Portals of Imagination
Portals of Imagination
Going through doors to other worlds
by Kristen Pittman
One of my recent reads featured a heroine who learns our world is filled with Doors to other worlds, one simply must look for them. Then she discovers her own ability to write those Doors into existence.
The metaphor of storytelling as a portal into new worlds is not a new one. Much ink has been spent on the idea that stories open doors to faraway places. Of course, it’s a well-worn concept primarily because it’s true.
I’d wager a lot of people have—at least once—found themselves so caught up in a book’s universe that they’ve reached the end and lifted their eyes from the page, trying to blink the real world back into focus.
There is no doubt a good story sweeps us away into the wild and wonderful worlds of the authors imagination. But this heroine set me to thinking: what if a captivating author truly can write a door into actual existence?
In August our family visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art while staying with some of my extended family in Manhattan. Had we visited the Met a year ago, we would have taken a lovely stroll through fascinating art and artifacts. But From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was our spring read aloud.
E. L. Konigsburg transformed the Met from a building full of history into the world of runaway children solving an art mystery. I stepped from the busy streets of New York City into the hush of the Met and suddenly found myself wondering where I might try hiding from the night guards, which exhibit might make the comfiest place to sleep, and whether I would be too spooked to wander the halls in the dark.
Our visit to the museum took on a different dimension because someone layered a new world on top of this one, wrote a door into existence, and told us where to find it.
A good storyteller can transform the ordinary things of our everyday worlds into doors, showing us the same old stuff in a new light we never would have seen otherwise.
A fallen log across a creek in the woods becomes a bridge to our very own Terabithia. An ambling path through a field of wildflowers becomes the way to Oz. The front door of a museum becomes a portal to an unlikely hideaway.
So, fellow readers, let us read on. And writers, tell the stories that open readers to new worlds just beyond our own. And let us all keep our eyes open. You never know where we might find a new door.
September 20–21: Bandersnatch Books at the Embodied Faith Symposium at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, Charlotte.
October 10: Bandersnatch authors and illustrators at Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, Tennessee (11:00 am to noon). Check out the lineup!
November: Above, Not Up release (preorders open soon!)
It’s been just over a week since Red Rex made its way into the world. Have you gotten your copy yet?
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They slowly climb the hills of dust
Beneath penumbral shadows
And mark not where the jagged peaks
Lie hidden in the fallows.
from “Upon the Digging of the Pond”
by Rachel S. Donahue
Last year my husband was rereading The Lord of the Rings to our three boys and we went on a nature hike. My boys saw a downed tree and they decided that it was the Bridge of Khazad-dum. Gandalf was fighting the Balrog right there. When I asked them to make an entry into their notebooks, I told them they could draw what they saw with their eyes on one side of the page and what their imagination saw on the other side. I knew Gandalf was going to show up either way, so I gave them an outlet.
"A good storyteller can transform the ordinary things of our everyday worlds into doors, showing us the same old stuff in a new light we never would have seen otherwise."
Good stuff, Kristen!