Author Irene Latham shares writing insights at Berry Middle School

Irene Latham, an award-winning author, visited Berry Middle School today to sign books and offer words of encouragement and insight about the writing world to students as part of their author series.

She spoke to each grade separately in her second visit to the school since the author series began.

While speaking with the eighth-graders, Latham gave some insight into her childhood, which is when she began writing. "I've been writing since I was 4," she said. "My first bits of writing were love poems for my mom."

She continued to talk about her books, which range from children's fiction to historical fiction to poetry, and discussed her writing process with students.

While she gets a lot of her ideas from her inherent curiosity, Latham admitted she still occasionally faces writer's block. To show the students how easy it is to be creative with a book and find new inspiration, she walked them through an exercise during which each volunteer answered one question about a potential character. By the end of the exercise, the students had enough background to put together a tentative story outline, all from a series of questions.

Latham also suggested the students write about topics that interest them or that they find exciting, and encouraged them to write every day, even if it's only a sentence or two. "Writing should be like brushing your teeth: don't go to bed without doing it," she said, adding that "words are moveable." Rewriting and editing are part of the process, she said.

By the end of the assembly, the eighth-graders asked her many questions, including how she started writing, her publishing process and her favorite spot to write. Writers need to have thick skin because they may get told "no" a lot, she said. She told the students they are all writers, just in different ways.

"Each of you has a story," she said, "and I challenge you to tell it."