Bestselling Young Adult Author Hosts Writing Workshops

Siobhan Vivian, New York Times bestselling author, joined Middle and Upper School English classes to teach creative writing workshops on January 7. Familiar with her books The ListStay Sweet, and Not That Kind of Girl, Ellis students opened their laptops and notebooks with excitement, eager to hear the well-known young adult author speak about the characters, plot lines, and places they read about in her books.
Throughout the workshops, Siobhan focused on the importance of finding specificity within a story and urged students to consider how they can add detail to their own work. Whether it’s exploring a character’s perspective through an internal monologue or adding a character’s backstory to make the present story more powerful, Siobhan emphasized how these details stand out to readers, and in turn take writers’ work from a rough draft to a more finished product. Siobhan then read excerpts from The List to illustrate the specificity she’s woven into her novels and prompted students to create their own stories focused on two characters and their relationship in vivid detail.

A unique experience for Ellis’ young creative writers and hopeful novelists, Siobhan’s visit showed students that there is a myriad of career possibilities—from screenwriting to editing—to pursue within the literary field.
 
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