The students said what?

Earlier this autumn, I was invited to speak at a middle school in Raleigh as a visiting author. These types of visits are a lot of fun, and inspirational. I find that I’m more motivated to work on my own books after helping students get excited about writing.

I recently received a package in the mail which was filled full of thank you letters from the students. It was a sweet gesture from the teacher, and the students.

Each of the letters thanked me for coming to the school, and then shared at least one thing they liked about the presentation. The letters were very sweet and flattering. Of course, when dealing with middle school students, you can never be sure what they will write.

Here are some of the parts that stood out to me from the letters:

“Thank you for telling us how to make a story and how to make people read it.”

“Your advice helped me a lot when I was revising my paper. (I think I made it 50% better.)”

“I used to hate reading and writing, but you helped me see reading and writing is fun.”

“That was my first time meeting an author. You are the best and funniest author I have ever met. Well, it is more like the only author I have ever met.”

“Can you put me in your next book? Make me a bad person though.”

“You gave me the inspiration to write a book. It will be about a girl named Elizabeth and how she started in middle school.”

“My dream is to become a famous writer. Maybe we can even write a book together.”

“My favorite part … I didn’t have any because I loved all of it.”