We are thrilled to bring Imagination Academy back to the 67th Street Library!  This year, our two wonderful high school interns/aspiring authors, Emily Imbarrato and Rosie Shewnarain, will be summarizing the events.

The 4^th Annual Imagination Academy began on Tuesday, July 7, at the 67th Street Library. It is a four week program in which the branch hosts 12 different authors. Aspiring young writers aged 8-13 come to the library to meet published authors and to gain writing help and inspiration from them. This takes place every Tuesday through Thursday for 4 weeks.

To start off this four week program we had Nancy Krulik join us. Nancy is the author of the popular series Katie Kazoo, Magic Bone, and George Brown, Class Clown. In this series, Katie has a really bad day and ends up making a wish on a shooting star that she could be anyone but herself.  Nancy mentioned to the kids that as a writer you can pretend to be anyone that you want and in doing so, you become the character in which you are writing about. The participants began to create their own characters and brought them to life. They gave the characters feelings and even created scenes in an acting exercise. Sian and Sydney made a hilarious scene between a daughter that would explode if she did not have a cupcake and a mother who stood her ground and said no! Nancy also shared that she once dreamed of being on stage, but even though she did not become an actress, the classes she took helped her improve on her characterization skills. The kids left that day with their own characters in mind and soon enough, they will have their own stories!

On Wednesday, Rachel Vail, who wrote the very relatable and humorous series Justin Case, shared her experience as a writer. She went to school to become a spy but ended up switching to an arts and theater school. One of the writing exercises that the group did was a finish the sentence quiz for their characters.

I am…
I don’t…
Nobody knows…
I wish…

And so on.

After this, using the same method the kids created an antagonist; this character that gets in the way of the main character. For Momoca, whose main character is a chair, the antagonist would be the chair owner who is trying to get rid of the chair in a yard sale! After these writing exercises, Ms. Vail explained to the kids that when writing stories you start with a first draft. It IS NOT going to be perfect, and when your story does not follow the path you meant for it to go, don’t get angry! Use the method ETHU and ease the heck up! Just continue writing.

The last author of this week was Liz Summit who talked to the kids about superhero science. Liz is an adventurer who wrote many articles and is currently working on a science themed middle grade novel. We started off the day with a presentation on non-fiction vs. science fiction. We learned about the ‘oyster gardens’ being planted in the Hudson River and did you know that you can see humpback whales here in New York?!! She also told us about her many exciting eco-adventures—like rebuilding coral reefs in Florida—and how they helped to inspire some parts of her story. Then the kids went off and started to create their own superheroes and sci-fi stories. These stories went from heroes that have crazy hair and super speed, to conflicts between elephants and cheetahs.

Can’t wait to see what next week brings!