Author Visit Brings Inspiration for Life

Visiting author Dan PoblockiA pair of authors shared a variety of writing tips and nuggets of inspiration for success with students at Patterson Middle School.

 

School Librarian Sherry Everett said she’s found that meeting an author can motivate students to get interested in reading or move beyond their favorite genres to explore new horizons.

 

Author Dan Poblocki, known for science fiction and horror, spoke with each grade level in the gym and conducted writing workshops in the school library.

 

Author Becky Dean, a science fiction and contemporary realistic fiction writer, also met with students in workshops.

 

Both authors signed copies of their books and answered questions about their lives and careers.

 

Poblocki said that when he was a child, he formed a storytelling club that met after school. He became known for his ability to tell scary stories.

 

Eventually, his friends’ parents asked his parents to tell their son to stop giving their children nightmares.

 Visiting author at Patterson MS

“So why do you think we like scary stories,” he asked the group of eighth-graders assembled in the school gym.

 

Books in the horror genre have a way of arousing curiosity and can help people learn to deal with real fear in their lives, he said. “We can learn to be brave,” he said.

 

The author told a few ghost stories of his own, when he and his sister used to hear mysterious growling sounds in their house growing up.

 

As a child, he liked to take pictures and showed images of unknown bubbles that formed in the frame, further motivating his young imagination.

 

Experiences like those, he said, have inspired some of the books he’s written that include ghosts and other creepy characters.

 

Dean, an Austin-based author, spent 20 years writing as she worked various jobs, confident that her time would come.

 

She stopped counting the rejection notices she received from editors when she reached 300. Failure for an author, she said, is to stop trying, not to get turned down by an editor or publisher.

Author Dan Poblocki 

When she got serious about her literary dream, she began writing 1,000 words a day, a discipline that kept her mind focused.

 

In 2022, the second agent she hired sold the determined writer’s first book. That success turned into a windfall and Dean sold much of the backlog she had written over the years.

 

This summer, she will publish her eighth book.

 

“When they hear about what inspired them, their books get checked out like crazy,” said Everett, explaining the impact author visits have on students.

 

“It also inspires them to write. I had a student so excited to show Dan Poblocki the little graphic novel she wrote.

 

“I love how Becky Dean has been telling them ‘Don’t give up,’” she said.

 

“Even if they aren’t huge readers or writers, when they hear those stories about whatever your dream is, whatever your story is, don’t give up on it. It’s inspiring. I want them to see that books are inspiring.”

 

Everett is taking a group of students to the North Texas Teen Book Festival in Irving March 1.

 

Visit www.killeenisd.org/photos to view our photo gallery from this event.

 

 

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