As another “Renaissance soul” Chris King has personally experienced the richness—and divisiveness—of finding time for many interests. “Multiple interests mean you are less likely to win the big prize in a given arena,” he says. “So if it’s important to be found meritorious by your fellows, stick with your favorite thing. Being a jack-of-all-trades is likely to get you some scorn. But if weaving the tapestry of your own life is paramount, then having a very broad palette is wonderful. Sometimes, I ask myself what I should give up in order to be more visible.”

King’s creativity has found one outlet in his children’s books. The Boy Who Ate the Moon (1988) is based on his boyhood fantasy about the moon getting caught in the branches outside his window. The Vegetables Go to Bed (1994) was born out of his in-volvement in a Hartford, Conn., community garden, where he imagined the nighttime activity of vegetables. Before publishing these books, he tested them on children in local schools—relishing their feedback as “the best part of being an author.”

After graduating from Swarthmore, where he was a sociology/anthropology major, King worked on a live, nightly news and public affairs show for public television in Florida—shooting and editing film, setting lights, and conducting interviews. Later, he produced filmstrips and audiotapes with companies in New York and Connecticut. In 1988, he started the company King Productions.

During the last few years, King has mounted two original dramas. A Mother in My Head won the Marblehead Little Theater one-act competition in 2001 and special recognition from the Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theater, when it was presented in tandem with Our Appointed Rounds in February by the Sherborn Players. He has also published articles in the June 2001 and March issues of Friends Journal, but most of his creative energy is now focused on an adult novel.

Inspired by his uncle William Foote Whyte ’36, who wrote the groundbreaking book Street Corner Society, King still finds his interest in anthropology a “great tool for a playwright.”

At Swarthmore, he particularly remembers Professor of Psychology Kenneth Gergen’s course on group dynamics, in which students were their own “guinea pigs.” He says, “I was impressed by the way a meeting could be changed by who sat in what chair and intangibles such as ‘sex appeal.’”

Although he is pleased to see the arts curriculum expand at the College, he remains concerned that artists are not equally valued as scientists. “Why not deliberately aim for more?” he asks, after remembering the emphasis on reading and talking about art versus the importance of simply being artists.

King credits wife Chitra Yang King ’68 with nurturing his ability to pursue creative interests. “Perhaps the greatest blessing is a spouse who is 86 percent tolerant of having an ‘artist-in-residence,’” he says. “We have sort of played ‘leap-frog careers.’ In the mid-1980s, when Chitra decided to reapply to medical schools, I stuck with my somewhat mundane job as an educational media producer and took care of our son, while she got through the tough job of becoming a doctor.”

Later, “When she was ready to practice, I began my own media business. Knowing I have a ‘magpie mind,’ I reached a firm conclusion: Anything I do is my work. Not all of it may be immediately remunerative, but it is what I do and who I am. Being a ‘late bloomer’ in many ways, I concluded that I had to respect the many sirens who lured me, while trying to improve my ability to focus on each one. I usually fail. If there is something you love beyond reason, pour yourself into it.”

King adds: “I like having left a thumb-print on the universe. Someone laughed who otherwise wouldn’t have. Someone who didn’t have a clue is now asking useful questions.”

—Andrea Hammer