Fostering a Love of Reading & Writing

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” ― Edgar Degas

A year ago, when my memoir Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging released, my alma mater, Benet Academy High School in Lisle, Illinois hosted a Book Event for me in their new wing. For me, the evening was both a homecoming and a “completing the circle” moment. 

Fellow alums, friends, family, and staff gathered around to hear a book conversation moderated by my longtime friend and fellow classmate, Susan Conner (’77). Being given the opportunity to speak about my writing at the academic institution which played such a formative role in the development of my love of language was deeply gratifying.  

Here’s the full circle moment. At the end of the evening, I announced that I would establish “The Twice a Daughter Literary Award” as a way to honor the English Department at Benet Academy for fostering a love of reading and writing in its students. The literary award I set up is open to juniors and seniors who submit a creative nonfiction essay written to the theme of identity and belonging.

Last month, the Benet Academy English Department selected six entries for me to consider for the first annual Twice a Daughter Literary Award. It was a thrill to read and judge the submissions.

The 2022 Twice a Daughter Literary Award winners are: 

• Gold Medal Winner: Ninabella Arlis
• Silver Medal Winner: Avery Kruppe
• Bronze Medal Winner: Aiden Jones
• Honorable Mention: Luke Alfonso, Molly Kauper, Madeline Huie 

Twice a Daughter Literary Award Winners 
(Left to Right) Aiden Jones, Avery Kruppe and Ninabella Arlis

Here is the Gold Medal Winning Essay: 

“One Part of a Pair” by Ninabella Arlis

ID is shorthand for identity. Maybe that’s why my plastic driver’s license feels so heavy. How does an entire person fit into roughly seven by ten centimeters? Maybe it’s just a set of bullet points, like some sort of a government issued highlight reel. Some basic information to help people find you if you ever get lost or pass out. That’s not really likely to happen to me; I haven’t fainted since my Confimation the summer after eighth grade. My ID wouldn’t tell you that, though. It has more simple stuff like my name.

At nine letters and four syllables “Ninabella” makes a solid first name and a simple but sweet love letter. It begins with the object of my great-grandfather’s affections: his wife, Nina. It ends with his favorite term of endearment: bella. Bella means beautiful. It means love and everyone knows that love means food to Italians, so it means minestrone soup, too. It means magic, like how my great-grandmother’s hair never went white even as I watched the rest of her fade away, not knowing anything of hair dye or death. Sometimes I feel only like the direct translation of her (now our) name, like a little girl in a very big world. I’m not very little, though. My ID would tell you that. At five foot nine and three-quarters I tell people I’m 5’10 when I wanna be bigger, grander, larger than life. On a good day, you might say. I just say 5’9 during the times I wish I didn’t take up so much space. The times that I haven’t got a prom date and wonder if perhaps I would if I were petite. Those moments are few and far between, but they tend to slip in between the cracks of my boisterous laugh and wide grin.

In my best moments I am my great-grandmother in all of her Catholic immigrant greatness. It is a gift of sorts, to be reminded of both everything she gave up and everything she dared to hope for every time I scribble my signature. My favorite part of my name is the faith it came from—the trust in the person I would become. You do not give an unborn child a title of beauty unless you believe they will make the world a better, more beautiful place. I try to make that my mission. In the small thoughts that I might one day see a return on, like bamboo toothbrushes, oat milk, and metal straws. In the magnificent gifts I may one day give up willingly through a quiet declaration on the corner of my ID in red ink: DONOR. What’s funny about my role is it almost didn’t exist.

I came into life as one of a pair. You can’t plan to have twins. You find out you’re having twins and then you plan for twins. Most people assume having someone at your side since birth leads to competition. Traditionally, they are right, but in our case the rivalry is one of us against the world rather than one another. Don’t get me wrong, we squabble and steal clothes just as any good sisters do, but at the end of the day it’s always the two of us. I’ve woken up every morning knowing someone has my back, and I go to sleep every night understanding that she may come in at any moment to flip on the lights. She doesn’t do this to annoy me, however much I may despise the sudden flash of brightness. I understand it’s a necessity for her to see my lips so that we can communicate. She is deaf. 

We do have other means of course, like facial expressions and sloppy sign language, but a core part of my personality comes from being the hearing one of the two of us. I’m more grateful for sounds and for language and for clear cut communication. My life has always existed in correlation to hers. I can’t imagine a world without words on the bottom of every TV screen or flickering lights in the hall when she can’t hear my call. I don’t know if there was a certain day I slid into my place as her interpreter or if it was always the part, I was born to play but somehow, it’s become second nature to me. I think that’s why I love words as I do.

For college applications, you have to write a personal statement. You encompass yourself into roughly 650 words. More space than an ID, for sure, but it still seems to be a foggy outline of a person at best. Mine was 627 words cut down from about 900. It was a love letter. I wrote a love letter with words as the object of my affections. In some ways it’s a letter to my future self and in lots of other ways it’s a letter to my sister. She gives me my shape. A key is useless without the lock it was formed to fit. I wonder what only children do on holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving when they have no one to race to the tree or split the wishbone with. I don’t really need to guess what most people do on their birthdays; I’ve been to enough parties to know. But I still think they’d feel lonely if they knew what it was like to never have your name stuck all by itself on the calendar each year.

My ID doesn’t tell you a lot, but if you place it next to hers, you’ll see the matching “November 18” and how I’m 3 inches taller despite being the “little” sister. You’ll get a peek into my life. Maybe that’s all an ID is for.

What I Loved About This Essay:

In Ninabella Arlis’ essay titled, One Part of a Pair, she immediately addresses the theme on which the Twice a Daughter Literary Award was established: identity. She uses the ID card, with which every reader has familiarity, to introduce her topic. Using this symbol as a guidepost, she informs us about her unique name, family, heritage, and physical characteristics. But Arlis doesn’t just tell us what the ID specifies. She shares micro memoirs which give us snapshots into her precious life, endear her to the reader, and compel us to read on.

As a twin myself, I identified with the author on the very first page. Here: I’ve woken up every morning knowing someone has my back, and I go to sleep every night understanding that she may come in at any moment to flip on the lights. Intrigued, I felt compelled to learn more of what the author and I have in common, and how she views her twindom.

After Arlis introduces us to the world in which she identifies, she drops the big kernel of truth, the one which indeed makes her ID card “heavy.” We learn more about her twin sister: She is deaf. 

Here, I held my breath, closed my eyes, and considered the magnitude of the reveal. And when I’d digested this fact, Arlis’ gave me something else to consider: My life has always existed in correlation to hers. While this sentence is simple in structure, its meaning contains layers. As readers, we are forced to slow down and consider what is packed into such a short statement. We might intuit that the author does not harbor resentment over the complex role she shares with her sibling. I sensed understanding, acceptance, and perhaps responsibility, too. But the gift here is that Arlis compels us to think, to feel, and to put ourselves in her shoes.

After we learn of Arlis’ unique roles within her family, she reveals her love of words. This is important not because she is showing her love of writing, but because she is the sister of a hearing-impaired sibling. Her gift of hearing the spoken word contrasts to the abilities her twin sister received.

This essay evoked strong emotion in me which is what a well written piece of nonfiction is called to do. It made me think. It made me feel. It brought tears and applause. Arlis’ power over her word selections, her abilities as a reliable, guiding narrator, and how well she wrote to the contest’s identity theme, made her entry the Gold Medal winner for the Twice a Daughter Literary Award.

I CAN’T WAIT TO DO THIS AGAIN NEXT YEAR!

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