Yesterday I visited with Ms. Stojak’s class of seventh graders at Whitney Young Magnet School to talk about writing, publishing, and historical fiction. I shared the story of my novel and a little about my writing process, but I wanted to be sure to leave plenty of time for questions.
These are some of the questions I expected:
How do you get your ideas?
How long did it take you to write it?
Did you get to choose the cover?
These are the questions I got:
Since you were writing about a real person, were you concerned about being sued for defamation of character?
Did you ever consider self-publishing as an alternative to the traditional route?
How did you find your agent?
In short, these kids were sharp and they kept me on my toes! A few of them are writing novels.
We also talked about why we love learning history through historical fiction and pooled our favorite titles:
Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac
Under the Blood Red Sun by Graham Salisbury
And many more! (Wish I’d been writing them down.) They also read Stephen King, Dan Brown, Sarah Dessen, Mark Twain, and, of course, Stephanie Meyer. If only we’d had more time to talk books! Thanks for a great conversation, seventh grade!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
When I was in seventh grade I drew a pretty awesome robot.
Hrm.
Kelly, Thank you for coming to speak to my students. I am glad that you enjoyed them as much as they enjoyed hearing you speak!
I am a member of that class and I would like to personally thank you again. I already had dreams of becoming a writer and of course, I love to read but hearing from a professional writer was very encouraging.
I am also a student who was there. I really enjoyed hearing you talk. It was very interesting to see the process that a writer uses to go from writing the book, to having it fully published.
I’m sorry but I must make this comment- Mister, that is the best comment ever.
good job