The young writers of the 67th Street Library continue to impress local authors, library staff and even themselves as session three of the four session Dream Big Imagination Academy, a free writer’s workshop program for 9-12 year olds, culminated this Friday with each writer creating their own graphic novel! All week long this talented young group met at the library from 1-4 p.m. and with the guidance of local graphic novelists, authors and illustrators, realized their dreams of writing and illustrating their very own books.

The week began on Tuesday, with beloved graphic novelist George O’Connor explaining the process of writing and illustrating his Olympians series-graphic novels of classic Greek myths retold in comics form. After pulling character names, actions, and settings randomly from a hat, the writers were encouraged to create graphic novels with what they had pulled, providing hilarious and fascinating results! Wednesday arrived with local children’s author Michael Northrup focusing on the writing process — after all, with no story one doesn’t have much of a graphic novel.

On Thursday local illustrator Melanie Hope Greenberg not only explained her process of illustrating books, but guided the group to carefully illustrate their own novels while sharing some insight into the publishing business and how it really works. Then came Friday, when the writers sat down and really got to work, using graphic novel templates to build their books and share with pride their finished products. These budding authors and illustrators are ones to watch, and we can’t wait to see what they produce in our next and final week celebrating fiction!

This program is made possible by a generous donation from Mr. and Mrs. David Freedman.