www.BXTimes.com BRONX WEEKLY January 5, 2020 8
Mount St. Ursula teacher
publishes two novels in a month
BY JASON COHEN
Amidst educating students
on a daily basis and
taking care of her family, one
Bronx teacher still had the
time to have two books published.
In December, Jessica
Sticklor, who teaches AP English
at the Academy of Mount
St. Ursula, 330 Bedford Park
Boulevard, had a young adult
fantasy novel, ‘Into the Fairy
Forest’ and a literary novel,
‘The Beekeeper’s Daughter,’
published.
A few years ago she also
won the Bronx Council on
the Arts Chapter One Award.
While she had a book published
in 2012, ‘Betwixt and
Between,’ she told the Bronx
Times, these two books made
her know the juice was worth
the squeeze.
“You really work hard at
it,” she stressed. “It’s a lot of
rejection. You have to be okay
with people saying ‘no’.”
‘Into the Fairy Forest’
deals with Lorelei Bauer, a
modern-day woman with a
penchant for Sylvia Plath, the
icon who struggled with the
injustices against women in
the fi fties, her role and status
as a poet, her job as a mother,
and her mental illness.
‘The Beekeeper’s Daughter’
is about Pippa is a typical
teenager, if you don’t consider
her inability to operate
a cell phone. But then a-typical
things start to happen.
Sticklor, 37, who grew up
in Chicago, and now lives in
Washington Heights, fell in
love with writing at a young
age. She recalled how she
wanted to move to the Big
Apple after watching ‘The
Muppets Take Manhattan’ as
a child.
In fourth grade she entered
a writing contest in
school and was instantly
hooked.
“All the kids in school
were like she’s going to be a
writer,” she recalled.
Sticklor made the move
to the big city when she attended
the New School in the
Village. While studying writing,
she realized she also had
a thirst to educate and give
back. She holds a BA English
literature in social research
from The New School and
an MFA in Creative Writing
from CUNY.
She taught fi ve years at
a school in Queens and for
the previous fi ve has been in
Bedford Park.
“I really found it (teaching)
to be a very rewarding
profession,” she said.
According to Sticklor,
writing is easy, while publishing
is challenging. In
fact, after she wrote ‘Into the
Fairy Forest,’ in 2014 and it
was never picked up, she fi gured
it was never going to
happen.
“I sent it to agencies and
publishers and it didn’t really
hit,” she said. “I really
wasn’t counting on it getting
published and I had moved
on.”
Then much to her surprise,
her two books were
suddenly given the go ahead
at the same time. It was an
early holiday gift.
She noted that with her
husband Adam, two kids,
Jacqueline and Addison and
students in school, she would
often wake up early to write
for a couple hours.
She looks forward to writing
more as ‘Into the Fairy
Forest,’ is a series and she is
signed on to do three more
books in the next three
years.
Sticklor noted her students
are looking forward to
reading the books.
“It’s been a whirlwind,”
she said. “It’s been great.
Seeing their teacher in print
makes them proud.”
Teacher Jessica Sticklor just had two books published.
Photo Courtesy Geoff Cahayom
P&J Beacon program praised as model school community center
BY GUS FISHER
FREELANCE REPORTER
Something highly unusual happens
every week at I.S. 192 in Throggs Neck:
kids beg their parents to bring them to
school. On Saturdays.
I.S. 192 keeps its doors open on weekends,
weeknights and holidays to offer
art classes, STEM activities, team sports
and more through the P&J Beacon program.
Part of a city-wide initiative, P&J
Beacon provides a community space to
the school’s 3-to-13-year-old students, as
well as to older teens and adults from the
area, who participate in and help lead
the activities.
“Community members of all ages
have been coming to my class, learning
together,” said the Beacon’s Jiu Jitsu
teacher Sensei Gary George, whose children
also attend the program. “It’s been
an incredible experience.”
On a typical weeknight, the halls of
I.S. 192 are bustling. Beacon group leaders,
mostly young adults from the community,
welcome the students with highfi
ves and guide them to their activities.
Parents chit-chat about how each other’s
children have grown. Students greet the
security staff and janitors by their fi rst
names.
“The familiar environment here is really
what makes the Beacon so special,”
said Rayshawn Logan, who has been
a group leader at the program for four
years. “Students start out not wanting
to be at school for any longer than they
have to. But after a couple months, they
don’t want to leave.”
P&J is one of 91 Beacon locations in
New York City. Funded by the NYC Department
of Youth & Community, the
program partners with various nonprofi
t organizations to start community
centers at local schools. The nonprofi t
Phipps Neighborhoods helped found the
Beacon at I.S. 192 in 2008.
The Beacon at I.S. 192 has caught the
attention of Robert Bieder, youth and education
director at Community Board 10,
who wants to use the school as a model to
establish a similar program at Harry S.
Truman High School in Co-op City.
Truman is the largest public school
in the district, with 2,094 students, two
swimming pools, a football fi eld and a
planetarium. “It would be great if those
facilities could be made available for the
entire community to use – not just the
students,” Bieder said in an interview.
Keri Alfano, Truman’s principal, said
in an interview that she is a fi rm believer
in afterschool programs, and she would
be eager to extend access of her school’s
facilities to the broader Co-op City community.
She is currently discussing the
details of the Beacon program with its
directors.
Edwin Scott, director of the P&J Beacon
in Throggs Neck, said in an interview
that Truman would be an ideal location
for a Beacon, but it needs to follow
a fl exible, community-driven model in
order to succeed.
“It’s not easy to create a space where
students want to be after the last bell of
the day rings,” Scott said. “It requires
consistently listening to the individual
needs of the students and parents. There
is no cookie-cutter, one-size-fi ts-all Beacon.
Each community is different because
each student is different.”
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