Persistence is My Superpower

Ace Curry (Student)

Alex Irvine (Writer)

Amber Tornquist Hollinger (Director/Artist)

Carina Mia Wong (Film Director)

Carrie Witt (Owlchemy Art Director)

Corey Rosemond (Director of Multiplatform Gaming Partnership at Google)

Crystal Skillman and Fred Van Lente (Writers)

Dave Sanger (Muscian)

David Gordon Green (Film Director/Producer/Writer)

Eileen Curry (Craniofacial Plastic Surgeon)

Elizabeth Howard (Vice President of Production at Bungie Games)

Elizabeth McQueen (Musician/KUT/KUTX Podcast Producer)

Erin Walter (Minister/Musician/Activist)

Hugh Forrest (Co-President and Chief Programming Officer at South by Southwest)

Jonathan Krusell (Apple Engineering Project Manageger)

Kyle Hausmann-Stokes (Film Director/Writer)

Loriel Weiss (Director of Global Content and Integration at Branded Entertainment Network)

Luigi Priore (Vice President of Disney, Pixar, and 20th Century Games)

Madhuri Shekar (Screenwriter/Playwright)

Mark Smith (Musician)

Maya Guerra Gamble (Judge)

Nick Stahl (Actor)

Patrick Curry (Farbridge CEO)

Ray Benson (Musician)

Ricardo Martinez (Activist)

Roshan Sethi (Film Director/Physician)

Ryan Brown (UN Photographer)

Simone Barnes (Director of Membership and Spiritual Life for Wildflower UU Church) 

Stephanie Kaznocha (Film Director/Writer/Editor)

Steven Walter (Foley Artist)

Tanya Watson (Microsoft Producer)

Vickie Howell (Designer/Entrepreneur)

Making this book was a big testimony to my persistence. In a month, I came up with the idea, interviewed over thirty people, transcribed the interviews, and then wrote each page. I thought it would be really interesting to interview someone successful about their career and how persistence benefited them. So I made a list of everyone I knew that would be interesting to interview but I could not decide so I interviewed them all. The day I came up with the idea was the first day of South by Southwest. That week I saw over a dozen movies and after every movie, I approached the director and occasionally writer and editors and asked if they would be interested in being interviewed. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that people were interested in talking to a teenager who was curious about their life and job. I learned a lot of awesome things when writing this book that I will likely carry with me for the rest of my life. There were a lot of moments where I felt like giving up and that it was not worth it but in the end, I am proud I persisted through this project and finished without sacrificing my creative vision.

Ace Curry is a high school student in Austin, Texas. She loves spending her free time socializing with her friends and family and watching horror movies with her father. Curry is very inspired by the Scream franchise and is interested in pursuing a career in film. Theatre plays a very prominent part of her life along with many other fine arts. Curry is an active member of her school and religious communities. She grew up Unitarian Universalist is an open-minded, open-hearted spiritual community that helps people lead lives of justice, love, learning, and hope. A big part of Unitarian Universalism is advocacy. Curry spends time organizing walkouts and visiting the capital to talk to her legislators about what needs to happen to make Texas a better place for people of all backgrounds and orientations.

Curry describes persistence as having such a clear goal that you will do anything to achieve it, and when you face adversity you assess that roadblock and modify your plan to success. Curry was raised on the idea that persistence, patience, and kindness are the keys to success. From a young age, she had lots of ambitions and goals. She quickly learned that you can not wait for what you want to be handed to you. You have to be persistent and chase your goals despite the obstacles you run into. A lot of the obstacles she faced was having a lack of knowledge in certain areas. People consistently told her to “fake it till you make it”. She always hated that phrase though because she felt it was discretting to her hard work and she did not want to be fake. It is impossible to float through life pretending you know everything and then expect people to hand you opportunities. You have to work extremely hard and pour yourself and passion into your work. You have to pace yourself though, it is very important to take breaks and go easy on yourself. It is not healthy to run at 100%, 100% of the time. You do not have to go above and beyond with everything you do. Sometimes it is important to just do what is required of you instead of creating extra work for yourself. Perfection and being persistent and trying your best are very different things. There is no such thing as perfection and the more you strive for it the farther away you will be. Persistence does not make perfection it makes progress. It is not easy to continue to work hard when you are faced with adversity but an important part of persistence is when you hit a roadblock assess your problem and modify your plan to succeed.

When Curry was in eighth grade there was a mistake with her schedule and she was placed in varsity theatre. She started stage managing and had no background knowledge or idea of where to manage a production. Instead of pretending like she knew what she was doing, she found a book called “Stage Management” by Lawrence Stern. In the weeks leading up to her first show, she read the entire book and absorbed as many tips and tricks on how to properly manage a show. The first show that Curry ever stage managed was for the UIL one-act competition. Part of the stage manager's job is to call the sound and light cues for the technicians. One of her cues she called entirely based on a shadow moving due to the lack of sight of the actors from the stage manager's desk. This skill is extremely high level and is used on Broadway. As a result, Curry won All-Star Crew and Outstanding Technician at Zone and All-Star Crew and Outstanding Technical Crew at District. A lot of time when artists are starting projects it is just them pouring their hearts into it with little to no support. Curry was so used to the idea of creative independence that she did not realize that persistence can also be a communal experience. In theater, there are so many moving parts and that is why tech crews on Broadway are dozens of people. It is important to have people that you can rely on and you know will persist for motives beyond themself. Curry was very lucky to have such amazing peers and directors in middle school who supported her. She knew no matter the outcome of a show they would all be proud of each other.