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Selden Edwards
Presentation to the SB Council for Self-Esteem - 01/22/10
The following synopsis of the day’s event is by Betty Hatch
Unlike our sunny, glorious September meeting, this day was scary. Heavy rain continued to pore and the harsh wind blew wet leaves plastering them to their landing spot. The storm had been performing for a week without intermission. When we arrived at Schott Center, we were surprised to find the parking lot filled. Inside, the auditorium was professionally set up for the 12 noon presentation by Selden Edwards just as if we were expecting a full house.
As the people dribbled in wearing their hats and raincoats, I thanked them for coming and the first five asked me, with red noses and big smiles, if I had seen the snow on the mountains. At five minutes before presentation time, a line of people entered like ants after a big rain. We were again surprised folks would venture out into some of the worst weather Santa Barbara had endured in years. They were very pleased they did!
Bob Hodges Introduced our Presenter
“Our speaker today is best selling author Selden Edwards. Selden grew up on a farm in the Sacramento Valley. Leaving the farm he pursued a career in education. After attending Princeton and Stanford he became an English teacher in the private school sector. Ultimately he enjoyed a 25-year career as headmaster at independent schools in California and Illinois.
“In his spare time he pursued his passion for writing. He began his first book in 1974 receiving his first rejection in 1975. Many rewrites and refinements were followed by more rejections. Discouraged at times, he still persevered. In his own words “The whole process was very manic depressive. Fortunately, the manic won out.” He saw his book published and on the book store shelves in the Best Seller section in 2008. This was the culmination of a 30-year journey.
“Repeated rejections can destroy Self-Esteem in anyone. Rather than accept defeat, Selden accepted each rejection as a learning experience and continued moving in the direction of his life long dream.
“Today he speaks on the subject of Self-Esteem and how it helped him during his career in the field of education and helped him to stay focused on his dream of publishing his novel titled, The Little Book.
Please give a warm welcome to best selling author Selden Edwards.
The tall, slim, athletic-type presenter with a naturally happy face looked delighted to be before us. Just after I had judged him by the way he looks, he opened his talk saying, “Don’t judge yourself when you are not feeling good inside by the outside of others.” Thankfully I was feeling fine about me and was able to follow his explanation.
Selden Edwards had the best of educations. He grew up in a small farming town and attended AN all-male private secondary school in Boston and graduated from Princeton. After graduation, he taught for ten years and then went back to Stanford for a masters degree in education before becoming headmaster at Crane School for 10 years in the 1980s. At Crane school, Selden had the opportunity to create the supportive student-centered school he had always wanted. I noticed the ten year divisions in his life and said to myself, “This man is a ten!”
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Selden and his wife below selling "The Little Book. |
Selden’s great grandfather Samuel Edwards arrived in Santa Barbara in the 1880’s and built a large Victorian house at State and Valario streets, site of the current IHOP Restaurant. He planted the famous Morton Bay fig tree that still stands today. His maternal grandfather Selden Spaulding founded Laguna Blanca School. Education was always of primary importance in Edwards’s family.
He and his two older brothers and younger sister went to Marysville Elementary School in the Sacramento Valley, and, since music was also very important in their family, they were all required learn piano and play an instrument in the prestigious school band, a really big deal! His siblings succeeded, but Selden was dropped by his teachers! Although he wanted to learn, he couldn’t read music and hated practice. Each instrument he tried was harder than the last.
Selden recalled another time when he just could not seem to keep up with his older brothers. It was when they went into scouting. The older boys glided to the top status of Eagle Scout, while their little brother, Selden, was never able to get a single merit badge! Though no one ever mentioned his music or merit badge failures to him, he knew that everyone noticed. And yet he was always the popular one. “I was elected president of just about everything,” he said with s smile. He just could not understand why music and merit badges were his nemesis. Amazingly, he didn’t get the answer until recently when he started preparing for this presentation!
Years later, Selden began writing fiction, something he loved doing, even though he received nothing but rejections for 40 years. Thirty years ago he began writing his “Vienna novel, and it too received unrelenting rejections. Late in the game, in the late 1990s he earned a doctorate in mythological studies from Pacifica. Many years into the writing process he learned how to market his book at the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference, but still no success. Then, a few years ago he was advised to hire an expensive editor in New York City , which he did. The editor was enthusiastic and praised the book while they worked on the editing. When Selden told his wife Gaby how much the editor seemed to like the book, she exclaimed, “Sweetie, you paid him!” The audience roared and his wife beamed.
After the book, now called THE LITTLE BOOK, was edited and sent to an agent, Selden answered his phone and an excited agent asked, “Is your book still available?” Imagine the irony of that! The agent accepted the book and secured an offer from Dutton, a major publisher, in four days. This meant that six editors read a 600-page manuscript in that amount of time! When his brand new agent told Selden the amount of the huge Dutton advance, Selden’s knees buckled and he fell, literally, to the floor! “Imagine my shock,” he said. “After thirty years of unceremonious rejections.”
Thirty years of rewrites and rewrites on his “Vienna novel” had finally paid off big time. Never giving up on his dream proved extraordinarily valuable.
This bestselling author, educator, star basketball player, president of most of this classes, from a prominent and nurturing family, told us that he had recently been tested using WAIS (the Wexler Adult Intelligence Scale) and had been shocked and relieved by the results. He discovered when confronted with the test results that his verbal skills were exceedingly high, and his processing skills were exceedingly low, qualifying him for what he had suspected all his life: a bone fide reading disability.
He had always suspected that something hadn’t worked for him, and now he knew. He had a verifiable learning disability. Selden was willing to share this personal information because of the many self-esteem traits he has developed. Though the learning disability he suspected but never knew for sure shocked him, it finally explained why he could never learn a musical instrument in school or achieve merit badges in the Boy Scouts, and why reading was a struggle for him throughout his life. He was lucky to be born in a supportive, loving family. He was given an excellent education, which he maximized, and he never gave up in his search for excellence and writing success. His message to the group was simple: learn to cope with rejections, keep doing what you love doing, and never stop trying. “I have become,” he joked, “a late-bloomer poster child for NEVER GIVE UP.”
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