Lower School
Award-winning Author Shares Writing Tips with Lower School Students
Author Ann Malaspina, an award-winning author of nonfiction and fiction books for children and teens, gave Lower School students tips on tapping into characters’ authentic stories during a visit to Country School on Nov. 2.
Ms. Malaspina gave students a peek inside her writer’s toolkit, which includes a notebook, camera, audio recorder, library card, passport and a small container of cinnamon, which reminds her to “spice up” her stories.
She shared her writer’s process with the students: “When I’m writing about characters, I want to walk in their shoes, see what they see and how they view the world.” She told them of the places she has traveled in order to research the subjects of her many biographies, including to India to learn about Mahatma Ghandi, to Hawaii for a book on tsunamis, and to Rochester, N.Y. to research women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony for her book, Heart on Fire.
She wanted to feel as close as possible to what Ms. Anthony must have felt, so Ms. Malaspina put on a pair of boots that would have been similar to the ones worn in 1872 and Ms. Anthony’s signature red shawl, and walked down the very sidewalk that Ms. Anthony had hurried down on the day she was arrested for voting, launching the women’s suffrage movement.
Ms. Malaspina then offered students a chance to try on a red shawl.
She also talked about her book, Touch the Sky, a biography of an Olympic high jumper Alice Coachman, which fourth graders had recently studied.
“I always ask my characters, ‘What is your dream?’ and ‘What is stopping you?’, and I look for little details to bring the story to life.” She told them that she had learned that Ms. Coachman always ate a lemon before she competed for a last minute boost of energy and how that detail helped paint a portrait of her character.
New Canaan Country School
New Canaan Country School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin and are afforded all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, or disability in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, financial aid policies or any other school-administered programs.
