form in the exchange of just a few pages.

“It’s kind of developed into something new,” Hiremath said. “With the rise of technology … letter writing has been turned into more of an art form than before and I think that’s really cool.”

STORY AND PHOTO BY DANA HUCH

Along with the actual pandemic has come a consequential pandemic of widespread ennui, excuses and unenthusiastic throwing-ins of the towel. But surrendering to the opportunity for a socially acceptable laze-cation was never an option for West Currier.

When the Woodside Priory School junior isn’t busy with school, it’s hard to guess where he can be found. Possibly doing a 16-pitch rock climb up the Grand Teton in Wyoming and perching 3,000 feet above the Jackson Hole Valley on a rocky precipice. Perhaps belaying over chasms thousands of feet deep. Or maybe building an igloo-like structure and living in it for three days, which was his most recent adventure.

“I just think it’s healthy [to spend time in nature],” Currier said. “We’re — especially now — on computers all day and we’re very distractible. It’s nice to take a trip away, get a bit more grounded, get off your phone and just have a good time in other ways.”

Currier has been camping with his parents and three brothers for as long as he can remember. The whole family has an appreciation for nature escapes from the usual fast pace of school and work life, but snow camping is another beast. Persistence in the face of soaking socks and gloves is something West, his brother Cal and father, James, have in common.

In February, the three Curriers set out for their third annual three-day snow camping trip in an area near Kirkwood Ski Resort, just south of Lake Tahoe. The family woke up at 3 a.m. to drive to the snow then hiked out with homemade sleds carrying equipment, arriving at the site just in time to construct their shelter before dark. 

By venturing into the wilderness (not to mention without a tent) they trade out homey comforts for rugged and primitive substitutes like the igloo-house they sleep in. They spent the afternoon building a cave of snow called a quinzhee by amassing a snow bank and digging it out to be hollow. This process typically takes four or five hours.

“The main challenge is that you’re wet the whole time,” Currier said. “With a tent you can always get a moment away from the dirt or rain. With snow camping, your shelter isn’t particularly dry or comfortable because it’s made of snow. There’s not really a break from the raw wilderness.”

But the struggles of raw wilderness are opportunities to overcome tangible adversity, which is a grounding experience. Instead of worrying about deadlines and the ergonomics of a constantly occupied desk chair, snow-campers’ minds are occupied by practical needs. Currier finds the challenges that arise in nature a refreshing contrast from the everyday noise, he said. And in moments when there are no problems to be solved, the space for stillness expands.

“It’s so much slower paced than our normal, day-to-day lives,” Currier explained. “A lot less happens than you’d expect. When you hear stories and look back, you always remember the exciting moments, but when you’re out there, it’s a 14-hour day and … there’s not actually a lot to do.”

This different cadence brings awareness to the inner peace reflected in nature, and Currier said the mornings are an especially strong connection point because “everything’s waking up” and there is a quiet serenity that is missing from the stagnating routines of life at home.

He recalled a fond morning memory from camping in a lake region of the Sierras.

“The sun was rising over this lake that was covered in steam and there were fish jumping and birds chirping,” Currier said. “We were like, ‘Oh God! Are we in heaven?’ … We just sat in the doorways of our tents looking out for hours.”

After some time, Currier said you settle into this mode of living and become a resident of the wilderness, liberated from the distractions of modern life.

Naturally, a place without these distractions is also a place without its comforts. But for Currier, the allure of nature life exists not despite but because of the hard work and determination it requires.

On one occasion, a storm of rain, wind and lightning transported the Curriers’ entire camping setup into a nearby lake and they had to recover it all after the storm had passed. He summed up his recount of what many would consider a disaster with the surprisingly unsarcastic comment, “That was fun.”

Days like this make him feel grateful for the comforts of indoor life that he usually takes for granted, Currier said. The nonstop obstacles of wilderness life bring a new glow to dishwashers and comforters when they return home.

Currier plans to continue taking on new opportunities to retreat into deep wilderness. He said he is excited for the possibility of a three-week Himalayan adventure with his dad and brother in the coming summer. (Monsoon season may be a hindrance, but will not stand in their way). Another ambitious plan in the works is to hike Mount Whitney (30 miles, 14,505 feet of elevation) in one day.

Currier explained that there’s something thrilling about being in a completely undesirable wilderness circumstance. It’s a different reality from slumping mundanities, and replenishes life with a reviving inhale. He embraces the unexpected struggles of rugged outdoor life like wet boots and sinking quinzhee roofs with enthusiasm.

“Part of the reason I love snow camping is not because it’s super enjoyable but because you can really enjoy the struggle of it,” Currier said. “You’re like, ‘What are we doing? We’re living in an igloo and sitting on snow benches!’ It’s kind of crazy and you just enjoy the craziness and enjoy the hardship.”