From left to right: Jonny Ospa and June Rachelson-Ospa, co-writers of "Welcome to Tourettaville"; Gwyn Hyman Rubio, author of "Icy Sparks"

Gwyn Hyman Rubio: Icy is a little girl growing up in the mountains of eastern Kentucky in the 1950’s, and when she turns 10, strange things start happening to her.

DN: How biographical is the work?

GHR: Icy is the little girl I would have liked to have been. She’s spunky and she’s a fighter and she’s tough, and I’m fairly shy and reclusive. But I think the thing we have in common is that I grew up with epilepsy. I could identify with Icy and the things that she goes through when she loses control.

DN: June, same question.

June Rachelson-Ospa: Tourettaville is very biographical because my son Jonathan has Tourette Syndrome and in co-authoring the piece, we revisited our personal journeys from the diagnosis, through the challenges we had to face, to the beginning of the healing of ourselves in relation to each other, family, friends and the community.

DN: Gwyn, tell us more about Icy.

GHR: I wanted to write about a little girl who was different, who had trouble fitting into community, and in some way I was going back to my childhood, growing up with a writer for a father, a little girl who had epilepsy, and really didn’t know she had epilepsy. I started thinking about this little girl and I started to envision her and I knew that she would have hair the color of goldenrod, yellow ochre eyes, and I knew a lot about her, and wanted to give her a neurological disorder that would set her even more apart. I didn’t want to give her epilepsy because that was too close to home and this book was going to be a book of imagination. It’s not autobiographical.

One day I was reading a book by Oliver Sacks called The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, and one of the essays in that book was about a gentleman who had Tourette Syndrome, and he had some of the worst symptoms of Tourette Syndrome. He was a New York social worker during the day, but he was a brilliant jazz drummer at night. The thing that struck me was that when he played the drums, all the symptoms of his Tourette Syndrome simply vanished. They disappeared. That got me to thinking about the healing power of art. That it is through the creative process that the writer heals herself, or that part of her that is different. And that it is in the finished product that she is, perhaps, able to give something back and heal others.

So that’s when I decided that I would give my little girl a disorder called Tourette Syndrome, and in that way I could give her her voice or her singing which could heal her if I decided to take the novel in that direction. About the same time I read Oliver Sacks book, an ad appeared in the Lexington Herald Leader. The national convention of the Tourette Syndrome association was going to be held in Lexington, Kentucky. I thought that was a sign.

DN: If there could be one change in the world from writing the piece, what would it be?

GHR: Maybe we could learn how to be more tolerant of others...embrace those who are different and accept those parts of us that make us special. We could learn that empathy is something that should be nurtured, that we learn empathy from others...our parents...those around us. It has to be taught like anything else, understanding and empathy. Hopefully, one would realize that upon reading the book.

DN: June, what was it like when the two of you talked the first time?

JRO: I felt like we were kindred spirits.

GHR: Right, right! I did, too! It was very comfortable.

JRO: I felt very comforted in reading Icy Sparks because I felt like I could understand Jonny even more, and it gave me a gift.

GHR: Well, thank you, I appreciate that. I was very nervous because I don’t have Tourette Syndrome.

DN: To that end, Gwyn, if a reader meets you and offers, “I have it, too, I feel bad because I’m different” what is your response?

GHR: From watching Welcome To Tourettaville, one has to accept one’s self and embrace that part of one’s self that is different. It’s only when Icy does that, that she is able to open herself to others and risk something.

DN: But people do hold onto their secrets, don’t they?

GHR: They do hold on to their secrets, because they’re afraid of rejection.

JRO: It’s what they know best. The reason I wrote the play with Jonny, is that I said “let’s write about this so that we can feel better.”, and it was the writing of the play that made him go from feeling alienated to being like himself again.

GHR: You can feel the healing going on as you’re watching the play. When I saw the musical, that was reassuring for me. I needed that to be reassured about what I had done and suddenly think, “ok, ok, it’s all right, o.k.”