Anastacia-Reneé and the Girl Protagonist: a poetic deep-dive into a powerful archetype
This month’s featured class was taught by multi-genre artist and instructor, Anastacia-Reneé.
Homecoming and Homegoing: Writing the Girl Protagonist, wrapped-up in February, but to me it’s the first night of class—January 6th, 2021—that remains the most memorable. Earlier that day we all watched, read, or heard the news about events at the U.S. Capitol, but we students dutifully logged-in to class. Instructor Anastacia-Reneé met us with with compassion, wisdom—and the voice of reason. That night, she gave us permission to not be okay. It was a message to the vulnerable and frightened children within us all as we wondered what would become of our democracy.
We began class the following week. But on that first night, Anastacia-Reneé’s courage to honor the fear within herself and her students stayed with us through five more weeks of discussions about Girl Protagonists (GPs), an archetype that is no stranger to fear and trauma…and hope.
In this, the final week of Women’s History Month, I am honored to write about a class that specifically focused on young females. Here’s the Hugo House description:
In this class we’ll discuss and analyze clips from classic movies (The Wiz, The Wizard of Oz, Whale Rider, Crooklyn and The Secret Life of Bees) and books (Homegoing, The Color Purple, and Poet X) centered on the voices, journey, environment, feminism and womanism of girl protagonists. You’ll spend the first weeks analyzing, discussing and responding to generative writing prompts. In the following weeks you’ll write poetry, prose and micro-fiction, creating solid and multidimensional girl characters of your own.
This class caught my attention because I spend most of my time writing about 12-year-old Barbara Hansen in my novel-in-progress, The Butcher’s Apprentice. The Girl Protagonist is an archetype near to my heart and relevant to my writing. Anastacia-Reneé brought to class her experience as a school teacher, and a deep understanding of her subject. Her mix of wry humor and reflections on girls made the class intimate despite the online format. I enjoyed her forthright, approachable style. As someone who is raising a girl, I recognized in Anastacia a teacher who has paid close attention and allowed herself to learn from and absorb the lessons that children—particularly girls—can teach us.
I asked Anastacia to tell us more about her process of brining a character to life, and she generously shared the personal journey and evolution of her own GPs. When asked what differentiates the Girl Protagonist from other archetypes, Anastacia delivered this beautiful message: Girl Protagonists have hope. As adults, we know what it is to lose this, which makes it all that much more precious within our characters.
Using movie clips to jump-start discussions of the foundation of this unique literary persona, we explored our own GPs. Sessions included break-out room discussions, close-reading and analysis, and intense, rapid-fire writing prompts. These fast-paced, don’t-overthink-it generators helped me overcome self-censorship and recognize my own emotional vulnerability in a time when it’s easy to ignore the needs and trauma of our inner children. Anastacia-Reneé’s permission to tap into something deeper and honor ourselves on day-one gave me—and likely everyone in class—the opportunity to find and nurture our budding Girl Protagonists. May we all write Girl Protagonists who, in our story-worlds, are powerful enough to grow into women, womxn, or something else all together, but still beautiful and hopeful.
Anastacia-Reneé is available for consultation at writenow2day@hotmail.com
