Authors come in to Mrs.Thoma's Honors English 9 Classes

Authors Come in to Mrs.Thoma’s Honors English 9 Classes

Noelle Theriault

At the beginning of November Mrs.Thoma's Honors English classes had two best-selling Authors come in to talk about their novels, “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop” by David Adam and “Today’s Moment of Happiness Despite the News” by Kathie Giorgio.

Kathir Giorgio is the author of five novels, two story collections, an essay collection, and two poetry books. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in both fiction and poetry.

For weeks prior the students in Mrs.Thoma’s Honors English class were working on all reading memoirs that they chose and taking notes on it in their reading log. They were doing this to help them write their personal narratives at the end of the unit. When they all got done with their books they all sent letters to their authors to ask if they were able to call and give advice to the class. Two authors responded, Kathie Giorgio and David Adam.

During Mrs.Thoma’s fourth hour class David Adam came on the call. He begins by talking about his journey as an author. For nearly two decades he was a staff writer and editor at Nature and The Guardian where he covered science, environment, technology, medicine, and the impact they have on people and society. He then wrote, “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop” and “The Genius Within”.

He went on to give advice to the students telling them, “Show not tell.” He gave the example of rain on the roof. You don’t want to simply write “It was raining”, you want to describe the rain and what it sounds like, looks like, and maybe even feels like.

Later in the call, he started talking about what his book was about for the students who did not read the book. The book is about his struggle with the mental illness, obsessive compulsive disorder. He explained how that affected his life to such an extent that he seeked professional help. He also explained to the class exactly what the illness is because lots of people are not aware of it. He explained how the illness is a lot of overthinking and that some people can even have such a fear of getting an illness that they in a way, go crazy to avoid it.

What an exciting experience for these students and Mrs.Thoma.