EMMA WALTON HAMILTON

If the arts are in peril, we must do our small part to to fight the good fight and protect and preserve.

I think that at a certain point in our lives we should have to interview our parents.

I think that children who read are better writers, and children who tell stories appreciate books.

Yeah, I think the arts and literature have always been irrevocably connected. Because if you think about it, every film script, every play, every song starts as words on the page before it is ever performed or filmed or sung.

I have a picture of me sitting on the step of a brownstone stoop with my mom and all the Muppets around us. And Perry Como, for some reason.

I think I personally, as a writer, read differently knowing how tough it is to write, knowing how challenging it is to articulate it, to express clearly and economically and with focus and with purpose.

I think writing and reading are completely synergistic; not necessarily in that one has to be a good reader to be a good writer or vice versa, but that they so inform each other.

So often we think, well, kids learn to read at school, I don't have to be responsible for that. But in fact they learn to love reading at home, and therefore it's really important that we as parents preserve the joy of reading by supporting them and reading things that speak to their hearts, books that they love.

My background is in arts education and we know, absolutely for a fact, that there is no better way for kids to learn critical thinking skills, communication skills, things like empathy and tolerance. This is true across every boundary, across cultural boundaries, across socioeconomic, it's a great leveler in terms of unifying our world.

And for me I think I was originally a theater person, a producer/director/actor.

At a time when there is so much tension in the world - between cultures, and nations, and so forth - there is nothing that levels the playing field more than the arts.

Stony Brook is a phenomenal university and I am proud to be affiliated with it, so it is gratifying to be able to support this wonderful institution in whatever way I can.

I am my mother's daughter.

If you wait until you're an adult to be exposed to the arts, it could seem elitist, it could seem out of reach, it could seem scary.

The arts give kids the building blocks with which to then play.

My parentage set me up to want to make a life of my own in the arts, but also contributed to my feeling a certain amount of pressure, especially in my early years, to figure out who I was and how to make my own mark.

My husband, Steve Hamilton - an actor/producer and co-Director of the Southampton Playwriting Conference - and I had been working in the theatre in New York for many years.

Sometime in my 20s, a wise mentor said something that dramatically changed my outlook and that has stayed with me ever since. She told me to 'wear the mantle with dignity and pride.'

Mom was never self-pitying. She was ferociously focused on making sure that everyone understood that she knew how fortunate she has been.

Stay strong. Stay true to yourself and to who you are because there is community out there. It may not be in your town or perhaps even in your family, but you are wanted and you are loved and there are places in the world where you will be safe and supported.

My work in the theater began to shift more towards young audience type of work and education programs for children, arts education programs.

We're both very passionate about the arts. Mom, of course with her arts background. I have a theater background and work with children.

The arts are the most uniquely suited to provide young people with critical-thinking skills, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, empathy and tolerance and compassion, looking at the other point of views.

I don't remember a time when it wasn't, when I didn't feel like the LGBTQ community was part of my life and part of reality.

I was able to hide a lot behind 'Walton,' and found that to be quite useful.